4 Reasons Why You Should Advertise on Facebook

Facebook Ads are a great way to get your business in front of new prospects. In today’s article, we’re giving you 4 reasons to consider using Facebook Ads for your business.

1,230,000,000.

That's how many active daily users are on Facebook.

Digital marketing has drastically changed over the last decade. Ten years ago, Facebook had just switched from being a platform reserved for college students to a platform that everyone could access. The profile pages looked completely different and "Newsfeeds" and "Timelines" didn't exist.

Fast-forward to today. Not only does Facebook now use algorithms to filter what they think you'll find most interesting, they also feature opportunities for businesses to use the platform as a way to advertise to users.

If you're still unsure about why investing in Facebook Ads is a good place to spend your marketing dollars, read below for the four main reasons they can be a smart investment for your business.

1. Everyone is on Facebook

With 1.23 billion daily users and 1.86 billion monthly users, Facebook is one of the most popular websites in the world. Which means that Facebook Advertising creates an extremely valuable opportunity for businesses to get in front of prospective clients who are on Facebook.

While other social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Snapchat have gained popularity over the years, Facebook is still the king when it comes to social media. In fact, Facebook has more than double the amount of adult online users than any of the other platforms.

The other key thing to consider about Facebook users is that they span across all age groups. While the most popular age group on Facebook is 18-29 year olds with an 88% user rate, the drop off is minimal for older age groups.

In 2016, 84% of 30-40 year-olds and 72% of 50-64 year-olds used Facebook. Even the 65+ age group still came in at 62% usership.

The bottom line is any type of customer you might want to attract is on Facebook. Which means you can harness its popularity for your advertising.

2. Facebook Ads Can Be Laser Targeted

The challenge with having access to so many users is making sure your ads get in front of your target customers.

Luckily, Facebook advertising allows you to be highly targeted with the audience your ad will be in front of. You can use the following targeting options:

• Demographics that can be broken down by age, gender, geographical location, etc.
• Interests based on what the user likes, shares, clicks on, comments on, as well as the apps he/she uses
• Behaviors based on activity on Facebook, as well as 3rd party partner data from Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon. This includes purchase activity, device usage, and travel preferences.
• Key pages visited on your website (aka retargeting)
• Lists of email subscribers or customers in your database

You can even ask Facebook to find other similar users, called Lookalike audiences, after you create an audience using the options above.

The specificity of Facebook's targeting capabilities paired with the amount of information they can gather on their user's interests makes it a great option for advertising.

3. With Facebook Ads You Can Set Clear Goals

There are two general types of Facebook Ads you can run and each type achieves a different goal for your business.

With Engagement Ads, the goal of your campaign is to engage your audience by encouraging them to take action and interact with your post. The focus of these ads is to help get information out about your business and grow and nurture your audience. This also helps you learn about the messaging and content your audience connects with and can inform the future ads you create. With these posts, you may not even realize they are an ad at first because they're meant to blend in with the typical organic posts you interact with.

With Direct Response Ads the goal of your campaign is about driving leads and sales. These ads will have an offer and a call to action to "sign up" or "call now" or "click here." The offer and call to action are two critical components to successful direct response advertising. These are great if you're trying to sell a specific product or offer a new deal.

First, determine why you're running the ad campaign (exposure vs. response) and then you can use Facebook's goal setting options to ensure you achieve that goal.

4. Facebook Ads are Easy to Track

Tracking the success of any ad campaign is extremely important. It allows you to measure the number of leads and sales generated directly from your Facebook ad campaign.

The process to set up Facebook conversion tracking is simple and similar to other ad networks.

The first step is copying your unique tracking pixel and adding that to every single page of your website.

Once that's complete, you have two options for tracking conversions:

1. Track custom conversions using a webpage URL. For example, if you want to track demo sign ups, then you would copy the demo sign up thank you page URL and tell Facebook to track that page as a conversion.
   
   
2. Event tracking using Event codes. This is a bit technical because you’ll need to copy a line of JavaScript and paste it at the end of the pixel code (before the </script>) on the webpage you want to track. For example, if you want to track demo sign ups, then you would copy the Lead Event code, which “fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’);” Then you would paste that code right before the </script> of your pixel code on the demo sign up thank you page.

