Are you curious about paid advertising tactics for your business in 2024? If you have the capital to invest in Facebook or Google ads, they are one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience at various customer journey phases.
So, where do you get started when it comes to creating the best ad campaigns online? We’re covering the steps your business should take to get the most bang for your buck. Let’s jump right in!
Understanding Facebook and Google Advertising
Facebook and Google both offer a highly targeted approach to running ad campaigns. Let’s break down the two platforms here.
Facebook Ads
With nearly 3 billion global users, it’s no surprise that many businesses invest in Facebook ads. When you create an ad campaign on Facebook, you promote your business to potential customers who use the platform. Using Facebook Ad Manager, you can tailor each ad to a specific audience based on age, gender, location, and other demographics.
Facebook differs from other platforms because it has unique user data to share with its advertising customers. This data includes various lifestyle characteristics, such as education, interests, previous purchases, income, political preferences, and more.
When you create an advertising campaign and select a segmented audience based on the information above, the ads in the campaign will be served to the demographics you specify.
This data is highly valuable to many Facebook advertisers because it allows them to pinpoint specific characteristics to target in their campaigns and, ultimately, boost campaigns’ success rate. It is what makes Facebook so powerful; user data and preferences can be incorporated into ad campaigns to make them incredibly tailored and successful.
Facebook ad types include sponsored posts, images, videos, carousels (multiple images in one post), polls, slide shows, and more.
Learn more: How to Advertise a Business on Facebook for Beginners
Google Ads
As the most used search engine, Google is a great place to run ad campaigns regardless of your niche or business size. With Google Ads, you only pay when a user clicks on your advertisement, which will appear in Google searches within the Google display network (a group of two million websites) and Google-related platforms like YouTube.
Google’s advertising methods involve custom targeting, involving a user’s core demographics, including age, gender, location, and income. Companies using Google Ads can also target specific audiences based on their search intent using various keywords in their campaigns.
Ad formats on Google include text-only search ads, display ads, which include an image, and shopping ads.
Key Advertising Terms to Know
Here are a few terms you should know before you launch an ad campaign on Facebook or Google.
- CPC: Cost per click, or the amount you pay every time someone clicks on an ad
- CPA: Cost per acquisition, or the total cost to acquire one customer
- CTR: The average click-through rate — based on how many clicks the ad received divided by how many times the ad was shown
- Conversion rate: The percentage of users who completed a desired action from the ad
- CPM: Cost per mille or the cost per thousand impressions.
3 Key Elements of Compelling Ads
Now, onto the fun stuff! Creating compelling ads requires time and effort, so let’s break down what you must do.
Below is step zero of creating ads, no matter what platform you plan to run them on:
Eye-Catching Visuals
You have a small opportunity to grab someone’s attention, so make it count! Use your branding and keep it simple but visually appealing. Try to picture your ad as a consumer browses the internet — you want something that will make them stop scrolling because they’re intrigued.
Simple but Persuasive Text
Keep it short and sweet for text-based ads or designs that require some copy. Most consumers use their smartphones to browse online, so try to use a few words on visual ads to avoid overcomplicating things and let the ad speak for itself.
Compelling CTAs
Use a short CTA like "Click to Shop" or "Download Now" to make the next step simple and actionable for potential customers.
What Are the Best Practices for Creating Ads?
The adage "Fail to plan, plan to fail" has never been more true than it is with digital ad campaigns!
Now that you understand the basics, the next (and most important) step is crafting an advertising strategy tailored to your business, target audience, and campaign goals. Let’s get started!
Research Your Target Audience
You can’t create compelling ads without knowing precisely who you are targeting — it just doesn’t add up without crucial insights about their values, interests, shopping behavior, and more. So, conduct thorough research on your target audience to confidently launch campaigns they will respond to.
Set Clear Goals
What do you want to gain from your ad campaigns? It may be brand exposure, email addresses for a newsletter, new website visitors, or sales. Setting clear goals from the get-go is essential to measure what you market and determine what would make a campaign successful.
