5 Facebook Ad Hacks That Will Help You Grow Your Business

Posted by Robert Morris

Getting started with Facebook advertising is not as easy as getting started with Google Adwords, because there are more options and the ad creation process is a little trickier.

Nevertheless, with a little time and experience, you will be churning out Facebook advertisements like a pro. Below are five tips to help you start attracting more clicks with your new Facebook ads.

1. Start With A Photo Ad

Photo ads are the most common type of advertisement on Facebook because the social media network seems to favour visual content. Add a 1200×628 pixels photo to ensure it is not cropped.

Unless you have years of experience advertising with Facebook, you should probably create an ad with an offer attached to it. Don’t just advertise your product, but give people a reward for buying it right now. If you do not give an incentive such as a discount or trial subscription, then the viewer has little reason to click the ad while it is on the screen.

When you create an ad, then tell people to either click the ad, or give them a button to click on. Your advert may look great, but if it doesn’t tell the reader to take an action, or if there is no button to click, then the reader may overlook the ad because he or she cannot be bothered to go on a quest to find your offer.

2. Collaborate With Other Webmasters

If you are not keen on spending good money on Facebook advertising, then go in on an ad with a number of other webmasters. It is the same principle that local businesses use when four of them pay for leaflet printing and distribution. All four have their own section of the leaflet, and all four divide the costs of printing. Collaborating with Facebook ads is very similar.

One landing page is created that features content from each of the four websites. Each contributor’s content also has a link back to his or her website. When a Facebook ad is clicked, it leads back to that landing page. Each contributor pays one fourth of the clicking costs whenever the bill arrives.

For example, you could collaborate with a number of local businesses near you in a small village called “Kitty Village.” The more contributors you collect, then the less the Facebook campaign costs. A visual ad is placed on Facebook saying something such as, “Look at the tremendous offers that Kitty Village has.” The advertisement’s location is targeted to the area where Kitty Village is located, and you have your collaborative ad.

3. Just Five Words Is All You Need

When creating your Facebook ad and coming up with your title, consider using just five words. Ads that have five words in their title seem to perform better than titles with fewer or more words in them.

Obviously, it is up to you to run trial and error tests to see which title lengths work the best, but you should consider starting with just five words. They may be more successful because five words are easy to skim read, or there may be some other psychological reasons at work. Nevertheless, start with five worded titles and run your own tests to see which work the best.

A desperate farmer may throw seeds on a boggy field to see where the plants grow and where they die. If you are new to Facebook advertising, you could do something similar. Try placing a wide variety of very simple ads in different categories, with different keywords, to appear at different times and so forth. Most of the ads will go un-clicked. Some will receive clicks. Others will receive clicks and conversions on your website.

Take note of the ads, details and keywords of the ads that created conversions and focus your future efforts in those areas. Though, you need to have a lot of useful information on your page. Potential clients will click on your ad, so they need to find all the information they are looking for. Never forget to write the address, the price and description of your product. You have attracted their attention, so you need to make them buy. If you are not very good at writing selling copy, don’t worry, because there are many writing companies that will do it for you.

4. Scare Some People Away

Ever wonder why new car advertisements list the price of the car? The car they promote is exciting and enticing, but the price they post is usually in the tens of thousands. It is almost as if they are pulling people close with one hand and pushing them away with the other.

The reason that car promoters put the price of their car on the ad is to scare some people away. Many people may be interested in the car they are selling, but if all those people clicked, then it would cost the car promoter a fortune. By adding a price to the advertisement, it scares away all the people who cannot afford the car.

You too need to be prepared to scare people away. For example, if you have a very fun or exciting ad that is aimed at adults and not children, then you need to find something that scares kids away from clicking. If you do not, you will receive numerous clicks from people too young to buy your product.

5. Aim For A Younger Or Female Crowd

Facebook is mostly made up of younger people and women. There are plenty of older people and men on Facebook, but statistically, more of your viewers will be younger and female. Don’t worry too much about children because Instagram has overtaken Facebook and Twitter for the social media network with the most kids and tweens.

One could argue that there is still a large portion of the social media viewership that uses Facebook, and that those people should be targeted. However, it is probably better if you target those demographics on the social media networks where they congregate in more concentrated numbers.

Wrapping up

Your goal is to learn as much as you can about what works and what doesn’t work for your business, and the way to do that is to run small and cheap Facebook ad tests. Budget just a few dollars to each test and try different ad formats, layouts, keywords, locations, and demographics. Discard what doesn’t work and do more research into what does work. The tips listed in this article will get you off to a good start, but the rest is up to you because there is no one-size-fits-all technique or method for advertising on Facebook.

About Robert

Robert Morris is a freelance editor, content manager and avid traveler from NYC. Follow Robert on Google+!

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