In this chapter we are going to learn about the Facebook ads basics and help us to understand how does Facebook Ad works. Facebook ads is one of most efficient advertising platforms in social media. So now lets starts with the Facebook ads basics and learn more about the types of Facebook ads
Facebook Ads Basics
Facebook is the largest media company as of now. Technically Facebook may be social media company but now a days it’s barely social only media. Studies suggest social media is the new TV as it resonates with current generation. Surprisingly Facebook is the only major TV taking all the revenues by itself.
Another Facebook business model is user generated content. In which your friends create images and status and these will be shown in the news feed based on algorithm. Facebook ads will come in-between those user generated post.
How Facebook is different from Google?
Google is a different beast when it comes to digital marketing. However both have similarities and differences. In both platforms proprietary pages such as ( google.com for google) and facebook.com for facebook will be core advertising areas.
But google also has video content site which is youtube and other million third party content publishers in the network called google display network. Facebook too has an audience network but not as huge and sophisticated as google. Majority of the facebook ads spend and ads depends on facebook.com news feed.
Types of Ad Creative in Facebook
Since Facebook is a media company and media types can be very diverse such as text, video, images. So the ads also has so many types and purposes. Here’s the few largely used ads types.
Images with text
Almost all of the ad types in Facebook will have text. This type of ads almost looks like a post but that comes from a page.
This type contain a these elements:
- Caption text
- Image
- Headline text
- Description text
Video Creative
This is same as the image creative but instead of image this uses video.
Carousel Ads
Carousel ads contains multiple image/video images in the slider format. This contains same caption, image, headline , description & Ctr . you can also learn how optimize the Facebook ads copies to improve better targeting
Facebook Ad Objectives
Facebook has ads for various objectives like conversion, sales, awareness and engagement.
Awareness
This type of ads will help brands to create awareness. For this type of campaign, It is preferable to use image ad creatives. In this type of ads, user will be on facebook and engagement happens in the facebook ad itself.
Consideration
This type ad usually involves link clicks, app installs and message. In this type of user will be interacting with the landing pages of the advertiser. In this type user will be moving from facebook to advertiser web properties.
Conversion
In this type of ad, the objective is make the user convert. Which could be a signup, sales, app install and downloads.
How Facebook Ad Auction Works
One of the biggest advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing is ad buying.It is completely automated. Software algorithms takes care of the cost and which advertiser to prioritize. As a Facebook advertiser it helps to know how Facebook ad auction works.
Facebook doesn’t want to annoy it’s billion plus users with ads. So Facebook has to show only ads few times a day to single user. Let’s say users will use Facebook for 10 times a day. Facebook can show 10 advertisements per day per user without annoy users with ads.
Unlike google which has more than one targeting method, Facebook targeting is based on the user & demographics ( interest, age, gender). But google has intent based targeting in search , website based targeting in google display.
So how ad auction works in Facebook?
Let’s assume an user :
Name : john
Occupation : Software developer
Age : 30.
Location : Metro city
Relationship status : Single
Possible Advertisers for john,
Dating services (3) : These providers would target john to use their services since he is single.
Local Restaurants (5) : Food doesn’t have age or gender. A cool restaurant which is in same neighborhood as johns wants him to try their cuisine.
Software development Saas (10) : There’s many software tools that john can use to enhance his work. Problem is john doesn’t know these exists. So they would probably targeting john.
Employment Agency (3): john can also look for another job
Apparels (8) : Men, who’s living in metro and single.
Tours (2): John needs a break
Automobile (5) : John needs a cool ride to office
Financial Services (4): they want to make john rich
Online streaming services (2): they want to entertain john.
So far, there are 42 advertisers bidding against each other to show their ad creative to john for one day. Facebook can only show 10 creatives. So what happens? The cost to advertise to john increase since there’s 42 advertisers bidding for 10 ad slots. Supply : demand is almost 4:1.
So one way to improve the cost is by making the ad creative which john actually like and click. By making such interesting and relevant creatives john doesn’t get annoyed about ads which makes Facebook algorithm give you less cost to advertise.
Reason : You’re ads won’t annoy users and they can make money- in the order.
