SOCIAL – How to – Create Social Media Adverts
Purpose of this How To Guide: To show when and how we perform social media advertising at SQ Digital
Applicable to: Paid Media Executives, PPC Executives, Leads, Account Managers
Customers: All with advertising spend
Timescale: 1hr for one-off adverts and 30mins for reoccurring ads if you don’t need to create a new audience
Introduction
Some of the clients that we work with at SQ Digital opt for a social media advertising campaign either alongside or instead of social media management. The primary platform that we use to create such adverts is Facebook. This is because of the precision we’re able to achieve when targeting an audience.
You can find if a client has recurring advertising spend by going to the monthly contract > materials and see how much is to be spent on adverts. Details of how much should be spent will also be in the advertising task description.
If it is a one-off advertising spend, this will be outlined in the task description assigned to you.
Time Allocation
The time allocated to an advertising task will vary depending on the amount the client wants to spend, what they want to achieve, and how many adverts need creating. You may need to quote for this.
We usually allocate 1 hour per adverts, which are created through Ads Manager as a flat fee for one-offs and the time doesn’t need to be reallocated should it take less time.
For recurring fees for advertising clients, this is around 30 minutes if you are not creating a new audience or are duplicating an existing advertising campaign and tweaking. You and the Account Manager can adjust this time allocation for campaigns should you see it is taking less/more time or the budget needs moving elsewhere.
Creating audiences (including look-a-like, custom, demographic, behavioural, and geographical targeting) should be included in the time of the task. Liaising with the Account Manager and Lead (for Platinums) and other members of the project team for smaller clients will help you determine the goals and audience you are targeting. You do not need to create a new audience each time you create an advert if the audience already being used is generating results.
For one-offs, creating audiences will be in the set-up fee that needs to be quoted for. Researching and creating an audience normally takes in between 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on how much research is involved.
If you need to request custom images for your advert, they need to contain less than 20% text. To do this see how to request custom images.
Before You Create an Ad
Clarify the scope of the advertising with the Account Manager. Establish the budget, targeting, which ad account we are using and any direction on copy, advert type or imagery. Once you have gathered all information possible, go into Facebook Ads Manager and find the correct ad account. For some clients, this will require logging into their main Facebook account.
Setting Advert Objectives
Any form of advertising must be directly connected to what the customer would like to promote and achieve. It’s important that the client’s objectives are clear before you suggest or start creating an advertising campaign, as these objectives will define what type of ad and what ad format you should go for.
Discuss the advert’s objective in the planning meeting or with the Account Manager (or when relevant with the client), to be sure that you are achieving the results the client wants to see. Here are the most popular goals:
- Reaching a Wider Audience
Reaching a wider audience can be done simply by boosting posts. We normally boost videos, blog posts, and recruitment call-outs, so that the advertising can also generate traffic to the website or interest on the brand.
Budget: Small Advertising Spend (<£20). Minimum spend of £1 a day.
Client Type: All
Learn more about boosting posts here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/help/240208966080581
- Engagement
All Facebook posts can be boosted to deliver more likes, comments, shares and photo views.
Budget: Small Advertising Spend (<£20). Minimum spend of £1 a day.
Client Type: All
Learn more about boosting posts here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/help/240208966080581
It’s important to highlight that adverts are different from boosted posts. Boosting a post normally takes 15 minutes and it involves pushing a post that was already part of the client’s social media schedule. Boosted posts also show on your Facebook Page feed, while adverts do not.
- Website Clicks/Traffic
These adverts aim to either promote brand awareness, taking visitors to the homepage, or promote a service or product and take visitors straight to a product or service page. These adverts are more often presented in the form of images or carousels.
Budget: Bigger Advertising Spend (>£20). Minimum spend of £5 a day.
Client Type: All
Learn more about creating a website clicks ad here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-create-ad-clicks-to-website
- Page Likes
Used to encourage and increase the acquisition of new followers to your page. These ads are presented in a video or image format.
Budget: Bigger Advertising Spend (>£20). Minimum spend of £5 a day.
Client Type: All
Learn more about creating a page promotion ad here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/help/507612906001199?ref=ads_guide
- Getting People to Claim an Offer
Used for boosting sales in-store or online by sharing a promotion or discount with existing and potential customers.
Budget: Bigger Advertising Spend (>£20). Minimum spend of £5 a day.
Client Type: Particularly good for retail and e-commerce
Learn more about creating an offer ad here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-create-ad-offer-claim?ref=ads_guide
- Increasing Conversions on Website
Used for driving action on a client’s website or the Facebook app itself. These ads tend to be very specific and take visitors to specific product pages, or they look to generate leads or event responses. These ads are presented in the form of specific ads, such a lead generation forms, or action buttons such as “shop now”.
Budget: Bigger Advertising Spend (>£20). Minimum spend of £5 a day.
Client Type: E-commerce, B2B businesses, Retail
Learn more about boosting posts here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-create-ad-website-conversions
*Make sure that you optimise posts for the conversion you are hoping for rather than impressions.
Things to Consider:
Website clicks usually garner the best results as there are a range of conversions that an audience can make once in the website e.g. fill a form, buy a product, download a brochure.
