I wrote an article on how to get leads online with a landing page after I had helped my client get 25 leads for a paid online workshop they were planning.
The landing page content was a huge factor in convincing persons to sign up. But in order to convince persons, we first had to get them to come to the landing page. With a tiny budget (under USD 70), we turned to Facebook.
Our Facebook efforts generated just over 1,000 visits to the landing page. The cost per landing page view was a measly .09 USD.
Our Facebook ad strategy was key to our efforts.
So in this article, I am going to show you how to build better Facebook ads that get website visits.
This is an in-depth post so here's the Table of contents:
My approach to Facebook ads
We made 12 Facebook posts with call-to-actions designed to get persons to go the landing (registration) page for the workshop. Of these 12 posts, 6 posts were used as paid ads costing a total of 61 USD.
The ads were run over an entire period lasting 10 days and accounted for 669 landing page views. That represents around 67% of the total visits to the landing page.
First off, you see how important paid ads are for generating link clicks off the Facebook platform. Organic posts alone won’t do the trick.
Secondly, you don’t always have to spend a ton of money to get landing page visits. It only cost us 0.9US per visit.
But what I really want to emphasize is this: When it comes to Facebook advertising, it’s easy and downright self-deceiving to think that just running an ad will get you the results you want.
Many people think that once they reach over 1,000 people, they’re bound to get a few out of the 1,000 that’ll buy.
Wrong.
That’s the kind of spray and pray tactics that won’t get you anywhere.
My 3–point Facebook Ad strategy
I devised a simple 3-point strategy for advertising on Facebook. Keep reading for the breakdown.
Facebook ad strategy: Point 1
My client usually premieres a new 1-hour video each week.
I normally promote these videos for 5USD with the specific objective of getting more video videos as a way of increasing reach and familiarity with their brand.
There was one video they premiered that correlated to the workshop they were promoting so when I had done the usual promotion on it, I added a call to action that sent people to the landing page for the online workshop.
In checking the analytics on the video, I noted that it was ranking above average in quality.
It was also getting more thruplays (consecutive 15-sec. views) than their recent videos.
That’s why I decided that the first point of action in my Facebook advertising strategy should be to increase ad spend on this video views ad.
I increased the ad spend by 15USD.
This increase resulted in a total of 153 visits to the landing page.
Facebook ad strategy: Point 2
My second point of action was to create multiple page posts that directly advertised the workshop and then turn the best performing post into an ad.
In the page posts, I used images of the brand creators. Why? Because I knew that their audience typically responded well to images of the creators.
I also paired the images with copy borrowed from the "myth-busting headline", "barrier-filled introduction", and "laser-targeted offer" of the persuasive landing page that I had built.
I then checked to see which was performing best in terms of engagement (likes, shares, and comments), and with 20 USD, I turned that it into an engagement ad that sent persons to the landing page.
It turns out that that ad ranked above average in post quality and engagement so I later duplicated this ad for another 20 USD.
In total, this ad generated 479 visits to the landing page.
Facebook ad strategy: Point 3
My third point of action was to retarget three groups of people:
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Persons who viewed more than 25% of the video I had promoted
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Persons who visited the landing page
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Persons who had visited the landing page for a previous program they had advertised
In order to retarget persons, I had to create what’s called a Facebook pixel. It’s basically a piece of code generated on Facebook that you can use to track actions on a particular web page.
For the do-it-yourselfers, you can read more about how to create pixels here and how to add them to a Mailchimp landing page here.
It turns out though, that this was the weakest performing part of the strategy. It only resulted in 19 visits to the landing page so I let that go.
The best performing part of my strategy was the page post that I converted into an ad. It produced the most landing page views.
The importance of ad relevance
There was one other thing I noted that encouraged me to increase the ad spend on the page posts I had turned into ads. These ads were marked by Facebook as above average in both quality and engagement.
Here's what you need to understand: The performance ranking of your Facebook ad is influenced by how relevant your ad is to your audience.
Ads that are more relevant are less expensive and get better results. So the lesson here is simple:
Always ensure that your Facebook ads are relevant to the audience you’re targeting before you run them
If your ad isn’t producing results, then it’s probably not relevant to your audience and you need to fix it.
How to make your Facebook ads more relevant
Luckily for all of us advertisers, Facebook has a diagnostics tool to help us gauge the relevance of our ads.
It’s only available for ads that have more than 500 impressions. (Impressions are the number of times your ad has been served to your audience.)
Facebook’s diagnostic tool rank relevance along three dimensions:
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Quality Ranking –The perceived quality of your ad compared to other ads targeting the same audience
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Engagement Rate Ranking- Your ad’s expected engagement rate compared to other ads targeting the same audience.
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Conversion Rate Ranking- Your ad's expected conversion rate compared to other ads having the same optimization goal and targeting the same audience.
To find your ad rankings, go to your newsfeed and click on the plus sign in the top menu, then "Create ads". In ads manager, click on the performance column preset on Ads Manager.
You’ll see the columns appear for each of the rankings.
Understanding the 'Quality' ranking
Facebook measures the quality of your ad based on a number of signals or low-quality attributes:
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They’re getting negative feedback from people viewing your ad
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People are hiding your ad
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There is too much text in your ad image
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You are using sensationalized language in your ad
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You are using engagement bait (asking persons to like, share, or comment on a post to artificially increase your reach in peoples’ newsfeeds)
Understanding the 'Engagement' ranking
Your engagement rate is the number of persons who react, share, comment, or click on your ad compared to the number of people who see your ad. It’s only available for the last 35 days.
Facebook won’t give you an engagement rate ranking for ads that are optimised for ad recall lift, impressions, reach, custom conversions, or value.
