Category Archives for "Facebook Advertising"

Boosting Ticket Sales for a Pop Culture Convention: A Halloween Marketing Success Story

A blog header image featuring a spooky Halloween background, two superhero silhouettes and the blog title: Trick or Treat? Unmasking the Marketing Success of a Pop Culture Convention
A blog header image featuring a spooky Halloween background, two superhero silhouettes and the blog title: Trick or Treat? Unmasking the Marketing Success of a Pop Culture Convention

Trick or Treat? Unmasking the Marketing Success of a Pop Culture Convention

Halloween came early for the team at Marigold this year. We were tasked with selling as many tickets as possible to an event for a client without leveraging two of a marketer’s most valuable tools: urgency and context. That’s scary stuff! 

A looping gif of a woman screaming

The client hosts a B2C pop culture event in a major metropolitan area of the United States. They headline celebrity guests and give attendees the chance to see the casts of their favorite franchises up-close-and-personal.

It’s a format that’s proven successful multiple times over, but this year the Hollywood writers’ strike turned what should have been a walk in the park into a stroll through a haunted house. 

We could use the individual celebrities’ names and images in ads, we were instructed, but could not link them to the franchise they were associated with. That’s like when a kid marches up to your front stoop, proud of her costume and expecting you to remark with recognition, but all you see is a vaguely familiar outfit completely void of context. 

Would our conference attendees feel the same way? Could the celebrities’ name recognition alone drive purchasers, even without the logos, intellectual property, and context provided by their franchises? 

Jump scare gif

We faced another jump scare when we learned that there were no urgency periods built into the sales cycle. Ticket prices will often increase several times leading up to the event, giving marketers natural urgency periods to drive sales. There was nothing that incentivized attendees to buy their tickets and buy them now. 

Our toolbox lighter, we forged into strategy mode like a six-year-old dressed like Iron Man.

View CASE STUDY Inside The Facebook Advertising Campaign That Returned $9.71 For Each Dollar Invested

Were We Working on Frankenstein’s Monster? (AKA A Tale of Convention Marketing)

A black and white image of a spooky forest with the outline of Frankenstein's monster

The venue allows for nearly unlimited scaling, and we were told by the client, “There is no sellout number,” when we asked about it. Our mission was clear: sell as many tickets as possible for the budget we were given.

We reviewed the client’s marketing efforts the previous year to ascertain what kind of results were possible. The bar was high, with strong volume and low CPAs all around. We did a thorough analysis of exactly what prior efforts worked and which we would abandon. We want to undertake each new client and campaign with a well-formulated understanding of the landscape in which we are working.

Due to the nature of the audience, we knew that dialing in the interest groups was going to be one of the primary keys to success. Warm traffic was important, but in order to sell as many tickets as we needed to, we would have to find the right users and show them the right ads. 

Crafting MMG Magic: Selling Tickets to a Pop Culture Convention

Proper targeting would be key to success, we knew. We created audiences within ad sets that most effectively represented the likeliest avatar of an attendee given the celebrity guests attending. Some guests’ fan bases were flourishing in multiple sectors, and we used multiple adjacent interest groups to locate interested users. These audiences and their lookalikes proved to be integral to the campaigns’ success.

A Hocus Pocus gif

The client maintains a strong organic presence, and in order to ignite the energy amassed by social proof, our team used well-performing social posts of guest announcements as ad creative. We ran these alongside designed graphics and videos but celebrity-led creative far outperformed anything else. Our efforts were to get the right ones in front of the right users, causing the algorithm to do as little work as possible to pair the two.

Geographic targeting was another piece of the puzzle we had to get to fit. Since the event was held in a major metro area, we targeted geographically broadly for most of the sales campaigns. The last several weeks were spent targeting users within driving distance of the event’s location.

Implementing this strategy required agility, as we had to shift budget and focus multiple times in the duration of the campaign. A month before the event, we were tasked with selling celebrity photo op and autograph packages. We leveraged the existing interest-driven audiences and the celebrity creatives that were producing purchases in a series of campaigns. 

Then, with the event several weeks out, we were directed by the client to shift focus from the photo op and autograph sales, and once again shine the light on volume since the CPAs were so low and ROI was surpassing expectations. They could make more money by selling tickets than they initially expected, the event organizers realized. 

Unearthly Success: The ‘90% Sold Out’ Strategy That Haunted Our Pop Culture Convention

An image of a spooky forest with the heading: Unearthly Success: The '90% Sold Out' Strategy That Haunted Our Pop Culture Convention

A week out from the event, we began running “90% Sold Out!” campaigns for an event that we were told didn’t have a sellout number. 

