Using Facebook Ads
When we talked about Google Adwords in the last chapter we conducted in what is known as "pull marketing". Meaning the prospect has some sort of a problem, and we presented our solution just at the right moment when he was looking for it.
In this chapter we're moving on to "push marketing". This means that we're going to "push" our marketing message in front of our customer using banners or ads even when he's not actively looking for a solution.
Push marketing is less effective than pull marketing because you aren't addressing your prospect at his time of need. Having said that, if you know to define your target audience correctly you can still create ultra-effective push marketing campaigns through various platforms. As a matter of fact, most of the advertising on the web is push and not pull, simply because there is a lot more space for ads on the web than there are searches on search engines like Google.
Facebook ads is probably the leading platform for creating display campaigns (i.e. push campaigns). Google Adwords also has a display network, but from my own experience FB's platform is much more intuitive and brings better results.
Opening up a Facebook Ads Account
Advertising on FB is done through your own personal FB account. In order to open an account you can visit the FB ads homepage and click on "create ad".
Once inside you'll have a lot of different campaign options to choose from. For the purpose of this book we'll deal only with sending people to your website (the first option) and the second option "Increase conversions on your website". The only difference between the two is that the latter will use a conversion pixel to make sure people actually took the action you wanted them to take on your site.
Since I am a big fan of tracking and testing everything, I'll go ahead and choose the second option. At this point you'll be instructed to enter the URL of the webpage which confirms your conversion. So if my conversion is a newsletter sign up, I'll enter the "thanks for subscribing" URL.
Afterwards you'll need to choose what type of conversion you're tracking. This is just for organizational purposes and doesn't have much effect later on. Once finished just give a name to your conversion (e.g. "newsletter subscription") and click "create pixel".
You will then need to choose if you'll add the conversion pixel to the page or a send the instructions on adding the pixel to a different person. Once finished click "continue" and FB will verify that you've implemented the code correctly.
Keep in mind that even if you don't implement the code correctly on your "thank you" page, you will still be able to create a campaign, but you won't be tracking any conversions.
Chapter 11.1: Defining Your Target Audience
Start filling out your audience campaign details. Make sure you target a large group of people but not too large. I try to keep my potential reach above 10,000 and under IM. If you go for too low of a reach then your ad won't bring enough visitors, and if you have too high of a reach then you're not targeted enough and your ad won't perform well.
Since the majority of Bitcoin users are male, I suggest targeting only them, and we've also already covered that the main age groups is 25-34 so you can start from there. Now let's say I target the US and English speakers only, I get a potential reach of 20M people, which is still too broad.
Now comes the interesting part - choosing your audience's interests. In order to find relevant interests you need to define topics or pages your target audience have expressed an interest in. Start out by writing "Bitcoin" and adding all of the relevant topics you can find.
Once you do this, your potential reach will quickly minimize to around 130K (at least that's what happened at the time of writing this guide). You can settle for this, or if you'd like to try and expand this reach a bit use this little known method.
I want to thank to super awesome ViperChill blog for teaching me this method. It basically lets you find similar pages to ones you already know about. So let's take Coindesk as an example and try to find out similar pages to it.
The first step would be to get Coindesk's Facebook ID. For any Facebook page you want to learn the ID of, just add the graph sub-domain to the start of the URL.
So http://facebook.com/coindesk becomes http://graph.facebook.com/coindesk. If you go to that website you'll see something a little like this:
Suddenly I get new ideas for interests like Max Keiser, Raspberry PI and more. Just by adding these two topics I've added another 50K for my potential reach.
The key is putting the time in so you find yourself going further and further down the rabbit hole. From one page you may find two or three interesting alternatives. Then you do the same trick for those two or three pages and on it goes. You really can just keep going on and on and on, putting new pages into the URL, and finding more opportunities and potential interests for future advertising.
This should get you started pretty good but if you want even more ideas on how to extend your reach read this awesome post(thanks Glen...).
Once your audience is set to reach enough people you can move on to the budget section. Just decide how much you want to spend daily and name your ad set. An ad set is a group of ads that share the same daily or lifetime budget, schedule, bid type, bid info, and targeting data. Ad sets enable you to:
- group ads according to your targeting
- apply the same targeting and bid to ads within an ad set
- retrieve the ad-related statistics that apply to a set
Ad sets are a similar concept to ad groups in Adwords. The main commonality is that all ads in an ad set will show the same ad, exactly like all keywords in an ad group will show the same ad.
It's good to name your ad set in a descriptive manner according to your targeting options. For example, I'd name this ad set 25-34 M US BIT. That way I know this ad set is dealing with 25-34 year old males who live in the US and are interested in Bitcoin.
Under "advanced options" you can also decide on setting your bids manually and not letting FB decide for you. If you are not familiar with PPC marketing I'd suggest leaving this on "get more clicks at the best price". Otherwise, you can employ your own bidding strategies.
Chapter 11.2: Choosing Images for Your Ads
The next step in setting up your campaign involves creating your actual ads. The main aspect in creating your FB ad will be its image. That's why it's advised to choose at least 3-4 images to begin with and test them against each other.
Remember that the purpose of the image is the "A" from AIDA - to grab your prospect's attention. So make sure it's something that the target audience you defined in the previous step can relate to. One of the best images that worked for me is just the Bitcoin logo, since it automatically draws attention to anyone who's into Bitcoin.
Go ahead and choose up to four different images for your ads. Play with this concept a little and try to think about images that, while not the obvious choice, may still get your prospect's attention. Keep in mind that images can have a maximum of 20% text in them or else they will not be approved. More about that here.
Once you've chosen your images continue to craft a headline (you already know how, don't you?) and text for your ad. If you implemented a conversion pixel you can choose your pixel under "show advanced option" so it will track conversions.
Once finished you'll need to enter payment information and your ad will go into review. Usually ads are approved/disapproved within a few hours.
Chapter 11.3: Advanced Targeting Features
If you feel you're still not getting enough traffic for your FB ads there are a few other option you can use for your targeting:
Custom audience - You can "tag" people who visit your site so you can later on show them ads on Facebook. This is known as "retargeting"or "remarketing". In order to create a custom audience you'll need to go to "manage ads" ->"Audiences" ->"Custom audience":
You can then either create a custom audience list from email addresses or track visitors to your website through the use of a retargeting pixel.
Lookalike audience
After you have a custom audience created, you can create a lookalike audience. This means FB will take a look at your custom audience and create an audience with similar attributes. This is extremely powerful as you can create an audience of millions from a custom audience of just a few thousand people.
Later on, once you have a big enough custom audience set up, you can choose it in your ad set settings and see if this audience converts better than your previous targeting.
Homework: Set Up Your First Facebook Campaign
Let's go ahead and implement what we've learned about Facebook. I suggest starting out really small with a budget of about $5 a day - that should get you going and you'll be able to test your results pretty quickly.
- Sign up for FB ads.
- Implement your conversion pixel on the "thank you" page of the action you're trying to track (optional but highly recommended).
- Choose your target audience - make your potential reach between 10,000 to IM.
- Choose at least four different images for your ads.
- Set up a Facebook page so you can run newsfeed and mobile ads as well (optional but recommended).
- Implement a "remarketing" pixel in your website so you can later on create custom audiences. Even if you won't use it, it's good to have the pixel on your site. Here's a detailed explanation.