If those steps seem advanced, then there’s also the option to email the code and directions to your developer. For most websites, this should be an easy, pain-free process. :)

The Performance Marketer’s Field Guide to AdWords Ad Extensions: Part I

Ad extensions are a way to give potential customers useful and relevant info beyond a regular text ad.  You can win a customer’s consideration, convince her of your value, or drive her right to a conversion.  Ask yourself which extensions would fit with your keywords and fulfill a potential user’s needs.

People engage with ads that have extensions.  Seller ratings give users confidence in your website.  Call extensions connect customers right to your employees.  Advertisers spend lots of time optimizing their ad text (which is great), but you should know that implementing extensions is typically a more impactful way to improve CTR.   An ad extension adds value to potential customers just by being present.  Additionally, with the recent changes to ad rank, extensions have become an increasingly important part of getting your ads noticed.

Every type of extension that we offer is intended to benefit our users, which translates to a higher CTR for you.  Many, such as sitelinks, show improvements of 10-20%.

There are tangible and measurable gains to giving users more information, and extensions are auto-optimized to show the best possible combination on each and every auction.  Sometimes the “best possible combination” translates to areas aside from CTR - users may get value from seeing a phone number on a desktop ad (i.e. a direct connection to your business via a phone number) even if that doesn’t translate to a routine click.

We’ve also found that more information is a good thing, which means that ads with multiple extensions perform better than ads with only one extension.  Identify which extensions work for your business and implement them.  The best combination of these extensions is automatically determined on an auction-by-auction basis.

Enabling extensions is a good thing, but remember that your extensions are most likely not going to show 100% of the time.  Only certain positions are eligible to show certain extensions.

There are lots of extensions in existence (and even more in beta).  While this set of options will continue to evolve, here is what is presently available and where they can appear on the page:

Note: Search Partner site owners choose what, if any, formats they allow, so not everything will show by default.

As you can see, placement on the results page determines which of your extensions can be shown.  If you know you have great extensions in place for users, watch your average position and placement to ensure that your extensions are showing as often as possible.

Things to Remember

  Google try to show as many relevant formats as possible in the available space.  Since there are so many moving pieces, there’s no way to prioritize which extensions you want to show.  Enable whatever makes sense for your customers and let the AdWords system decide within those options.  The specific extensions that are displayed are a function of your previous performance, user context and available space on the page.

Clicks on extensions are typically charged the same price you would be charged for a click on your ad.  There are a few exceptions, though.  The below types of interactions are all free:

• Phone calls from your forwarding number on call extensions that show on desktops/tablets 
• Links to reviews from seller ratings extensions
• Clicks to the review site on your review extensions
• Clicks on +1 button or a link to your Google+ page

In many cases there isn’t a lot to optimize for extensions.  Implementation is the only step to take for a practitioner, but that doesn’t mean you can enable them and never think of them again.  Be aware of what’s going on in your account so that you know you’re saying the things your customers want to hear.

Reporting on Extensions

Report on how your extensions are doing by taking a quick snapshot of before and after implementation.  Take note of when you turned on certain extensions and compare dates in the interface to ensure you’re heading the right direction.  This isn’t going to be a perfect solution, as there are lots of other variables present over that same timeframe, but it should give you directional evidence regarding your account’s performance.

Segment your reports by click type to see detailed performance for many of your extensions.  Anything that’s active in that time period will appear as its own type of click.  There isn’t any reporting on the extensions that appear automatically (seller ratings, social annotations, previous visit annotations).

Extensions are a proven way to provide value to users and increase your ad’s CTR.  Implementing every type of extension that makes sense for you should benefit both your users and your account.

Are Google’s Results Getting Too Ad-Heavy & Self-Promotional?

Are Google’s search results getting too ad-heavy and leading back to Google’s own content too much? A new blog post suggesting that Google’s non-paid listings make up only a tiny fraction of the entire search results page has sparked some discussion, though the exact percentage actually varies on how you count what’s on the page and from query-to-query.
According to the blog post by Aaron Harris, co-founder and CEO of Tutorspree, organic search results — listings that are not paid ads but ranked highly because Google thinks they are the best answer to a query — made up from 0-to-13% of a Google search results page.
However, if you measure the page not by pixel count but by actual listings, the situation is brighter than some of the “death of organic listings” proponents might think. Also, some things considered to be “Google” listings might not make sense to count that way.
Here’s what Harris found, along with some further analysis.