On Meta platforms, we sold 1,258 tickets (41% more than last year!) with a CPA of $7.60 and 33x ROAS. We sold an additional 610 photo ops/autographs with a CPA of $5.18 and 48x ROAS. On Google, we sold 5,927 tickets with a CPA of $2.11 and ROAS of 118x. 

“Know your audience” is so common it’s become a marketing cliche, but in this instance, it proved true for a reason. With the platforms relying so heavily on the algorithms, the onus is on us as marketers to provide it the best information possible. By addressing the avatar from all available sides, tightening the location targeting at the right times, and leveraging social proof, we produced an “overwhelming” number of attendees according to the client, and made their on-site team earn their paychecks! 

Why Your Launch Failed (And How To Fix It)

Launch failed

Your Launch Failed, Now What?

Wouldn’t it be nice if just creating a valuable product was enough to make digital sales? What if your recent launch failed?

That would mean that all of your knowledge and experience could go to use helping those who need it most. It would also mean that the best-selling products were also always the best quality.

Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple.

But there is one key factor that will help you skyrocket sales. And once you have this asset, your marketing will become more cost effective, your conversion rates will increase, and you’ll sell your products like hotcakes.

That one factor? The attention of a targeted audience. An inattentive audience is often the cause of why your launch failed.

As Gary Vaynerchuck put it during Synergy Global Forum 2017:

There’s only one currency. It’s not called Bitcoin, it’s not Etherium. There’s only one currency. My friends, that currency, is attention.

Attention is certainly a valuable asset for any digital marketer to hold in his back pocket. But where many people go wrong is thinking they can quickly buy up attention whenever they want it. As if such a valuable thing is so easily bought.

But it’s not bought. It’s earned (at least, the type that will return results over the long run).

Keep reading to find out why the “quick fix” strategy won’t work and what to do instead, in order  to greatly increase your chances of success.

Why Short-Term Strategies Don’t Work

Sure, you can run paid advertisements whenever you’d like. In fact, you could get one up and running within the next hour if you’d like (this Facebook Ad checklist will help you walk through the steps).

But will it work?

Paying for ad placement is not the same as getting results.

The problem with the “quick fix” strategy is that your audience sees you as a complete stranger. You’re not a “friend” on social, you’re not an influencer, and you’re not someone to trust.

At least, not yet.

This is why conversion ads that ask for a sale typically don’t perform well if they aren’t supported by a larger and more comprehensive Facebook marketing strategy.

Instead of focusing only on sales this week, we actually want to use a strategy that will continually build your audience and simultaneously convert prospects to customers at a lower cost.

How do we do that?

Gary Vaynerchuck has it right again when he says…

“Give value. Give value, Give value. And then ask for business.”

Invest In Your Audience

Rather than just popping into the feed with an offer, try investing in your audience instead.

There is no shortcut. The truth is, building up an audience who knows, likes, and trusts you takes time.

Consider this…

Just as you wouldn’t expect to meet someone in the coffee shop and instantly invite them to take a long camping trip with you, neither would you invite a cold prospect (a stranger!) to invest thousands of dollars and 6 weeks of their lives on your digital course.

Your ask needs to match your current relationship (in business, online, and in real life).

And this takes an investment of both time (consistency) and money (ad spend).

As you consistently show up in the newsfeed with valuable content for your audience, you’ll become a trusted authority. They may even see you as a friend.

Then, it’s time to ask for the sale.

How To Focus On Building A Solid Audience

So, let’s get to work.

This post will give you some ideas on what you could promote to build up a relationship with your audience, but we’ll touch on the basic strategy here.

First, show up consistently.

Just as you wouldn’t canvas all of your social media platforms with sale offer after sale offer, neither should you promote sale after sale via advertising.

Second, get creative.

Experiment with video, images, blog posts, podcasts, and testimonials. See where you get positive engagement and shares.

Finally, keep it fresh.

Rotate content regularly so there is always something being promoted. This will ensure that your audience doesn’t only see you one time and then never again. For example, promote a blog for a week, then switch it out for your next blog and be sure to promote the new post to people who have engaged with your previous post. This way, you’re staying top of mind.

Of course, there is always a time and a place to ask for the sale.

Start investing in your audience today, and that time will come in the very near future. You will no longer have to wonder why your launch failed.

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

5 Unique Ideas For Growing Your List Using Facebook Ads (That Your Audience Will Love)

Growing Your List

Growing your list, for the brands who are a little too “hip” for white papers, reports, and webinars… 

We’ve got your back.

We’ve put together a go-to list for unique, out-of-the-box ideas for attracting prospects and turning them into leads using Facebook Ads.