Targeting an Audience
The second most important aspect of advertising, apart from the goals you are trying to achieve, is the audience you are trying to reach. Targeting the wrong audience means you won’t get good results, so hitting the right market is key. There are several ways in which you can single out the audience you are trying to reach:
- Custom & Look-A-Like Audiences
A custom audience is created by either importing existing customer data extracted from the client’s website or mailing list, or creating it natively on Facebook using demographic targeting. Additionally, data can also be pulled from a Facebook pixel installed into the customer’s website. From this, you can then create a look-a-like audience.
To create a look-a-like audience Facebook will match the common demographics and interests of your data to its users, and serve the ad to people who are interested and fall into the same demographic of your existing customers.
Make sure the data you use is GDPR compliant. You might also have to install a Facebook pixel on your website to gather such data.
- Facebook Pixel
The Facebook pixel is an analytic tool/code that, once installed into the website, tracks your visitors and their behaviour in your site and page. The data captured can then be used for remarketing or for setting advertising audiences.
Please note that pixels need to be stored in the client’s own account so that we can have more than 10 pixels in Business Manager.
- Behavioural
Reach people based on their purchasing behaviours, device usage and key life events, such as getting married, having a baby, etc. Particularly helpful if you are a wedding shop, a children’s clothes shop, etc.
- Demographic
Can be used for age, gender, job titles, interests, etc. These are particularly relevant for businesses looking to market to working professionals or students, for instance.
- Location
We can also target an audience by their location. This is particularly relevant for local businesses such as retailers.
Find out more about Facebook ad targeting here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/products/ads/ad-targeting
Choosing an Advert Format
Once you have the campaign objectives and target audience, you must choose which format will better serve the objectives. Certain objectives work best with particular formats, so keep that in mind.
Canvas
This is based primarily on aesthetics, so ask a designer or another member of the project team for a second opinion.
Image
You can use Facebook’s stock library, iStock, custom images created by a designer, or images that a client provides. They should contain less than 20% text for the best performance.
Carousel
You can use Facebook’s stock library, iStock, custom images created by a designer, or images that a client provides. They should contain less than 20% text for the best performance.
Video
The client will need to supply the video, or we can create a slideshow. They should contain less than 20% text in the still for the best performance. For slideshows, please check our How To Create a Slideshow Guide.
Tracking Success
Make sure you are tracking the success of your website clicks and boosted post adverts through Analytics by:
- Ensuring that appropriate goal tracking is in place before sending people to the website, so you can track conversions on the website.
- Setting up UTM Parameters and putting this in the link so that you can track where the conversions and traffic is coming from.
Creating an Ad
Create your advertising campaign by selecting the green ‘New’ button within Facebook Ads Manager.
You will then be asked to choose your campaign objective. Usually, this will be ‘Traffic’ but if you are unsure, clarify with the Account Manager.
You will then be asked to name the campaign. Common practice is to put the name of the client first, before adding further information about the type of ad (i.e. Kas Metals – New Web Traffic – August).
Then, you are asked to create your ad sets. This is where you create your audiences for your campaign. This could be pixel remarketing, a new custom audience, a look-a-like audience (see below for more details on audiences) or an existing audience that has already been set up. An advertising campaign can contain many ad sets, each with its own unique budget and targeting.
Within each ad set, set budgets and the beginning and end dates for the adverts you wish to run. You can also choose on what basis we are charged for the ads (usually link clicks), and within the Ad Set section you can also choose where you want to drive traffic (Website/App/or Messenger).
Finally, after your ad sets have been created. You can create your ad. Details of the types of ads you can created are mentioned above. Just as you can have many ad sets within a campaign, you can have many ads within an ad set. Choose your ad type, enter all relevant text and images using the left-hand panel.
Things to look out for during the creation of an advert:
- Spelling, grammar and punctuation within the ad copy
- Word count – if possible the ad should appear ‘above the fold’/ ‘see more’ post break, make your ad short, snappy and relevant.
- That the advert is attributed to the correct Facebook account
- That the advert’s landing page is correct, and have UTMs where necessary
- That the adverts appear clean and readable on mobile as well as Desktop (you can scroll through different previews of the ad in the right-hand panel)
After Crafting the Ad
Get either a lead or account manager to proofread the advert and ensure the messaging and targeting are correct. If the advert requires client approval, screenshot and email the advert to the client. Once copy and targeting has been approved, set the adverts to go live using ‘Publish’.
Once the add has been published add a final note to the task titled ‘Executive Summary’and complete the task.
Your Executive Summary will be used as a report write-up if necessary, so make sure you make it client friendly, disclosing what you did and what was the outcome in a brief paragraph.
Once the adverts are live, you can then monitor their performance by signing back into Facebook Ads Manager at a later date and assessing whether they are generating good results. If they are not, a change to targeting or ad copy may be required (speak to your account manager about this prior to making any changes).
Summary
When creating an advert, liaise with other members of your project team and the client to ensure that you are optimising for the right objectives. Once an advert is created, check back every week to see if you can optimise the advert further for better performance.
If an advert is still in the ‘testing stage’ do not reoptimise at this point.