Note: When you create an ad in the Facebook Ad Manager tool, you can tell Facebook how you want them to optimise the delivery of it by clicking on the actions available in the ad set area of the ad creation tool.
The actions available are determined by the specific objective you set for your ad.
Click here for a total list of optimization goals by ad objective
Understanding 'Conversion rate' ranking
Facebook determines the conversion rate by calculating the likelihood that persons will complete an optimization goal after seeing your ad.
Like Engagement Rate Ranking, Facebook won’t give you a conversion rate ranking for ad recall lift, impressions, reach, custom conversions, or value.
Now you should be wondering: What do you do if your ads score below average on any one of the rankings? Read on for the answer.
What to do if your ad ranks low in quality
Quality Solution 1: Address low-quality attributes
The first thing you want to do is get rid of any low-quality attributes you may have. I told you what these were already under "Understanding 'Quality' ranking".
Quality Solution 2: Change your audience
The second thing you may want to change is your audience. It may very well be that the audience you selected for your ad is not the best audience for the particular objective you have in mind.
For example, I once had to run an ad for a client of mine who was producing a conference for women as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
The conference was going to be held in the South part of the country. The audience I chose for the ad were females living in the southern parts of the country rather than targeting all female entrepreneurs in the country.
Quality Solution 3: Let your creative mirror what your audience cares about
The third thing you can do is update your creative (image or video) to focus more on what your audience really cares about.
To do this, you, have to understand what the hopes, fears, and challenges of your audience are.
If you want to find out the best way to do this, check out my post on how to get leads online with a landing page. In there, I give you a complete breakdown.
Remember what I said about the page posts I had created?
I had paired images of the creators with text from the landing page that zeroed in on the dreams and barriers that the audience had.
What to do if youre ad ranks low in engagement
Engagement Solution 1: Improve your creative
You don’t have to be a professional to make your images and video look better in an ad.
I’m not a professional graphic designer but I’ve learnt to recognise what looks good and what doesn’t.
A few simple tricks go along way:
- Use verticle images since most persons hold their phones upright
- Use vibrant or unexpected colours to stand out
- Crop photos to highlight the main element
- Avoid grainy, fuzzy images
- Add captions to videos
- Limit text
Engagement Solution 2: Try a different audience
Try defining a different audience that may be more receptive to what you’re offering. Facebook offers tons of options for targeting.
You can target by demographics, interests, and behaviours. The trick is to find out as much as you can about your audience and begin testing each of these audiences until you get the results you’re looking for.
What to do if your ad ranks low in conversion
Conversion Solution 1: Improve your call-to-action
First off, be sure to include one clear call-to-action (CTA). Facebook makes it easy to do this because of the many CTA buttons available in their ad creation tool.
The CTA buttons available depend on the ad objective you’ve chosen. Click here for the full list of CTA options per ad objective.
You increase the effectiveness of your CTA by reducing the perceived risk of taking the action.
In the campaign that I did for my client, we offered persons the opportunity to register and pay later. Not having to pay right away caused more persons to sign up and give us their information which included their phone numbers.
For you, a low-risk CTA might boil down to a free call or consultation.
To improve your effectiveness of your CTA, you could also promise some sort of immediate benefit that's relevant like a free download or access to some other material.
It’s also important to establish credibility as it helps people feel more secure about following through on your CTA. In our campaign, we shared quotes and video recorded testimonials from happy clients.
Conversion Solution 2: Improve the post-click experience
Many of us do not pay as much attention to the landing page as we do the Facebook ad that sends them there. The result? Below average engagement ranking.
When people click on your Facebook ad to go off the platform to your landing page, they have certain expectations that must be met.
First off, the message on your landing page must be the same as the message in your ad. If you promise them a free download in your ad, then that’s what they should see on your landing page.
(I wrote a detailed article on how to get leads with a landing page. Be sure to check it out.)
Secondly, the branding should also be the same. If you used a particular colour scheme in your ad, use the same colour scheme on your landing page.
Conversion Solution 3: Choose a higher intent audience
A high intent audience is one who is much more likely to take the action that you’ve optimised your ad for.
So for example, in the campaign I ran for my client’s workshop, I had optimised my page post ad for landing page views i.e. I wanted Facebook to serve my ads to people who were more likely to both click on the ad and load the landing page.
If this ad ranked below average for conversion (which it didn’t), I might have looked at switching to an audience that looked like people who had visited a landing page for another one of my client’s free webinars covering the same topic as the one they were promoting.
For us, this would have represented a high intent audience, because we know this audience had a demonstrable interest in the topic. To do that, I would have created a 1% lookalike audience for my selected landing page visitors in Facebook’s asset manager.
Here are a few more examples of high intent audiences that you can try out:
- Persons who have viewed a certain percentage of your video
- Persons who have expressed interested in attending an event based on an event ad
- Persons who resemble your engaged email or subscriber list
- Persons who've engaged with your page during a particular period of time
Conclusion
There you have it! I show you step-by-step how to build better Facebook ads that get website visitors
Having a Facebook ad strategy is important. Even more important is measuring your performance. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
Your ad performance is hugely affected by how relevant your ad is to your target audience. You can improve your Facebook ad relevance by looking at three areas: 1) Quality 2) Engagement 3) Conversion
Facebook provides you with a diagnostic tool for ranking your ad relevance along these three dimensions.
If your ad is tanking in any one of these, there are at least 8 different strategies to fix your problem.
So what do you think? Is there anything else you would suggest to build better Facebook ads that get website visits?
Let me know in the comments below.
I’m a content marketing specialist and owner of C.D BLACKMAN SOCIAL REBELLION MARKETING, where I make it easy for professional service-based business owners to create content marketing strategies that attract leads and clients more predictably.