Don’t get me wrong. Webinars, case studies, and reports all work well as lead magnets. But you won’t find those on this list.

This collection is for brands who want to spice things up!

We’ve seen all of these ideas work for our clients (plus, they’re all a lot of fun).

But before we jump in, let’s cover a few basic Facebook ad principles to help you get the best results for growing your list from whichever idea you put into action.

First, it’s important to understand that warm audiences convert better than cold. So, when asking for something from your audience (even an email address or other personal information), you’ll find that those who have interacted with you before will be more likely to exchange information or money for something they perceive as valuable than someone who has never heard of your brand before.

For that reason, you can think of these ideas as a middle milestone for your prospects.

Use these ideas to move colder prospects closer to a sale by inviting them to engage with your brand at a higher level… one that requires more commitment on their part.

They’ll need to exchange some information for the offering, but these offerings also might require some time on their part to really implement. So, they’ll typically work better with audiences who have had some exposure to your brand already.

And they’ll help cold prospects become warm prospects, so you can more easily market to them in the future when you’re ready to ask for a monetary exchange for a product or service.

Ok, back to the ideas!

The following are 5 unique ideas for growing your list using Facebook Ads.

Growing Your List - Timely Checklists: 

If you’re ever at a loss for what to promote, just take a look at the calendar.

Seasons, holidays and industry events could all serve as inspiration for a unique lead magnet or promotion.

We’ve seen good results using seasonal, holiday or other “timely” checklists.

Is there something your prospects should do around back to school or Halloween time? Can you help them get prepared for an upcoming industry conference?

When the season, holiday or event is on your prospects mind, it’s easier to enter the conversation with a helpful checklist (and it’s easier to get your prospects to share since the event is already on their mind).

Here’s an example of a holiday specific checklist that will help in growing your list. In this instance, warm audiences performed better, resulting in 329 leads at a total of $3.86 per lead. 

Note: remember to test different audiences, images and copy! All of the campaigns in the previous example made the same offer, but some performed significantly better than others.

Plans

Can you create an experience for your audience and help them walk through a challenge, each step of the way?

Consider putting together a digital kit to help them achieve a small goal.

Try meal plans, lesson plans or planning pages.

These kits could include a plan to follow for a day, a week or a month. It’s a good way to help the audience engage deeply with your brand and develop habits that they’ll want to continue (with your help).

Giveaways

Giveaways can get people talking about your brand and sharing the opportunity with their friends.

This is also a good way to develop a targeted list of people who are interested in a specific product, which means you can market that product to them again later on using Facebook’s retargeting options to show your ads to people who visited the giveaway page!

Ask the Expert

Are there questions that your audience asks over and over? Do they feel awkward asking in a public forum or on your social media pages?

Ask The Expert campaigns send prospects to Messenger where they get to ask you anything they want.

This is a nice way to engage with prospects on a personal level, but you can also create a process for responding where you’re sending prospects to blog posts, downloads or other goodies to get them closer to becoming leads.

Challenges

Why not create a challenge to inspire your audience to take action and reach a goal?

Run the challenge inside their inbox or right inside a Facebook group.

Make it fun with videos or live streams. Invite everyone to interact inside the group for added engagement!

So there you go…

5 unique ideas for growing your list using Facebook ads. 

Which one do you think your audience will love the most?

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

7 Signs It’s Time To Try Facebook Ads

7 Signs It’s Time To Try Facebook Ads

Do you know the signs that it’s time to try Facebook ads?

"In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create."

- David Ogilvy

In the last 20 years, the internet has made just about everything infinitely easier.

From ordering food to finding a date to seeing a doctor, consumers can access virtually any product or service they desire with unprecedented ease and convenience.

Conversely, the same is true on the business side.

Creating a product or service and offering it up to the right people has never been simpler.

But selling that product or service… that’s a bit more challenging.

As it has become easier and easier to make offers online, the competition has gotten fierce.

For many businesses, social media advertising is a viable solution and could lead to some impressive results (as long as you’re following the right strategy).

But is it for you? Let’s find out.

Following are 7 signs that you should be running ads on Facebook.

#1: It takes your customers more than one visit to make a buying decision

Most businesses fall into this category. People typically won’t make a purchase the very first time they are exposed to a product or brand. This isn’t true in all cases, but consider this… how likely would you be to drop $50,000 on a car you’ve never heard of or seen before?

Sure, that’s a big purchase…

But work your way down. Are you more likely to spend $20,000 on an unknown brand? $5,000? What about just $500?

Even smaller purchases requires a level of trust that is difficult to establish on the first touch.

Facebook Ads makes it easy to keep in touch with people who have visited your page, checked out products, or even who have abandoned their cart.

