You don't need to be a professional to manage
Facebook ads for your online store—you just need to sit down, buckle up and follow through
the six steps I'm gonna share in this video. This is your one-stop shop for Facebook advertising. FACEBOOK ADS FOR BEGINNERS 2019 Hey, it’s Wes from Printful! In this video we will go over all you need
to know about Facebook and Instagram ads in one sitting—how to find an audience, set
up retargeting, create ads and keep it all up and running. If you want to jump to a specific part of
the video, you can do so by using the timestamps in the description down below. Before we begin, make sure you subscribe to
our channel and tap on the little bell icon to get notified about our latest videos and
never miss out on new ways to make your store more successful. STEP ONE: SET UP FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER Now, this shouldn't come as a surprise to
you—you'll need to create a Facebook page to create ads both on Facebook and Instagram. If you haven't done that yet, head to Facebook
and create a page now, there's a link in the description that will guide you through it. An Instagram account isn't necessary to launch
Instagram ads, but, if you're interested in Instagram marketing, watch our video that'll
teach you all about it, link in the description below. Once you've set up your Facebook page, move
to business.facebook.com, because we're going to organize all of our work from there. If you haven't used Facebook Business Manager
before, you'll be asked to create an account for your business. We recommend using the Business Manager because
that's the only way to set up most of the features that Facebook Ads offer, including
the ones we're gonna go through in this video. Once you've signed up, you'll need to add
your Facebook page to the Business Manager account and create an Ad account. If you already have an Ad account for your
page, you can claim it. There's a link to a step by step guide of
the whole process in the description below. Note, that you should always choose a trusted
partner to also add as a second admin for your Business Manager, even if you plan to
do the work alone - just in case you get locked out of your account. STEP TWO: FIND YOUR AUDIENCE Now, the fun part. The audience for your Facebook and Instagram
ads should be people you're selling to - those you had in mind when designing your store
and products. If you're not sure about the details yet,
don't worry, because that's what we're going to start with. One way to start your audience research is
the Audience Insights tool. Facebook has an abundance of valuable information
on its users and your potential customers, and here's where you can play around with
it. There are two ways to use the tool. First, if your Facebook page already has a
following, you can add it here and see specific details about your existing audience. If you are an international seller, don't
forget to delete the United States variable in the location tab over here. If you're just starting and there's not much
to go off yet, don't worry. The second way to use the tool is to create
an audience from scratch. For example, I'm going to see what I can gather
about the audience I have in mind - new dads that are into computer programming. In the Audience Insights tool, you can select
any number of variables, starting from location, age and gender to interests, education, relationship
status and even political affiliations in the United States. Which variables you mix together depends on
what your target audience is and we recommend playing around and experimenting with this
tool even when your audience is well established. You can experiment with other audience segments
later on, especially when promoting products that need more specific targeting. For example, while your audience might be
new dads, you could create a product that is meant specifically for newlywed dads. Once you've started to flesh out your audience,
you're gonna notice that in some categories there's a very low percentage of potential
customers. I'd recommend removing those age groups altogether,
so that you don't waste your time spending money on an age group which is less likely
to be your target audience. Next, if you switch over to the Page Likes
tab you can see pages and categories your target audience is interested in. This section will help you in two ways - narrowing
down your audience and keeping track of your competitors. Here you can see that, while there is some
dad stuff here, there's not enough to say you've narrowed it down to a niche. Let's add an additional interest - parenting. Now you can see a lot more dad-oriented Facebook
pages here. You can click around and check those pages
out, learn what kind of posts work for them, what ads they have, and you can also be more
certain that this is the audience you should be aiming for. The next tab in the Audience Insights tool
is locations. If you have a very local product, you might
want to use the top towns and cities tab, but for this audience I'm gonna switch to
top countries. This chart right here shows that we could
have an audience for our niche products not only in the US, but also UK, Canada and Australia. Knowing this will help you narrow down your
