Sep 27 2012

4 Benefits of Using Facebook Ads

With more than 150 million unique visitors per day, it’s obvious that Facebook is an ideal advertising platform because of its traffic levels alone.  However, the mega social site also offers a unique ad creation, results tracking, and consumer profiling system that really simplifies the process of getting your ads in front of targeted audiences. Last year Facebook brought in close to $10 million in ad revenue, and that number is expected to continue to rise as companies in every industry realize the following 4 benefits of using Facebook Ads:

Fine-Tuned Targeting

You can choose to only display your ad to users that meet predefined requirements, with optional filters including gender, age, location, likes and interests, workplace, education, and relationship status. If you’re the administrator of a fan page, event, or app, the connections targeting feature lets you choose to only display the ad to members of your fan page/event or people who are using your app. In fact, as you refine your targeted audience using the wide range of filters, the interface displays an approximate number of users you’ll be able to target using the current criteria.

Enhanced Image-Based Ad Creation Capabilities

In comparison to other PPC advertising platforms, like Google Adwords, Facebook Ads give you a larger character count to work with. Instead of strictly using text-based contextual ads, Facebook allows you to create ads with image backgrounds. Furthermore, the ads you create will be visible to smart-phone users, so you can target mobile audiences as well.

With the ability to use photos to entice users you can drastically increase your click-through rate (CTR) and boost the overall profitability of campaigns. There is a huge difference between the efficacy of a pure text ad and one that allows for visual attraction. Someone is far more likely to be drawn towards viewing an ad when they see a photo in their peripheral vision.

Multiple Impressions Per User

Statistics show that most people log into Facebook several times a day, and each time they access the site they may be shown the same ads if they fall within the targeting criteria of an advertiser. Adversely, how many times a day will a person conduct the same Google search? Multiple ad impressions give you more chances to catch the attention of your intended audience.

Full Budget Control and Flexible Payment Structure

Finally, staying within your budget with Facebook Ads is very easy because you can set daily and lifetime expenditure limits for each campaign. You can choose whether you want to pay for clicks on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis or buy units of 1000 ad impressions (CPM).

If you’re running a campaign that intends to sell a product or service, paying on a CPC basis would be ideal. On the other hand, if you’re simply trying to increase brand or fan page awareness, paying for impressions may be more suitable, as you don’t actually need someone to click the ad in order for it to leave a lasting impression.

Author Bio: Max Schisler is a hobby blogger and Facebook Advertising specialist who conducts research and develops content for IronMonk Solutions.

Image source

5 Responses to “4 Benefits of Using Facebook Ads”

  1. Richard Ng says:

    Hi Max,

    Nice tips on the facebook ad, eventhough I have not tried the facebook ad yet but all the points you indicated are valuable for a potential advertiser like me.

    Thanks for the sharing.

    Cheers!

  2. Ken says:

    Great article on Facebook. I am working on putting some ads on FaceBook for Missionaries and Volunteers to Africa. This information provides really good help for me!
    Thanks

  3. Zack Lim says:

    Nice explanation on the 4 benefits of using Facebook Ads.

    I personally feel that it is important to test and track the campaign so as to get the best return of investment. This will enable to the advertiser to know which advertisement is working so that the advertiser can scale it.

    Some of the different components that I will test in the ads:

    - Image
    - Text in the advertisement
    - Demographics
    - Landing Page

    It seems like it is a lot of work to track and test the campaign but I think it is definitely worth it :)

    Just my 2 cents :)

    Zack

  4. Ben Troy says:

    another great tips, facebook ads is much better adwors

  5. Matt John Canty says:

    Hey,

    Great read! Haven’t tried facebook ads yet. Might wanna give it a try these days.