You may not have turned them into a customer the first time they stumbled across your site, but with a strategic campaign that nurtures and moves them along the customer journey, you’re more likely to turn that prospect into a customer at some point down the line than if they never run into your brand online again.

#2: Customers Can Easily Purchases Online

The less friction between seeing an ad and the customer getting what he or she wants, the better chance they will take action.

For example, it’s easier for most customers to enter their information online once they decide to make a purchase than it is for them to pick up the phone and order via an inbound call center.

Although this isn’t a hard and fast rule (we have clients who run local services who require customers to call or stop by), it helps.

(If you're interested in promoting a local store on Facebook, check out this post for more ideas).

#3 Your Business Is Scalable

If you’re able to service more customers without greatly increasing your costs, you may be a good candidate to try Facebook ads.

That’s because it’s possible to increase your profits while advertising without having to increase costs per goods sold.

For example, if you sell a digital product that won’t run out of stock, and if an influx of customers won’t strain your current team, you can scale your business using advertising and still maintain the same (or greater) profit margin.

#4 You Want To Target a Specific Niche? Try Facebook Ads

Facebook makes it easy to target a very specific avatar. If you know that your ideal customer falls within specific demographics, it only takes a few clicks to find them and show them timely messages.

The better you know your avatar, the better you can target them. Do you want to reach customers in the greater New York area who are between the ages of 25-55? Easy.

Want to target moms living in the U.S. who have children in grade school? You can do that too.

Whoever you want to reach, you can find them on Facebook, giving you a great reason to try Facebook ads

#5 It’s Time To Build An Audience

Facebook advertising is a great way to build an audience. If you are gearing up for a launch, an event, or otherwise want to build up an audience that is familiar with your brand, try Facebook ads; they can work for you.

Besides running ads to drive traffic to a sales page, ads can be used for a number of reasons. Try Facebook ads for building an audience using native video, or sending traffic to content on your website. Or, boost social posts to stay front of mind.

#6 You Have a High Converting Landing Page

If you have a landing page that converts well, why not send over more traffic?

If you try Facebook ads, they can give a quick boost of traffic that would otherwise be difficult to get organically.

If more targeted leads will lead to more customer conversions, you may benefit from paid ads. However, be careful. Simply sending traffic to a page that isn’t converting well won’t do any good.

Check out this article for more tips on optimizing your landing page for ad traffic.

# 7 When the Lifetime Value of A Customer Is Higher Than Advertising Costs- It's Time To Try Facebook ads

When deciding if paid ads will work for you or not, the bottom line is… is this good for business?

To answer that, it’s important to consider the lifetime value of a customer.

Calculate the profit on the initial sale, but also consider future sales.

Because you experience an acquisition cost every time you acquire a new customer, but pay significantly less (or virtually nothing) to sell to the repeat customers, it makes more sense to try Facebook ads when you can continue to sell to that same customer for a long time to come.

If the expected lifetime value is higher than what you’ll pay to turn that prospect into a customer, it’s worth it!

So… are you ready to try Facebook ads? If any of these 7 signs resonated with you, it’s worth taking a look! 

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

Wait… You’re Still Not Posting Videos on Facebook?

Posting videos on facebook

Social media videos, specifically videos on Facebook… it’s all the rage in 2018.

No doubt, you’ve heard marketers sing its praises for years now. So… what’s stopping you from utilizing videos on Facebook as an effective piece of your marketing puzzle?

Maybe you already have a general idea that video is the way to go, but aren’t clear on the how or why…

We’re going to break it down for you in this article as we dive into why posting videos on Facebook for your marketing strategy is a no-brainer and how you can fit it into your current marketing strategy.

And don’t worry, you don’t need to produce a viral video to make a healthy return on your investment. We’re going to show you how to get maximum reach just by using short, authentic videos that speak to your ideal audience.

A few short videos can quickly build trust with your audience, reach a large number of people within a short period of time, and, most importantly, help you convert Facebook users into customers.

The reason this works so well is simple, audiences love video.

Audiences Want Videos on Facebook

It’s no secret that audiences are choosing video more and more as their primary form of content.

Forbes reported more than 500 million people watch video on Facebook every day.

When people watch video, they share. Social users share video up to 1200% more often than they do text posts.

And when that video does get shared, it will have a greater impact on the audience than text-only posts.

That’s because where video really shines is by building relationships with audiences. Unlike text, video provides a rich, multimedia experience that allows your audience to connect at a deep, emotional level.

It’s also easy to increase reach via paid promotion. Videos uploaded as native Facebook content can usually be promoted for less than $.05 per video.

The bottom line: if you want your audience to see your content, try video.

