There are a few questions I ask and suggestions I make when we’re getting ready to make an ad for a client. Facebook Ads tends to be a little confusing and there’s a lot to keep in mind.

Do: Have a very specific goal in mind

The very first thing you want to know when you’re building an ad is why you’re doing it. There are really three ways it breaks down: you either want to get traffic to a landing page or your website, you want to get engagement, or you want to grow your likes. Those are the three big objectives.

I’m not usually for growing likes. I think those are more vanity numbers than anything. If you have 1,000 followers but only 100 of those are engaged, those numbers aren’t doing you any good. Facebook Ads doesn’t like that. That’s one of the reasons you don’t buy followers on any platform, because if you have a bunch of followers and low engagement, they assume your content is bad and they don’t want people to see it. If it doesn’t make you money, don’t do it.

Whether it’s engagement with a particular post or engagement with your page, engagement is all-encompassing. And re-targeting is huge. If you put up a video, you may run an ad to get people to like and respond to the video so you can then re-target them for future posts and videos. It totally works.

To me, the best objective is a link. You need to lead them somewhere. Send them to your website to get “about” information, send them to an Eventbrite page for tickets to your event or webinar. It’s one of the best uses of your money with Facebook Ads.

Those are the three things you want to keep in mind when you’re creating your ad. What’s your goal, what’s your objective, what do you want people to do?

Do: Know Your Target

My second biggest question for clients is, “Who’s your best audience?” “Everyone” is not the correct answer. You’ve heard the saying niches to riches. The better you know your audience demographic, the easier it’s going to be for you to target those people on your ads. So it’s very important for you to understand your end user to get the best results possible.

Facebook gets really specific. You can target men or women, a certain age, a certain ethnicity and, to some extent, based on job titles. If you’re looking for small business owners or entrepreneurs or wedding vendors or retail people, all of that is totally doable. You can target locally by plugging in a specific address and extending 5-50 mile radius. Understanding your audience is really the starting point.

Don’t: Boost just to boost

Boosting is basically paying people to like your post. If you have the money for that, more power to you, but again – if it doesn’t make you money, don’t do it. I’m not going to suggest to any client that they pay to have someone like their page or their posts. Do it in a way that pays you long term.

Boosting can work in some situations. If you’re location-specific, like an ice cream business in Hoover boosting to a Hoover audience, that could work for you. If you’re trying to grow engagement via video, boosting is great. But most of the time, people don’t have a saved audience and don’t know what they’re doing, so they’re just boosting because they can. Facebook makes it so easy, too, because the button’s just right there for $5 or $10. I had a client recently who was clicking himself into several hundred dollars per month with $5 and $10 boosts. You definitely don’t want to do that, so don’t boost unless you have a saved audience.

Don’t: Share wordy graphics

Facebook gets weirder every day. There’s a long list of what you can and can’t include, so be sure you’re looking at those. And then make sure you’re keeping your graphics concise.

Facebook will A) probably not approve a wordy graphic, B) if they do approve it, they probably won’t let anybody see it. There’s a cool overlay tool that Facebook creates itself where you can upload your own images, and it will grade them green, yellow, or red. Here’s a pointer: if it isn’t green, it may as well be red, because they aren’t going to let anyone see the yellow grades.

Do: Run Ads

Facebook is becoming more of a pay-to-play platform, and I think as we move forward it will be even more focused on paid ads. The good news is, if you do ads correctly and you have a good budget for ads, you can pretty much rule the world. There’s nothing you can’t do with a well-targeted ad.

The bad news is that a lot of people don’t know how to do that and are going to waste money. If this is something you aren’t comfortable with, let us know how we can help you. I don’t want to see you waste your money.

Do: Have a video

You really need a video, especially when you’re just getting started in your advertising. It’s so easy to re-target video viewers. You know they’re invested.

If you have a few-minute long video and they watch more than 15 seconds, that’s great. If they watch more than 30 seconds, they’re super invested. Those people might not be ready to buy from you right this minute, but they will be – they wouldn’t have spent their time watching otherwise. Video is a great tool for engagement – no one tells your story like you do. It’s the best way to promote your brand.