It isn't just another blog.
While a lot has been written about best practices concerning Facebook ads, I would restrict to sharing my organic experince with the same.
At Znbound, we use Facebook ads as one of our primary lead generation methods for our clients.
Looking back at my record, I have generated 4178 leads. If you also wish to reach that number single handedly, I suggest you read further. My idea of writing this blog is to share my approach of running Facebook lead gen ads which brought me laurels.
There are two important aspects of Facebook ads that I will be reflecting upon.
Major Aspect
Facebook Audience maker - This includes Custom Audience, Lookalike Audience and Website Visitor Audience.
This aspect is reflected in your Facebook business manager account.
Custom Audience
Custom Audience is a type of list, which can be created with your existing customer list or any prospecting list you would like to target. This list can only be created if your prospect has used her mobile number or email id in creating their Facebook accounts. Your data should have more than 100 email ids or phone numbers to create a custom audience.
This list can actually work wonders as you will be able to choose a niche targeting (only prospects you would like to show your ad too).
Steps to create a custom audience
Step 1:
Go in the audience section in your Facebook ads account. Click on 'create audience' and choose 'custom audience'.
Step 2 :
After clicking on the custom audience you will be shown a new window. Click on customer profile and you will be redirected to a new tab from where you can choose between paste/copy prospect list or you can even choose to import email addresses directly from Mailchimp.
Step 3:
Now you will be shown master tab. Here you can either copy/paste prospect's email ids or upload email list. After following the process, give your audience a name, click next and then upload. Facebook will take some time to create custom audience.
As shown above in the image, this is how your custom audience will look.
Lookalike Audience
Lookalike audience can help you show your ad only to those prospects who are relevant to your business.
Surprised?
How's it possible?
Facebook allows you to create lookalike audience (audience similar to your current customers).
* This audience has given me good results till date that too at lower costs.
Steps to create lookalike audience
Step 1:
Go in the audience section of your Facebook ads account. Click on create audience and choose lookalike audience.
Step 2:
To create lookalike audience you need to choose a source now. The available sources are custom audience, website conversion pixel and Facebook page.
I usually choose custom audience because this option allows me to create lookalike audience of my customers only. This will not be possible in case of website conversion pixel and Facebook page.
My recommendation to you will be to use custom audience as a source to create lookalike audience. After choosing a source, choose the country where you'd like to find a similar set of people.
Now choose audience size as shown in the image below.
If you choose audience size as 1% of the desired country's population than you will be able to create most close match of your source.
At last, click on create audience. Facebook will take some time to create custom audience. Check after 20 minutes and you will be able to see your lookalike audience in the audience dashboard as shown below.
- Website Visitors Audience
If you are looking to engage prospects who came on your website or on a landing page, but didn't convert, then you must give a shot to the website visitors audience.
Steps to create website visitor audience
Step 1:
Extract the pixel from the Facebook ads manager and implement the same on your website and landing pages.
Step 2:
Click on create audience and you will be shown a tab as shown below.
Here you can choose the source of visitors ( landing pages, Website pages and website ).
Then choose a duration in which your prospects had visited your website. I will recommend you to choose traffic of last 180 days as this will help you in targeting more prospects. After following the whole process give your audience a name and click on 'create an audience'.
Your audience is ready to be leveraged. But, the question arises that where will you be using these audiences ?
Let me make your task easier. When you are editing targeting in Facebook ads power editor, choose these audiences types in the box shown below.
After implementing the audiences in Facebook ads, you need to implement the minor aspects too. These aspects will help you in making your campaign ready to take over your competitor's ad campaign.
Minor Aspects
- Scheduled Campaigns: Do you usually run your Facebook ad campaign all day? If yes, then you are wasting your money on Facebook ads. You must schedule your Facebook campaign according to the time structure of your prospect. (When she is active on Facebook and is most likely to engage with your ads).
- Use Mother Language: Always use mother language of your prospects in Facebook campaigns because if you are not, then they will not be able to grasp your ad content.
- Social Proof: Showing social proof (Testimonials) in Facebook ads will help you generate more qualified leads. (Show images or videos of your current customers).
I hope you find my tips valuable in optimising your Facebook lead generation campaigns.
If you come across any other method to optimise Facebook lead generation campaigns, then do share your experience.