How to Monetize Videos on Facebook

We regularly use video as part of a healthy Facebook marketing ad strategy for our clients. That’s because we’re able to use video as a monetization strategy. It’s all about building up your ideal audience.  

Here’s how…

First, create videos that provide value for your audience. Think short how-tos, tips, or other insights your audience might like.

This Inc. article summarizes how to best use your videos on Facebook to build trust and happy brand advocates, but the key takeaway is to create authentic, on-brand videos.

Next, upload the videos to Facebook. You’ll want these videos uploaded to the platform as native content rather than linking to a video hosted elsewhere.

You can upload the video to your page as a video post, then boost it for extended reach.

Or, you jump right inside Power Editor and create a campaign specifically for your video views.

Create a “Video View” campaign. This will show the videos to your audience inside Facebook.

Then, create the Ad Set.

Quick note on audiences: You can show the videos to a cold audience who hasn’t interacted with you before. This is a great way to introduce your brand to potential future clients.

Or, show the videos to a warm audience who has interacted with your page, joined your email list, watched previous videos, or visited your website. This is a great way to strengthen brand identity, build trust, and educate future customers to move them closer to a sale.

Next, create the ad.

Pro tip: Use the “thumbnail and captions” button to choose an appealing video thumbnail and generate captions (review the captions before publishing, the automatic generator isn’t 100% accurate). Many people watch videos without sound, so captions help drive home your message even if they don’t tap to turn on the sound.

Finally, it’s time to utilize this audience.

After your videos run for a little while, you’ll have built up a warm audience who recognizes and trusts your brand. Because warm audiences are more likely to make a purchase than cold audiences, people who have watched your videos are the perfect people to show offers to.

To do this, you’ll need to create an audience and populate it with people who have watched your videos on Facebook.

This post will help you get your audiences setup: 3 Ways to Target Your Ideal Audience via Facebook Ads

Then, simply create a new campaign.

This time, create a conversion campaign with the goal of driving traffic back to a landing page.  

Choose to show this campaign to people who have watched your video.

Your audience will be much more receptive of the offer after watching those great videos you’ve posted!

There you go, you’re all set to incorporate videos on Facebook into your existing marketing strategy. Shoot a few videos and get started. The sooner you begin to build that warm audience, the sooner you can start moving prospects over to your landing pages!

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

How to Promote A Webinar Using Facebook Ads

Webinar

Can Facebook advertising help your webinar audience grow?

Many businesses love a webinar as a way to add value, nurture prospects and close sales. 

Webinars work well... as long as you can drive traffic to the webinar.

Facebook ads are a great way to get prospects over to the presentation. If done right, ads can be very cost effective, making the webinar a profitable promotion.

However, if done incorrectly, the cost per lead could skyrocket, leading to taking a loss on the webinar.

Let’s dive into Marigold’s proven strategy for promoting these events using Facebook ads.

Phase 1: Build A Webinar Audience

This first step is an often overlooked, but very important step.

We’ve already explained that warm audiences covert at a higher rate and for a lower cost, than cold audiences do.

So, if you market your webinar to a warm audience, you’ll pay less and get more signups than if you market to a cold audience.

Start this phase early. Building a warm audience is an ongoing process. It’s like building an email list, or website traffic… you shouldn’t wait until you have something to sell to get started.

The ads sent out in this phase don’t need a call to action or an “ask.” Instead, lead the readers to blog posts, videos, podcasts, interviews, or just Facebook posts that your audience will enjoy and get value from.

Phase 2: Send Traffic To A Webinar Landing Page

Now that there’s a warm audience in place, it’s time to send out the opt-in offer.

The ads in this phase will drive traffic to the landing page. We’ve found that sticking to the basic ad format (text with one image) works well to entice a click and ultimately get conversions.

Unlike the ads in phase 1, these ads should include a call to action. The goal is to get the prospects over to the landing page and excited to sign up for the training.

Best Practices:

It’s always best to test, but here is what we suggest for best results.

First, always test multiple ad images. Choose images that stand out in the news feed and include text that is easy to read. Select a strong font that can be seen easily on both mobile and desktop.

[Here’s a quick article on how to create high converting images, even if you’re not a designer.]

Next, keep headlines short (4-6 words work well). Headlines should clearly state the benefit that the user will get from signing up.

To appeal to a variety of people, include a link in the body of the text. This way, readers can click on that link, or on the ad image itself.

Keep the call to action clear but friendly. We’ve found the “learn more” button to work well and not sound too demanding or committal.

Phase 3: Send Traffic to Sales Page

Assuming there is an offering at the end of the webinar, you’ll want to continue to drive traffic back to the sales page.