Auto Mechanic: Only 13% Unpaid?

When performing a Google search for “auto mechanic” using his Macbook Air with a 13-inch screen, Harris discovered that AdWords paid listings took up 29% of the page (12% at the top and another 17% to the side). The Google navigation bar took up 14% of the page. Unpaid “organic” listings got 13%, with the Google map plotted with local results having 7%, as illustrated below:

Vignesh Ramachandran at Mashable experienced similar results when he performed his own test on Google. Using the same search term as Harris — “auto mechanic” — Ramachandran found that organic search results only accounted for an estimated 13.5 percent of screen real estate on his 15-inch MacBook Pro in a Firefox browser:

Caveats & Counting Issues

Two sources coming away with a 13% figure for unpaid listings can sound pretty low. But that’s not the same as being able to declare that all searches are this way. Each search may have a different mixture of paid and unpaid results, based on the ads competing to appear, the location of the searcher and whether Google itself determines if a particular query deserves to be ad-heavy or not.

Beyond the variation from search-to-search, how you measure the percentage of a page that’s deemed “unpaid” isn’t as clear cut as it may seem.

One immediate caveat is the assumption that the map is somehow not worth counting in as “organic” listings. Clicking on the map leads to a page that will have both organic listings and paid listings plotted on a map. There’s a usefulness for search engines to show local information on a map. Arguably, some of the map “percentage” should count into the organic listings.

Another issue is the idea that the search box and navigation links should be somehow counted against Google as some type of new attempt to drive more traffic to Google products. Google’s long had navigation links. In fact, at some points, the navigation and search box unit might have been larger than it is now.

Beyond that is the idea that measuring in pixels is somehow the correct way to go. It assumes that the entire page is seen and interacted with in the same way. It also, oddly, counts the ads on the side as having nearly twice as much space as they actually take-up, because the box around them includes a bunch of white space.

Traditionally, what has concerned search marketers worried about Google (or any) search engine encroaching on the organic space has been to count the actual number of listings, especially those in the middle of the page, where people typically focus their attention and clicks.

By those measures, the example above works out to have 10 listings that are fully visible, with percentages like this:

• Total paid versus unpaid: 70% to 30%
• Paid versus unpaid, middle column: 50% to 50%

Those percentages are much better than the “13%” you might come away with from the original blog post. But then again, they still feel pretty low.

Meanwhile, Over At Bing…

For comparison sake, I ran the same search on my own MacBook Air with a 13-inch screen at Bing:

I didn’t try to measure the pixel count, because as explained, I’m not sure that’s the right approach for various reasons. But at-a-glance, it’s pretty clear that an ad-heavy page isn’t just a Google problem. In this example, Bing manages to push all but a single organic listing to the bottom of the page — and only the title of that one shows.
Like Google, the map leads you to a mixture of paid and unpaid listings. Unlike Google, selecting the local listings that appear next to the map sends you back into Bing Maps rather than to the actual business. Google used to do the same but changed this practice about a year or two ago, after criticisms.

Italian Restaurant: Only 7% Unpaid?

For another search, organic listings won even less screen real estate. When Harris looked for “italian restaurant,” the newly introduced Google Local Carousel located at the top of the page garnered a full 30% of the screen real estate.
With the navigation bar still taking 14%, AdWords at 9%, the Google map with 15%, a Google-owned Zagat listings (outside of the carousel) at 4%, organic search results for Harris’s search made up for only 7% of the page:

Again, that’s a shockingly low number at first glance. But, it gets better when you understand more about how the search page actually works.
The carousel links aren’t paid listings. Clicking on them leads to a fresh search results pages for the particular restaurants that are listed. The downside is that, as with Bing, this drives people back into Google rather than over to the restaurants themselves.
That’s disappointing. Google’s goal here is that the carousel is part of its Knowledge Graph, where it’s trying to share answers and information about things, including restaurants. But if someone clicks on the name of the restaurant, there’s a good assumption they just want to go to that restaurant’s page, not get stuck in an endless loop of Google search results.
As said, Google changed how its map results did this in the past; hopefully it will reconsider how the carousel works.
Another issue is counting the Zagat listing separately from the overall “organic” figure just because it’s a Google-owned property. Google asserts those properties are competing with all other pages and only appear if its algorithm believes they are relevant. There’s no programmatic command to always show a Zagat page at the top. Some won’t believe this, of course. But still, that’s far different than the assumption that a Zagat page might always show.
Indeed, here’s what I see in my location for the same search:

