Did you know that Facebook is used by nearly three billion people around the world?

According to statistics from September of last year, Facebook has 2.74 billion monthly active users. That’s right — billion, with a B.

Not only that, but of all the people in the world who use social media, 59% of them are reachable using Facebook.

If you weren’t sure before why Facebook advertising should be a part of your marketing strategy, now you know.

Whether they’re drawing qualified leads into sales funnels or remarketing to existing customers, the best marketing agencies use Facebook Ads to get results for their clients. And whether you want to grow your audience or sales, Facebook Lead Ads is one of the best ways to do it.

Of course, getting started with any new marketing strategy is difficult. That’s why some of the world’s most successful businesses rely on a marketing agency or expert to help them reach their customers.

But if you want to do it yourself, this article will get you started.

From understanding how the platform works for businesses to learning how to advertise on Facebook, keep reading to get started with your Facebook advertising strategy.

Understanding Facebook Lead Ads

Even if you’ve had some prior knowledge or experience with Facebook Ads, Facebook Lead Ads might still seem unfamiliar to you. Although Facebook’s advertising platform has been around for a long time, its lead ads feature is relatively new…well, if you consider 6 years, new?

Facebook is constantly innovating to see how to make its users happy. This benefits advertisers as well as Facebook users, because it means people stick around for longer and see more ads. One problem Facebook is trying to address for advertisers is having people click on ads, only to get distracted before they’ve become a lead.

Lead Ads is Facebook’s solution to this problem. These special ads have a lead generation form built-in, so users don’t have to visit your website to join your webinar or mailing list. Because this reduces the number of steps and transitions users have to take, it means more people who click on your ad will actually complete the lead generation process.

And with Apple’s new IOS update, Facebook lead ads will inevitably become even more important.

Who are Facebook Lead Ads For?

With such brilliant innovation, it’s no wonder Facebook continues to be one of the most profitable companies in the world. As you can see, that’s equally good for businesses using Facebook Ads.

But what types of businesses and campaigns will benefit the most from Lead Ads?

The short answer is, just about anyone. Lead generation seems to work best when you have a valuable freebie to give away, like a PDF ebook or cheat sheet. However, any business can benefit from using Facebook Lead Ads. We’ve seen great success with our restaurant clients who give away enticing coupons through Facebook’s Lead ads.

Getting Started With Facebook Lead Ads

Now that you understand how Facebook Lead Ads are different from regular ads, you’re almost ready to begin creating your first campaign. But first, make sure you check out Facebook’s Lead Ads guidelines. You don’t want to put a lot of effort into something if it turns out your company doesn’t quite fit Facebook’s policies. For example, in order to use Facebook’s Lead Ads, you must have a privacy policy on your website and/or landing page.

If you want to truly make the most of your advertising efforts, using a highly rated and reputable agency is the best way to go. But if you’re the do-it-yourself type, this guide will help you get started with Facebook Lead Ads.

Create Your Campaign

Log into a Facebook account affiliated with your business and open Ads Manager. Click Create and select Lead generation from the campaign objective menu. At this point, you can select Switch to Quick Creation to bypass the lengthy setup process, but this is only for experienced advertisers.

Before you begin creating your first ad set, you’ll need to choose a name for your campaign. It’s a good idea to include your campaign objective in the name to help you keep track of your results later. You might call it something like, “Ebook Download — Lead Generation.”

You can then select Create Split Test if you want to compare different ad elements, but this is an advanced feature.

Develop Your First Ad Set

Your ad campaign is the overarching project or strategy for getting new leads, and you can have multiple ad sets within each campaign. Likewise, an ad set is like an umbrella, encompassing multiple individual ads. You don’t have to create more than one ad set or ad, though.

Once you finish the campaign creation process, you’ll create and name your first ad set. Ad sets are typically used to target specific customer personas or demographics. If your business has multiple ideal customer avatars, you’ll choose one to target with your first ad set.

Give your ad set a name that indicates who you’re targeting, as well as what you’re advertising. When you create your first ad set, you’ll get to choose which Facebook page you want your ads connected to. This won’t matter if your business only has one page.

Define Your Target Audience

This is the exciting part. Thanks to the volume

of personal information people share on Facebook, you can set your ads to target a very, very specific group of people. When you set your audience filters, this is what you’ll be working with.

The more you know about your target audience or ideal customer, the better. Are your most passionate customers between the ages of 20 and 25? You can choose to target more people in this age range. Likewise, you can choose things like location, gender, and every interest and hobby imaginable.

You can also target specific people based on actions they’ve taken on your website in the past. If you have Facebook tracking set up on your site, you can locate and display ads to people who have visited your site before. You can even target people who know or are related to people who’ve used your app or visited your Facebook page.

Select Your Ad Placement, Budget, and Schedule

Here, you’ll decide whether to let Facebook display your ad where they think it will get the best results, or to display it to users on mobile or desktop devices. You’ll also choose when to display your ad and how much you’re able to spend on it (if you’re not using the CBO feature).

We often let Facebook make these decisions based on their extremely knowledgeable AI.

Design Your Ad

Finally, you’ll give your ad a name and add the creative assets, copy, and text fields.

This is something you really need the help of a professional designer and copywriter for if you don’t have those skills yourself. Anyone can set up an ad, but it takes specialized skill to create one that people want to click on. However, tools like Canva and Grammarly can help you create decent graphics and text.

And with that, you’ve set up an entire Facebook lead ad. Congratulations!

What About That Recent iOS Update?

If you’ve paid any attention to corporate news lately, you’ve probably heard about a new update to Apple’s mobile operating systems that’s supposed to make it harder for advertisers to profit from Facebook Ads. But what’s really going on here, and will it affect your advertising efforts?

Simply put, the new iOS update will prevent Facebook from tracking users of its mobile app as they use other apps and visit websites on their Apple devices. The direct result of this is that Facebook won’t be able to gather as much information about people, which means ad targeting could be less effective.

This doesn’t mean you can’t continue to target the right audience for your campaign, however. Facebook already has lots of data from its users based on their activity within its own platform. It’s also important to note that this change will only involve users of iOS devices and not those who use Facebook on Android or desktop (for now).

As long as you keep your lead ads and messenger ads on-platform, you don’t have to worry about the change. Additionally, it may help to collect more personal data on new leads early on in your lead capture process, then give this data back to Facebook to help them find new qualified leads for you.

Getting Help With Facebook Advertising

By now, you should know enough about Facebook business advertising to get started. Your first campaign or two might not turn a profit, but through consistent trial and error, you should eventually learn how to craft ads that your audience loves.

But chances are, you also feel a little overwhelmed. Where can you go when you need help with your Facebook lead generation ads?

Fortunately, there are experienced experts out there who can get you the help you need. Tyche Digital Media is one such source of expertise.

To maximize the effectiveness of your Facebook advertising, book a call today.

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Grab this guide if you need effective techniques to minimize your Facebook ad costs.

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Results-driven, dynamic Director of Sales & Marketing turned Certified Master Marketer, Tammy uses all of her digital marketing smarts for good…she has managed millions of dollars in top-line revenue and hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising spend while consistently generating a 2:1 return inside the Facebook & Google Ad platforms. Follow Tammy on Facebook & Instagram.