That is the goal of phase 3.

Through targeting, you can choose to show these ads only to those who have attended the webinar, or a wider audience.

Best Practices:

Like phase 2, create an ad with text and one image to drive traffic back to the sales page.

Create a clear call to action. Use images and copy similar to that used in phase 2 with some slight changes so the ads stand out.

Natural urgency (such as “doors closing at midnight” or “offer ends in 48 hours”) helps push those on the fence over the edge.

A large portion of sales typically comes toward the end of the campaign, right before the deadline. Don’t be afraid to create ads that specifically focus on this urgency and run them only at the appropriate time (example, ads that mention ending in 3 days, 2 days, tonight, etc.).

That’s it!

You’re all set to create a warm audience, drive traffic to the webinar registration page, and later to the sales page.

Remember, start building the warm audience early! A large warm pool of prospects will help get your webinar (and any future promotion) off to a great start!

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

Despite Changes, We’re Still in a “Golden Era” of Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising

If you’ve worked with Facebook advertising for any amount of time, you’ll come to know that there is one thing that is always certain: change is inevitable.

Changes come quickly and without warning.

It’s been a couple months since Facebook announced a major change to the algorithm that controls what users see in their feed.

An important component of that announcement was that users would see more posts from family and friends and fewer posts from businesses and brands.

Now that we have a few months of hindsight (and valuable data) to look back on, it’s a good time to reflect on those changes and look forward to what that means for businesses who utilize Facebook advertising.

Before we get started, I want to make something clear. Although some marketers have panicked, I still believe we’re in the Golden Era of Facebook advertising.

That is, there are still abundant opportunities to profit.

Although I believe it is the Golden Era, it is not the Wild West. Facebook advertising is young but it has evolved. In turn, the way advertisers interact with their prospects and customers must also evolve.

However, if you keep these 3 principles in mind, you’ll continue to thrive, despite these or any future algorithmic changes.

Facebook’s Goal Hasn’t Changed

Zuckerberg has been clear on his priorities from the beginning: to give the user a positive experience.

The changes to the newsfeed are consistent with that goal. He’d like to provide the user with more posts from friends and family that they’re likely to engage with and enjoy, and less mindless scrolling through the newsfeed.

What does that mean for businesses?

If you’ve consistently been adding value and have become a brand that your audience enjoys interacting with, your strategy should remain the same.

For brands who only push sales-driven content, they need to make a big change. If the content isn’t enjoyable, it simply won’t be shown.

Again, this isn’t anything new, it’s just more apparent after the early 2018 changes.

Facebook is About Community

“Community is the new brand.” - Ryan Deiss

The type of advertising that many of us have grown up hearing and seeing is much different than the type of advertising that is effective on social media.

Above all else, Facebook is a community. Brands who understand how to build a community are getting great results above those who push only conversion driven content.

Understandably, some business owners are not natural community builders and leaders, or they simply don’t have the time. That’s ok. If you’d like to build community, just ask for help.

Reach out to a super-fan and create a community manager role. If they’re already active on social media and speaking about your brand, it may be a natural fit.

Consider this a long-term strategy. A brand who is just starting to build community may not see results immediately. However, building a community will have long-term positive benefits for just about every business.

There’s Still Room To Stand Out

Facebook advertising is still evolving and this means there is still room to stand out.

New businesses begin advertising on Facebook every day, but many only push content that is sales-driven.

If you provide helpful content instead, you will stand out in the newsfeed among other advertisers.

As an example, in December of 2017, most users of Facebook advertising saw an increase in costs because there was a lot of competition for sales.

Our clients didn’t experience that spike. The reason is that we continued to provide value in a world where everyone else was selling.

Not only did costs remain low, but these clients were now poised for successful launches in early 2018 because they had very warm audiences to sell to.

The key is understanding how to monetize likes, comments, views, Facebook fans, and website visitors.

Final Thoughts

Compared to other advertising media, Facebook is still young. There will be more changes, but there’s no reason to panic.

Continue to remember what Facebook’s top priority is (user experience), and work with them on that priority by building community and adding value. If you continue to do that, your brand will remain strong through these and all future changes.

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

The Non-Designer’s Guide To Creating High-Converting Facebook Ad Images

Facebook Ad Images

How Important Are Facebook Ad Images?

In advertising, it’s always been vital to grab a prospect’s attention. That’s especially true when advertising on Facebook ad images. The news feed is crowded. Friends, family, co-workers, and advertisers all compete for the scrollers’ attention.

Images are, for the most part, the driving factor behind where a scroller’s attention turns.

According to Consumer Acquisition, images account for 75-90% of an ad’s effectiveness.