In this case, I don’t get any ads at all. I also don’t get any Zagat listings. Instead, I get the Olive Garden, an LA Times article and two listings from Google-competitor Yelp.

Meanwhile, Over At Bing…

On the one hand, I’m much happier with what I get from Bing:

There are ads, but they are over in the middle column, under the map. Clicking on the main listings takes you to the restaurants, unlike how Google’s carousel works. Organic search is far from “dead” here.

Then again, Google’s giving me a more colorful display that actually lists more restaurants than Bing does. If the carousel took me directly to those restaurants, rather than back into the search results (where you can then get to them), I think it would be a much better winner.

A final caveat in all this. Looking at a page doesn’t help you understand some of the interactivity that goes on. With Bing, selecting the “Reviews” link changes the middle column into showing more information from Bing’s own sources. How that gets measured is another complication, if we’re counting pixel space versus listings.

0% On Mobile?

Organic search results fared even worse in mobile searches, claiming 0% of the initial screens. When Harris searched “Italian Restaurants” from his iPhone, he had to scroll through four full screens before seeing any organic listings, which appeared after ad units, Google-owned Zagat listings, and a Google map followed by Google local listings:

Again, it sounds terrible until you get into the caveats. First, there’s the counting of Zagat in the first example as not being an organic search results, when it is. That really makes the results on that page 50/50 paid versus organic, unless you assume based on one search that Zagat will always occupy the top spot and that there will always be an ad. That’s not the case for me, in my location. In my area, Yelp has the entire page first screen.
After that, I get the same type of Google local listings as shown as “2″ in Harris’s example. I suppose that’s bad news for the Yelps of the world who want even more of that page, and it really does illustrate what Harris said, something the Yelps and others have already themselves said many times before:

“If you compete with Google in any way, you’re in its crosshairs. Your chances of ranking high enough to garner traffic are virtually nil and getting smaller.”

Life Harder For Competing Search Engines; Not Necessarily For Web Sites

Indeed. While the future may not be as bad as Harris paints it for other local search providers, in getting traffic from Google, the trend is pretty clear. Where Google can provide answers, it’s going to do that more and more directly, rather than feeding out to competing search engines.
That, however, isn’t necessarily bad for the user. If I’m on my phone, and I want to learn about a restaurant, the Google local results in the second screenshot are extremely useful, offering to let me call the restaurant or get directions to it. If I drill in, I’d even get an Urbanspoon menu. I’d also likely get Yelp reviews along with Zagat reviews, if that’s what Yelp wanted. But that’s not what Yelp wants, because Yelp blocks those reviews from appearing in Google.

But Google Owning Content Is Troubling

For me, the concern isn’t that Google doesn’t show enough listings of other search engines, any more than I’m not concerned that the New York Times doesn’t run enough Wall Street Journal articles.

To me, the real concern has been the transformation of Google from being a search engine that pointed out to destination sites (like those restaurants) to wanting to be a destination of its own.

SEO and organic search is far from dead, and anyone who runs a site can look at their traffic logs to know how much traffic Google sends them every day, for free. But selling movies, offering restaurant reviews, hosting video, hosting book content and more does further pollute the clarity we used to have about what Google’s role was as a search engine, and whether it pushes its own content above others.

How To Conduct Ad Tests In Enhanced Campaigns

Enhanced campaigns have brought about many changes to AdWords. One of the biggest changes yet to be discussed is the fact that your ad testing methods will have to change.
One of the “features” of enhanced campaigns is that your campaign can now run on desktops and mobile devices with different CPCs that are controlled by bid modifiers. However, since your ads can be run on multiple devices at the same time, you need to test your ad metrics by device.
This can easily be accomplished with device preference and Excel filters. First, let’s discuss why this change needs to occur, and then, how to control the ad serving to ensure you are testing your enhanced campaign ads properly.