audience even more, and you won't spend too much money on countries where ads are cheaper,
but your audience isn't present. Next, the activity tab. Here you can see if your audience often engages
with FB content in general - keep this in mind and be wary of audiences where engagement
rates are low, these people are less likely to like your page or buy your products. You should also pay attention to what devices
your audience is using - you can see here that most people in this niche audience are
mobile-only users, so you have to adapt both your ads and your website to mobile shoppers. Now, when you go back to the demographics
tab, take a look at the relationship status graph. Most people in our audience are married, which
means we could also target their partners as potential customers. This is especially useful when you market
your products as gifts on father’s day, for example. Once you're done tweaking your audience, save
it by clicking here. Open all tools and go to Audiences. Here you will find all the audiences you created
and get familiar with the real secret to Facebook advertising - retargeting. STEP THREE: SET UP RETARGETING Note that there are three types of audiences
on Facebook. Saved, Custom and Lookalike. A Saved audience is like the one we just created
- based on specific variables, like demographics, interests, behaviours and other Facebook user
data. These kinds of audiences will work for you
if you are just starting and have to build a customer base from scratch. A Custom audience, however, is a more specific
group of people who have already engaged with your content. Custom audiences are the ones you use for
retargeting. For most online stores, 95% of visitors leave
without buying. These people have stumbled upon your shop,
but left without a purchase. Maybe they got distracted, maybe the timing
was bad or maybe they just weren't sure about the product just yet. Retargeting means reminding your potential
customers that they have “unfinished business” with your shop. The average return on investment of retargeting
ads is 200%. That is, for every $10 you spend on your ads,
you get at least $20 back. It works so well because it's easier to convert
people who already know and recognize your brand than those who’ve never heard of you. The data sources for Custom audiences on Facebook
are divided into two groups. First, there's the data Facebook and Instagram
has collected for you, like what percentage of a video post they have seen, have they
interacted with your page in any way, attended any of your events and so on. Almost no set-up is needed for this, as the
data is collected automatically - the only thing you'll need to connect is Instagram,
if you plan on using the platform for marketing. The other group is your sources - that means
website traffic, existing lists of customers and other data. This is the heart and soul of retargeting
campaigns. Using this data, you can find people who have
looked at your store, but not bought anything, people who were interested in specific products
that you can advertise to them again and tons of other options. For this, you'll need to install the Facebook
Pixel. Facebook Pixel is a smart little code that
you can put on your site that connects your customers with their Facebook profiles, making
it possible for you to advertise to them on Facebook. To create a new Facebook Pixel, simply click
on the Website traffic source. A new window with a detailed guide on creating
the pixel and installing it on your site will appear, so don't worry about getting lost
- for most ecommerce platforms the setup is as easy as pushing a few buttons. You can also find a guide on how to install
Facebook Pixel in the description below. Once you've set up Facebook Pixel, you'll
be able to target people who have visited your checkout page, but didn't visit your
thank you page. That way, you're targeting people who have
abandoned their cart and urge them to finish what they started. For that, you can use the include and exclude
buttons over here. Now that that's done, let's move to the third
audience type - the Lookalike audience. Lookalike audiences are only available for
set up on top of already existing Custom audiences. The idea is simple - Facebook takes the data
from the Custom audience you created and, if it is large enough, shows your ads to similar
people who might behave the same way. When creating a Lookalike audience, first
you need to choose the Custom audience to base this off. Then you can choose the location of your new
target group, for example, if you know that your current audience is from the UK, based
on your Audience Insights, but you want to find a similar audience in the US, type that
in here. And finally, you need to choose how much do
you want your Lookalike audience to differ from the Custom audience on a scale from 1
to 10%. 1% is the most similar to your base and 10%
means a bigger, broader audience. The percentage you should put here depends
on your Custom audience size - for a bigger audience you should use a smaller percentage,
as Facebook will have enough data to work off and create a decent sized Lookalike audience. If you're just beginning and have a small