Without a compelling Facebook ad image, a Facebook user will scroll right past that cleverly written ad and mouth-watering offer in favor of something more captivating.

Besides stopping a scroller in their tracks, the image can also compel a click, comment, or like.

That’s a lot of pressure for one little ad image!

In a previous article, we touched on the importance of testing Facebook ad images. If you read that post, you’ll know that in our experience, we’ve come to the same conclusion as Consumer Acquisition: small changes in Facebook ad images can lead to a significant difference in CTR and cost per result. 

So, it’s important to get these images right.

This post will guide non-designers through creating ad images that convert. Just like anything else, the more ads you make, the better you’ll get. Use this guide as a starting point for creating better ad images that get noticed and get results.

Step 1: Create the Facebook Ad Image Copy

Because images pull so much attention in the newsfeed, this is a perfect place to highlight your most important text.

When creating the image copy, consider the biggest benefit to the user. Use clear language and avoid vague statements or questions.

Example: “50% Off Teeth Whitening” would likely work better than, “who wants whiter teeth?”

Keep it short and to the point. Although Facebook doesn’t have a rule for how long copy can be, they do have a rule for the percentage of the image that can be covered in text.

Facebook’s recommendation is 20% or less, which doesn’t give a lot of space. The more words used, the smaller that text will need to shrink to fit within the designated area. Instead, keep the text short and sweet so it can stand out and easily be read in the newsfeed.

Step 2: Check the Landing Page for Inspiration

A high CTR is great, but if the viewers don’t convert when they get to the landing page, that CTR doesn’t much matter.

Besides optimizing the landing page, keeping the ad images consistent with the destination page is another way to help improve conversion rates.

Consider matching colors, fonts, and possibly even exact images from the landing page. Now that you’re inspired, it’s time to create!

Gather any elements you’d like to use (logos, headshots, graphics, images), and make sure you have the proper rights for all images you plan on incorporating into the ad.

Step 3: Prepare the Facebook Ad Image

Since this guide is for non-designers, we’re going to focus on creating a design in Canva. This is an exceptionally user-friendly, web-based design platform. No design experience necessary!

If you’re making designs regularly, it’s best to invest in the premium version of Canva. The premium version saves brand colors and logos, supports multiple team members, and opens up access to many more images and design elements than the free version.

Once the Canva account is all set up, upload the design elements that were collected from step 2.

Step 4: Design the Background

Choose a size for your design. Canva offers a preset Facebook Ad image size that is just the right size.

Once you’ve opened that up, start with a background image that represents the ad’s biggest benefit or a color that matches the landing page.

For example, if you’re promising a guide for growing an Instagram following, the background image could be an Instagram account with high engagement, a happy woman at a computer, or a well-curated Instagram feed.

If you’re planning on layering on design elements or image text, add a solid color over part or all of the background image. The solid color can be made transparent if desired by adjusting the transparency setting found in the upper right corner. This will help elements and text shine through.

Tip: Images that convey a positive emotion tend to perform better. Try images of happy or smiling women looking at the camera, or at the text.

Step 5: Add Design Elements

Layer the chosen design elements on the image until you achieve the desired look.

As you move elements across the image, Canva will display a grid to help line up the images.

Aim for symmetry. The design should feel balanced from top to bottom and side to side.

While adding to the design, keep in mind that many people will view this ad on a mobile device, so keep elements large enough to see on a small screen.

If these ads are running to warm audiences, feel free to use more branded elements (images of influencers, logos, etc.). If the ad is running to a cold audience, avoid branded elements.

Remember to add the image copy in a clear and easy-to-read font.

Step 6: Check the Text

Once the image looks the way you want, download the design. It’s time to check that the text is taking up 20% or less of the image.

Not too long ago, Facebook *slightly* loosened up on the 20% rule. Now, they allow images with more text to run, but the reach is lower and cost is higher when text exceeds the limit.

Because of this, we choose to only run ads that meet the 20% requirement (why pay more for less reach)?

To check an image, use Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool. Simply upload the ad images and Facebook will instantly let you know if the text covers too much of the image or not.

If the overlay tool spits back a green check mark, the image is good to go! If a yellow or red icon appears, consider adjusting the image so that the text takes up less space.

Step 7: Test the Facebook Ad Image

Because images can have such a large impact on clicks, engagement, cost, and conversions, we want to make sure we get the most effective images in front of the audience.

That’s why it’s so important to test. We typically test 6 images per message with 3 images going to a cold audience and another 3 images going to a warm audience.

Bonus Tip: If all else fails, Facebook has a wide variety of stock images to choose from. When in the “Ad” level, add your image and select “Stock Photos.” Search for the type of image you want and select your favorite. Images can be cropped after selection.

