How to Get Started with Facebook Advertising

With a whopping 2.07 billion monthly users as of 2017, Facebook is undoubtedly the largest social media platform currently available. With people all across the world spending more and more time on Facebook, today it has become one of the best means to reach out to the consumer base for your company. Moreover, Facebook ads are extremely targeted and effective, without being too heavy in the pocket. If you have not started using Facebook Ads yet, for your start-up venture, it is high time that you start doing so.

This article walks you through the process of advertising on Facebook, and how to get started with the same.

1. Navigate to your page and on the right-hand top panel, in the drop-down menu, select Create Ads. This will direct you to the Facebook Ads Manager which looks like this.
   
   
2. Now, you have to choose your marketing objective. This may seem a little intimidating the first time. Hence, it is important for you to research this beforehand and think of your campaigning strategy. Whether you want to just start off by creating a brand awareness, or you are more interested in sales, you should choose your campaign objective wisely. You can hover over each sub-category to know more about it. 
3. After selecting your campaign strategy, we proceed to the following page, which is concerned with the setting up of your Ad account. You have to fill in your basic account details, like the country, currency and time zone. 

   
   

4. The next step is a crucial one, which consists of Audience, Placements, Budget schedule and additional fields, depending on your Campaign objective. Audience: Now, it is extremely important to choose your audience carefully. A very generalized idea should not be applied, and you should try to maximise your conversions. Facebook Ads can be made very target specific, thereby leading to huge ROI. Apart from specifying demography like age, gender and languages, you can also choose for a detailed targeting, based on interests.
   
   Budget, placements and schedule: Next, you choose your daily budget, starting at a minimum of Rs 40 per day. Compared to other social networking ad agencies, Facebook ads, actually are pretty economical.
   As for Placements, it is best to go with the automatic placements, which chooses where to place your ads, based on the target audience chosen. You can also choose to do it manually. You can choose the schedule of airing your ads as well. 

   
   

5. The next step consists of the format for displaying your ad. You can choose a textual display or a picture or a video or any of the formats Facebook has in store. Make sure the ad is visually appealing, as well as informative at the same time. 

   

Additionally, there may be steps where you are prompted to add the URL of your website, or the link of the app that you want users to install. These fields are crucial for converting your audience to customers, and should not be neglected.

After following these steps, your Ad is ready to go live on Facebook. You will have to look into the Facebook Ad reports to find out if you are making any progress. You can use various tools provided by facebook ads manager, in order to know how you have fared. Based on these insights, you can alter the schedule of your ads, make some changes in the target audience fields and adjust your budget in order to maximise your returns.

An effective advertising campaign can do wonders for your company… An average product, with a largely successful marketing campaign, has greater chances of survival than an excellent product, with lousy advertising.Facebook Ads are undoubtedly a great platform for you to expand your business, and if done right, it can be a huge boost to your startup venture.