Custom audience sample, we recommend to use a broader audience for best results. If the Facebook algorithm has enough data,
it can be incredibly effective in finding the right people for your store and you will
eventually be able to leave the targeting to the algorithm. Generally speaking, it is better to focus
on individuals who have already shown interest in your brand. So, even if you need to start with Saved audiences
because you haven't had enough traffic to your site or social media profiles, be sure
to build those Custom audiences along the way. STEP FOUR: SET UP YOUR AD CAMPAIGN Let's go through the process of creating an
ad campaign. For that, you're going to need to use the
Ads Manager tool. This will be the central station for all of
your campaigns and ads. To begin, click on Create ad. First, you'll need to choose your marketing
objective. Depending on what you choose, the Facebook
algorithm will find people within your Saved, Custom or Lookalike audiences who are the
most likely to do the thing you have chosen as your objective. Facebook offers a lot of options here, but
the ones we're going to focus on are Engagement, Traffic and Conversions - exactly in that
order. First, engagement. When you have just started your online store,
there isn't much use of trying to get traffic to your site, if the Facebook page you're
launching your ads from has zero followers, the posts you have posted have no likes, shares
or comments. That's where the engagement objective comes
in. Engagement-oriented ads won't necessarily
bring you a lot of revenue, but they are perfect for giving your brand more credibility. You can use engagement ads on existing posts
on your page and don't be afraid to post content not directly connected to your products. Try out memes or engagement oriented giveaways
- anything that might push for more interaction. This is a great way to grow your following. Once a person has engaged with a post from
your page, you can invite them to like the page directly with the Invite button under
your posts. Next, Traffic. Once you've got enough people following you
and ready to engage with your Facebook content, you can direct them to your store. This is a good way to find out where they
go once they are in the store, get them familiar with your products and read more about you. Traffic-oriented ads may get you your first
sales, but don't count on it. These kinds of ads are much better for gathering
data on people that you will be able to use for retargeting later. To really get them to buy, you'll need to
focus on Conversions. The Conversion objective will push the Facebook
algorithm to find people more likely to actually do something on your store. The aim might be purchases, sign ups or subscriptions
- whatever suits you best. For the Conversions to work, you will need
to set up Pixel Events that you want your customers to do. For example, one event can be making a purchase,
another - adding a product to a cart, another - subscribing to the newsletter. You can create a new event by going to your
Pixels page in the Business Manager. There will be a guide on how to set up specific
Events there, but we'll leave a link to it in the description as well. Remember to test your events to verify that
they are working correctly - you can do that in the Pixels control panel. Once you've chosen your objective, you can
give your campaign a name you'll recognize and decide whether or not you want to A/B
test it. A/B testing is useful when starting up and
trying out different audiences. More on that later. Next, your audiences. You can create a new audience from scratch
and even save it to your library for later use here or you can use the ones you've set
up in previous steps here. The audience creation process here is similar
to the one in Audience Insights in Step Two of this video. As for ad placements, in most cases I'd recommend
trusting the algorithm to find the best placement for your ads with automatic placements. However, if you have Facebook or Instagram
specific ads, that's when you should edit your placements and select just those that
fit your content. The next thing you should definitely pay attention
to is Daily or Lifetime budget. If you have a lot of money on your hands,
you can choose a Daily spending limit and leave it at that, but I'd recommend setting
a lifetime budget and schedule the time period in which you'll spend it, to avoid accidents
like forgetting about a campaign and letting it run on 50 dollars a day for a month. That's a lot of money! And finally, once you've set your budget,
it's time to create the actual ad content. STEP FIVE: CREATE AD CONTENT When it comes to your ad content, there are
a few things to keep in mind. All parts of your ad can be ranked in order
of importance. Facebook already has created a sort of visual
hierarchy for their posts – the bigger the element, the more importance it has. Remember this hierarchy when you create your
ads - don't put the most valuable information in the link description, for example, as your
audience is very unlikely to read it at all. So let's start with the biggest element - the
photo. There are three things that are proven to
