While it’s true that Facebook offers amazing opportunities for reaching wider audiences and expanding businesses, the path to success isn’t always as simple as some exceptional stories might suggest. Many, especially smaller businesses, find their Facebook endeavors haven’t yielded the desired results. It’s crucial to acknowledge that both scenarios are not the norm.

Facebook presents numerous advantages for small businesses, but success hinges on strategic planning and establishing attainable objectives within the platform’s inherent limitations. Here are seven pointers to help your small business utilize Facebook ads effectively and achieve desired outcomes:

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1. Align Campaign Objectives with Your Overall Goals

What are you hoping to achieve with Facebook ads? Increased sales, a larger newsletter subscriber base, or heightened brand awareness? Identifying your primary aim is crucial in shaping your Facebook ad account setup. Fortunately, Facebook ads offer objectives designed for nearly every conceivable campaign goal.

It’s impossible to recommend a universally suitable campaign objective.

If you’re exploring multiple objectives, take the time to hover over each option, click the “i” icon, and delve into their optimal use cases. Facebook also provides a link to deepen your understanding of each objective, or you can read this comprehensive post for a breakdown of each campaign type.

2. Define Your Target Audience Using Audience Insights

A fundamental step when starting with a new account is understanding your target audience. Facebook ads simplify this process with their intuitive Audience Insights tool.

Note: To access this data, your Facebook page needs to be linked to your Business Manager account. (Our Facebook ads tutorial clarifies this process in detail.)

Within Facebook Business Manager’s main navigation, navigate to the planning section and select “Audience Insights.”

A pop-up will appear, prompting you to choose between analyzing all Facebook users (“Everyone on Facebook”) or those connected to your business page (“People connected to your Page”). Selecting the latter option will highlight the section in the left-hand navigation where you can choose the specific Facebook page for data analysis. Select your page, and you’re ready to begin!

This tool provides a wealth of information, including demographic data, Facebook activity, device usage, and more. If the report appears blank, it likely indicates that your audience size is insufficient for Facebook to generate insights.

However, you can leverage data from larger, similar brands. For instance, if you own a modern furniture store, consider analyzing brands like West Elm or Crate and Barrel. Input their names in the “Interests” section, located just above the Facebook page selector, to gather insights from their audience.

This data can prove invaluable in determining target demographics, understanding audience interests, and identifying suitable devices to include. Remember, you’re not restricted to using this specific target audience, but it serves as a valuable starting point for comprehending how your ideal customer aligns with Facebook targeting. For a more detailed understanding of the Audience Insights Tool, refer to this video for more.

3. Grasp Targeting Layers

When setting up target audiences within Facebook ads, understanding the distinction between AND and OR targeting logic is paramount. This knowledge can significantly impact your reach, potentially differentiating between 15,000 and 15,000,000 users.

Facebook’s formatting simplifies this distinction: all targeting options listed within a single box utilize OR targeting, while multiple boxes signify AND targeting.

In the image provided, all targeted interests employ OR targeting. This implies that users interested in either Crate & Barrel OR AllModern qualify for inclusion in your target audience. Each additional interest added to this box expands your audience size.

Now, let’s assume you want to target individuals interested in these brands but also have a specific income level. This is where the Narrow Audience feature comes into play.

By narrowing your audience, you effectively target the overlapping segment of the Venn diagram, as illustrated in the image.

For our campaigns, we’ll choose to narrow the audience and incorporate income levels.

With the addition of the income segment in the second box, our targeting section now displays two separate boxes, signifying that users must meet criteria from both boxes to be included. This segmentation significantly narrows down our target audience.

When defining your target audience with multiple layers, be mindful of the AND and OR targeting logic to avoid overly broad or narrow targeting due to inattention to the boxes.

4. Ensure Precise Geotargeting

There is no one-size-fits-all target geography for small businesses. Some cater solely to their local community, while others have a nationwide or even global reach within a niche market.