Determine a Realistic Budget
Based on your goals, set a realistic budget for each ad campaign. Consider your maximum customer acquisition cost (CAC) or the maximum amount you’re willing to spend to acquire a new customer. You can research the prices of Facebook and Google ad campaigns and select the platform that offers the best results for your efforts.
Learn more: Effective Advertising: How to Calculate Ad Budget
Use A/B Testing
A/B testing, or split testing, helps to determine which version of the ad connects better with your target audience and is a very effective experiment to run on your ad campaigns.
In an A/B test, you’re trying to determine which ad resonates better with your audience. It is done by changing graphics or text, color variations, messaging, and imagery to see what your audience prefers.
Learn more: A/B Testing For Beginners: Everything You Should Know To Get Started
Deploy Strategies to Increase ROI
Adjust specific components to increase ROI and cut costs as you assess campaign performance. Adjust your bidding strategies based on campaign performance to spend less per ad.
Run a few retargeting campaigns that display ads to visitors who visited your site but didn’t buy anything to keep your brand at the forefront of their minds.
If you sell online with Ecwid by Lightspeed, not only do you get a beautifully designed online store, but you also can leverage pixels in your online store. Pixel is a small code that can be placed on your website to track visitor behavior. This way, you can use retargeting to reach potential customers who have visited your site before but left without a purchase.
Here are all the pixels that you can add to your Ecwid store to optimize your ads:
- Facebook pixel
- Snap pixel
- Pinterest pixel
- Google tag
- TikTok Pixel.
Automate and Optimize Your Ads
There are various ways to simplify advertising for a busy business owner.
For example, if you sell online with Ecwid by Lightspeed, you can connect your Ecwid catalog with Facebook’s Product Catalog. It lets you sync your product and inventory info across platforms and manage orders in Ecwid to save you time and energy.
Ecwid and Facebook integration provides you with tools that help you show the perfect content to the right audience at the right time, such as:
- targeting shoppers based on their age, interests, and more
- launching different types of ads — dynamic, video, and carousel
- running retargeting ad campaigns with Facebook Pixel to bring back customers.
As for running promotional campaigns on Google, Ecwid has got you covered, too! With Ecwid’s automated Google Shopping ads, all you have to do is choose the audience and the products you want to promote, and Ecwid will take care of the rest. This way, you reach potential customers on Google’s search engine results page and Google Shopping without doing extra work.
Make Data-Backed Decisions
Based on the initial performance of your ads, make data-backed decisions about the campaign’s success and what you will change for future campaigns.
For example, if text-based ads delivered fewer site visitors or sales than display ads, consider allocating more budget to display ads for future campaigns. It is just one example of how consumer behavior and data impact advertising campaigns.
Apart from built-in Facebook and Google ad campaign insights, you can use analytics tools like Google Analytics to better understand your audience’s behavior.
Ecwid by Lightspeed sellers have access to another helpful tool for determining the success of marketing campaigns. Ecwid’s integrated Reports feature includes a Marketing section providing valuable insights into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, order sources, and the strategies employed in your store that convert visitors into customers.
Learn more: Essential Business KPIs for Online Stores & How to Track Them Like a Pro
Final Thoughts
Getting started with ad campaigns on Facebook and Google can feel daunting, but if you research and start small, you’ll quickly learn the ropes and feel more confident running larger-scale campaigns. Whether you’re working with a small or large budget, remember everything we mentioned above to create the best ads for your target audience.
Know your target audience, set clear goals and stick to your budget as you get started to ensure a strong foundation. Perform A/B testing to determine what resonates with your audience, and adjust your campaigns as necessary to increase ROI. Finally, let the data tell the story of what you’ll do differently for your next campaign.
Advertising is critical to running an ecommerce shop, especially with the steep competition in today’s market. Fortunately, Ecwid is here to support your business every step of the way. From creating an online store to robust marketing tools, Ecwid is your one-stop shop for building a successful online store.
Sign up for Ecwid and grow your business with automated Facebook and Google advertising.
The post 7 Steps to the Best Ads for Facebook and Google Campaigns first appeared on Ecwid | E-Commerce Shopping Cart.
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Anastasia Prokofieva, Khareem Sudlow
