Setting Up Your first Facebook Campaign

In the last few years, Facebook has become one of the most powerful tools for brands. It has come a long way from the hyperlocal social media platform exclusive to Harvard students. Since it is the largest social network in the world, it is safe to say that it can make or break businesses.

With over 2 billion monthly users, using Facebook’s advertising capabilities should be a no-brainer for brands regardless of their niche and industry. It is an excellent way to target audiences and build a solid and loyal following. Nevertheless, this is easier said than done.

Launching your first Facebook advertising campaign can be overwhelming. With some nay options and variables, it’s easy to be lost at the beginning.

Like traditional marketing options, Facebook ads require research and strategy. Here is what you need to know when launching your first campaign. 

Advertising on Facebook

As mentioned earlier, launching your first advertising campaign on Facebook can be daunting. It doesn’t help that the company keeps making updates, changing or removing audiences, and let’s not mention updating their policies regularly. In 2022, here is how you can get started:

1. Create a Facebook Business Suite Account
   Most of the problems brands face when launching their Facebook campaign stems from failing to set up their account properly. Contrary to popular belief, a Facebook page alone and using your personal advertising account is no longer enough to launch a full-blown campaign.
   
   The first step in launching your first ad is creating a Facebook Business Suite Account. This process is fairly straightforward – all you have to do is go to business.facebook.com, click create an account, and input your business information. You are all set!

2. Connect Your Brand’s Facebook Page
   With Facebook advertising, there is one thing that all businesses need to remember – you need a Facebook Page in order to advertise.
   
   Once you have created your business suite account, the next step involves linking your current Facebook page to the business account. This can be done in the Business Suite Account dashboard through the Settings Page.
   
   Within the setting page, you’ll see another set of icons. After clicking the gear icon, select pages and you’d be prompted to add an existing Page, create a new Page, or request access to a Page.  

3. Create Your Ad Account
   On the same Settings page, you’ll find Ad Account right under Pages. Click this option in order to create your brand’s ad account. Here you’ll be asked to provide an ad account name, timezone, and currency. Once this information has been furnished, you’ll be asked about people and permissions. You don’t have to fill this part right away. However, it is best to give yourself total control over the ad account! Make sure to set the ad account with the proper time zone and currency as mankind changes to this later can become troublesome.

4. Create your First Campaign
   After building up your Facebook advertising foundation, you are finally ready to launch your first Facebook campaign!
   
   The option to create an ad can be found in the Ads Manager within the Business Suite. Click Create to enter specifics.

1. Choose an Objective

Up until recently, Facebook offered three general categories for the ads that you can run on the platform – awareness, consideration, and conversion. Your choice of these three options depended on the goal you were trying to accomplish and the audience that you were trying to target.

These were the subcategories within each of these Facebook goals:

• Awareness
  • Brand awareness
  • Reach
• Consideration
  • Traffic
  • Engagement
  • App installs
  • Video views
  • Lead generation
  • Messages
• Conversions
  • Catalog sales
  • Store traffic

Recently Facebook updated their objectives. This has not been rolled out to every single ad account yet so depending when you are reading this you may or may not have these options yet.

These are the 6 new objectives: 

• Awareness
• Traffic
• Engagement
• Leads
• App Promotion
• Sales

The new objectives have been simplified to help guide you to the best campaign setup based on your end goal. Your choice of category can affect the cost and effectiveness of the campaign. So it is best to be deliberate and mindful of this decision. 

1. Set Your Audience, Budget, and Duration
   After choosing your objective and naming your campaign, it is time to set up your adset and identify your audience, allocate a budget, and select your location.
   
   In this step, you can select exactly the type of audience that you can target. You can target your audience based on their location, age, sex, and interests. You even have the option to create custom audiences to target and retarget identified leads or make lookalike audiences.
   
   The same goes with budget and duration, Facebook would be suggesting the optimal budget for the goal that you have. It will also estimate the results that you might get depending on the budget that you allocate. 
2. Creating Your Ad
   The last step is setting up the visual aspects of your ad. This includes any images or videos as well as copy, headline, and URL  that you intend to use for the campaign.

There are 3 main components of your ad copy. 

The primary text: This is the main text. The body of the ad copy will appear in most placements. 

The Headline: The headline is meant to capture attention. Make sure to use a clear, attention-grabbing headline.

The Description: The description is optional and it will only be shown to people if it’s likely to resonate with them. It will also only appear on some placements and the position can vary from placement to placement. 

Make sure to give your ad a name. Once you have finished editing your ad copy and selected your creative (your image or video) and everything is squared away, you can publish!

It is understandable to be overwhelmed by the steps above, especially at the beginning. The dashboard alone is enough to scare away those who aren’t very good with technology. However, in time, creating ads would be second nature to you! As with anything else, practice makes perfect! 

I hope this helps you get your Facebook ads going! If you need a helping hand and looking for a done-with-you program make sure to check our coaching program out here. If you are a business already using Facebook ads to grow and you are looking for a done-for-you solution to scale your ads check out The Agency here!