Why The Testing Change?

Let’s say we’re testing two ads and that we’re running both ads on all devices (desktops/tablets and mobile devices). What happens is that after a while, we check our metrics and we see data that looks like this:

If you simply used this data as-is, you would assume that Ad 1 is the best ad overall and go with that ad.
However, averages hide all the useful data. You need to segment your data to truly understand what is happening. If you were to segment these two ads by device type, the data looks much different:

In reality, Ad 1 is not the best ad — it is the best ad on mobile devices. The best ad on desktop devices is Ad 2.
Therefore, you’d now want to control which ad shows on which device, and this can be accomplished with device preferences.

Device Preferences

When  you create a text ad, you can specify the device preference:

If a campaign is set to show on all devices, and you have not set a preference by ad, your ads will be shown on all devices.
If a campaign is set to show on all devices, and all your ad preferences are set to mobile, your ads will be shown on all devices.
To control the ad serving by device, you need both a mobile preferred ad and a non-mobile preferred ad in each ad group. To test ads by devices, then you need at least two mobile preferred ads and two non-mobile preferred ads in each ad group.

Image Ad Preferences

In “legacy” campaigns, most sophisticated accounts would segment their display advertising from their search ads, and their mobile display campaigns from their desktop display campaigns. Because these campaigns were already segmented by device, most marketers would just upload “mobile” ads to their mobile campaigns and desktop sizes to their desktop campaigns based upon Google’s sizes:

However, several of the sizes that are not traditionally considered mobile ad sizes can be shown on mobile devices:

Therefore, you will also want to specify the mobile preference of an image ad so that you can test your image ads by devices as well as your text ads.

An Easy Way to Determine Ad Types by Device

In the AdWords interface, it is not easy to see if you have a mobile and non-mobile preferred ad in each ad group. The easiest way to see this data is to use a pivot table and conditional formatting.
In this case, a simple pivot table was used to show the number of ads by device preference in each ad group; and then, conditional formatting was applied to highlight any cell that was less than 1.

If you wanted to make sure you were testing in each ad group, you could also highlight all cells with less than 2 ads using conditional formatting. This would allow you to see which ad groups need ads created so that you can test them.

Run Your Statistical Confidence Numbers As Normal

Once you have the ads set up and running by device, you can do your statistical confidence calculations and pick your winner — just make sure to segment the information by device.
Only use your mobile information to test your mobile ads and pick winners.
Only use your desktop information to test your desktop ads and pick winners.
Once the data is segmented by device, the way you run your numbers and pick winners will not change with enhanced campaigns.

A “Cheater’s” Way Of Testing

Creating thousands of new ads can be a daunting task — so, there is a shortcut you can use. However, please note that, as with any shortcut, there are some underlying weaknesses.
Instead of creating ads for every device type, if your landing pages have the same content (such as with responsive design) and if overall conversion actions by device are the same, then you can start with just ads on “all” devices. You can then segment the data by device type and run your statistical confidence by device.
Once you have a winning ad by device, then you can change the ad’s preference type of mobile if it’s a mobile winner and leave the desktop winners as all devices.
There are a few inherent weaknesses to this approach:

• You cannot customize the call to action by device
• When you “edit” your winning mobile ad, it must go back under review and the stats are “reset” for the ad

This isn’t an ideal long term solution; but, if you are trying to transition many campaigns and thousands of ads to mobile devices, it can be a way to start ad testing.
However, with a “good” transition, you will keep your mobile ads in your enhanced campaign by moving the mobile ads to your desktop campaigns (or vice versa) and using ad preference to keep them segmented.

Wrap-Up

Enhanced campaigns are a major change to managing AdWords. However, they do not change the underlying principles of ad testing. You must test ads — and a good ad test will not only examine the differences in multiple ads, it will also take into account segmented data such as the device where the ad was displayed.
By ensuring you are controlling your ads displayed by device type, you can be confident in your ad tests and ensure that you are keeping the best ad for your account.
Even with device segmentation, many of the previous columns on ad testing are still true – they just require a previous step – device ad control. You can still easily manage and test millions of ads and use cross ad group testing principles.