work for product ad visuals on Facebook. First, a high-quality, zoomed in product photo. You want your product to be clearly visible
on all screens, so a closeup is a must. Second - colorful images. Bright colors will help you stand out more
and catch the attention of your customers. And the third - people pointing. It is proven that pictures of people pointing
and making eye contact increases positive feelings towards the product and encourages
consumers to buy it. In addition to these, you must also remember
the 20% text rule - all ads on Facebook must have less than 20% of text in their images. That includes photos as well as video and
link thumbnails. If you don't follow this rule, your ad might
not get approved, much less hope for decent results and revenue. A useful tool for checking whether or not
Facebook will accept your ad is the Text Overlay tool, link in the description. Here you can upload your images before putting
them in your ads and the tool will rate the amount of text in your image. It is recommended to always stay with the
green OK rating for good ad results. This tool is also useful for checking images
that will go on your feed without paid promotions - the 20% rule is based on the fact that photos
with less text get more engagements and look better on the feed. As for the ad copy, I'd suggest three things
to keep in mind - first, use social proof when possible. Nothing works better than showing that there
are people who’ve already bought your product, trust you and recommend you to others. Second, good grammar is a must, plus you should
also try to use words that your audience will recognize and relate to. For example, instead of “male products”
you should use words like “men”, “boys” or “gentlemen”. Another proven thing to work in product ads
is a deal, giveaway or an exclusive offer - like free shipping or coupons. Play with your audience's emotions a little
- create urgency, raise curiosity, use humor if you can. When you're just starting out, definitely
use existing posts for your ads - that way you will have both new ad material to promote
and fresh content for your Facebook page. And last but not least, don't be afraid to
keep an eye on your competitors - use the Audience Insights tool to find out what other
Facebook pages your audience follows and learn from their success. You can see all of the ads that a page is
currently running in the Facebook Page Transparency section. STEP SIX: KEEP IT GOING Creating your first ad is just the beginning. Now you need to test if it works. As I mentioned before, the Facebook algorithm
can be incredibly effective in finding the right people for your store, but you have
to give it something to work with. For each campaign, you can create an unlimited
number of different ads. For example, you could switch up the audience
- use the same ad for Custom and Lookalike audiences. Another option is to create different variations
of the same ad for the same audience - for example, use an image in one ad and a carousel
in another. Now, put some 5-15 dollars on each of those
ad sets and let them run for a day or two. After that, see which ones work the best and
increase their budget. Terminate the ads that don't yield results,
but don’t judge too fast - run the ads for at least 24 hours to get reliable results. The algorithm needs some time to find the
audience that works best for you. Once your sales start rolling in, you can
repeat the cycle with new campaigns and ad variations, and direct your revenue to test
more ads. Don't be afraid to keep running successful
ads - let the algorithm find new people to show your successful ad to. You don't always have to think of something
new. You can customize your Ad Manager dashboard
to show you those metrics that are useful for deciding which ads work best. Find the Customise columns option on your
dashboard. How you organize it depends on your goals,
but I'd recommend putting up Frequency. This metric shows how many times one person
has seen your ad - if this number goes higher than 3 or 4, it means that the ad isn't reaching
any new people and you should probably shut it down. Other metrics to keep an eye on are Quality
and Engagement rate rankings, as well as Cost per result. You can compare these metrics against each
of your ads to determine which ones are doing better. BONUS: INVEST IN YOUR BRAND And finally, while the Facebook algorithm
is working to find your new customers, you should pay attention to where you are leading
them to. Make sure your landing pages are finished
and look good - remember to test them from mobile devices and different browsers. Concentrate on gaining more likes and followers
and encourage your customers to post reviews to get some social proof for your products. Remember to stay consistent throughout all
of your channels - have the same writing and visual style on your site and FB page. For more tips on how to take care of your
brand image, check out our video on the Top 10 Ecommerce Store Mistakes You're Making. And that's it! You can find a checklist of all six steps
in the description below, along with all of the resources I mentioned in the video. What else do you want to know about marketing
your store? Let me know in the comments below!