Irrespective of your business category, leverage appropriate geotargeting to reach your desired audience. Facebook’s geotargeting settings are managed at the ad set level.

Begin by verifying that you’re targeting individuals in a location with the right intent. The default setting, People living in or recently in this location, is generally suitable.

For instance, if you own a local furniture store without shipping options outside your community, consider adjusting the settings to target users exclusively living in your area. This eliminates individuals temporarily visiting or recently present in the location, preventing wasted ad spend on irrelevant audiences.

Once this setting is defined, the rest is simple. Choose “Include” or “Exclude” from the dropdown menu and input your desired location in the box. Facebook allows targeting based on:

• Countries
• States/Regions
• DMAs
• Congressional Districts
• Cities
• Postal/Zip Codes
• Addresses

The “Drop Pin” option offers further precision, allowing you to select a specific location on a map and define a radius around it.

The primary goal of geotargeting is to ensure you’re not squandering resources on geographically irrelevant users. Focus your ad expenditure on areas that can realistically generate potential business.

5. Maintain Separate Retargeting and Prospecting Campaigns

This advice applies universally, but it’s particularly relevant for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) who often overlook the distinctions between retargeting and prospecting.

Retargeting focuses on individuals who have previously interacted with your brand, be it visiting your website, following your Facebook page, or engaging with a post.

Conversely, prospecting aims to expand your reach and attract new customers, essentially the opposite of retargeting. Combining these audiences within a single campaign makes it challenging to assess individual performance and identify the more valuable segment. With the introduction of campaign budget optimization, controlling budget allocation between these groups becomes less efficient.

Maintaining separate campaigns for prospecting and retargeting simplifies management and optimization, regardless of your objectives.

6. Monitor Ad Frequency

Frequency refers to the average number of times a user within your target audience encounters your ad within a specific timeframe, which dynamically adjusts based on the selected date range.

Whether your target is a local community or a nationwide niche, avoid oversaturating your audience with your message.

Conveniently, ad frequency is a column you can add to your campaign manager tab for easy monitoring.

As a general guideline, your frequency should be approximately half the number of days in your chosen date range. For instance, a seven-day date range should ideally have a frequency of no more than three and a half days per audience.

7. Control Budgets Effectively

The final tip centers around managing your Facebook ad spend. Unlike other platforms, Facebook’s budgeting system has two crucial aspects to consider:

Prepare for Campaign Budget Optimization

Starting February 2020, all accounts will transition to campaign budget optimization (CBO). While seemingly insignificant, this shift can be impactful if your account isn’t structured appropriately.

Essentially, CBO transfers budget management from the ad set level to the campaign level, with Facebook automatically distributing the budget based on the perceived top-performing ad set.

The caveat is that Facebook’s assessment of performance may not always align with your own. There’s ample information available on CBO, and I highly recommend researching this topic due to its inevitable impact on your account.

Remember Ad Scheduling is Linked to Budgeting

A previous article delved into how lifetime and daily budgets influence ad set/campaign settings and ultimately control your ad display schedule. I encourage you to read this article to maximize your ad scheduling and budgeting strategies.

Implement These Facebook Advertising Tips for Small Business Success!

While there’s no universal, foolproof Facebook advertising strategy, small businesses need to approach the platform strategically to avoid overextending themselves prematurely. This often leads to the disheartening “I tried Facebook, and it didn’t work” sentiment. Adhering to these fundamental tips can help you steer clear of that outcome:

1. Align campaign objectives with your overall goals.
2. Define your target audience using Audience Insights.
3. Grasp targeting layers.
4. Ensure precise geotargeting.
5. Maintain separate retargeting and prospecting campaigns.
6. Monitor ad frequency.
7. Control budgets effectively.

These tips are designed to empower you to experiment with Facebook advertising in a controlled manner, maximizing your chances of seeing a return on your investment!

Looking for more resources? Explore The 8 Best (Free!) Facebook Ads Courses for Each Learning Level.