That’s it! You’re ready to go design your first set (or next set) of Facebook Ad images. 

Take your time to get the image right. The results will be worth it!

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

The Quick & Dirty Facebook Ads Checklist

Facebook Ads Checklist

Measure twice, cut once. It’s always a good strategy. I like to apply it to Facebook ads because carefully checking work is especially important when you’re about to spend valuable ad dollars on Facebook ads campaigns.

There are a lot of moving parts to a Facebook ads campaign. It’s easy to click the wrong button and not even realize it.

I want to make sure you have all of the checks in place to reduce the chances of a campaign going live if it’s anything less than perfect.

This helps make sure your creative is on point and the correct audience is targeted, but it also guarantees you’re not blowing your budget because of a careless mistake (sending visitors to a landing page that doesn’t function, for example).

This checklist will help keep you, well, in-check.

After creating a campaign, use this Quick and Dirty Facebook Ads Checklist before going live to make sure everything is in place.

I’ve broken down this checklist into four categories to make the final review quick and easy; the campaign level, the ad set level, the ad level, and the landing page.

Step 1 - Review the Campaign

Check the campaign name. Is it clear and to the point? A sloppy naming structure creates confusion later on, especially once there are a lot of campaigns in one account.

Check the campaign objective. What’s your goal? Select an objective that matches. (Try to get this right during the creation process as it’s a little tricky to change later on).

Step 2 - Review the Facebook Ads Set

Check the budget. Choose between a daily or lifetime budget and make sure it’s something that makes sense for your business goals.

Verify the target audience. Check demographics or custom audiences and make sure they’re set how you’d like them. If you’re using a custom audience, verify that you have the most up-to-date data.

Verify the audience size. An audience should be narrowed, but not too small.

Check the dates. Verify that the ad set will be turned on and/or off at the right time, or that it will run indefinitely if that’s the plan.

Verify the placement. Whether you’re targeting desktop, mobile, right hand, or Instagram, check that your ad will be placed in the correct spot.

Tip: Select all ad sets to edit at the same time to verify variables that will remain consistent across ad sets. This will help you spot any inconsistencies that you may have overlooked while viewing individual ad sets.

Step 3: Verify the Facebook Ads

Check the image for consistency. The image should be consistent with the landing page and reflect the goals of the campaign.

Check image text. Image text shouldn’t exceed 20%. You can use this tool to verify.

Crop images. Take a look at how the image will appear on all of the placements for that ad (mobile, desktop, etc.). Crop the image if needed.

Read copy. Check for typos, grammatical errors, or awkward sounding phrases. Reread the copy in all of the text areas (text block, headline, and link description).

Check for Facebook policy violations. Headlines and link descriptions should be consistent with the landing page and not violate any of the policies.

Check links. If you’re sending anyone to a landing page outside of Facebook, verify the links are correct and functioning.

Tip:  Test multiple images per campaign. You may be surprised at which one converts better!

Step 4: Verify the Landing Page

Check landing page for compliance. Facebook reviews landing pages before approving Facebook ads, so make sure yours is compliant.

Verify the pixels are working. If you haven’t pixeled your pages yet, you really should. Once the pixels are in place, use the Facebook Pixel Helper for Chrome to verify it is working properly on all of your pages.

Verify the landing page on mobile. If you’re targeting mobile, assume a good portion of traffic will come from a mobile device. Make sure your site is functioning and legible on a mobile device.

Tip:  Follow these tips to create a high converting landing page.

If you’ve checked off all the boxes on this Quick and Dirty Facebook Ads Checklist, your campaign is good to go!

At Marigold, we run each campaign through a series of 4-5 levels of review. Each review is conducted by a different member of the team so the chances of going live with a less than perfect campaign are minimal to none.

I suggest you do the same, especially if you’re new to running ads.

If you can have a teammate who can look over the campaign, great. If not, take your time to go over each item on this checklist in detail so you don’t miss those little mistakes that could cause a decrease in conversion.

There you go, the quick and dirty Facebook ads checklist. I hope it helps!

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

2 Variables To Test For Better Facebook Ad Results

Better Facebook Ad Results

In the world of marketing, testing is king for better Facebook ad results. 

Finding the exact right elements, tweaking for perfection, and coming up with a winning combination is how marketers find what works and what flops.

If you’re not a marketer, the thought of testing might feel a little overwhelming.

Just consider the endless possibilities when testing for better Facebook ad results. 

There’s the image, the text, the headline, the link description, the landing page (not to mention everything on the landing page), the audience, placement, conversion goal, the time of day, the day of the week… the list goes on.

The combinations are endless, but before you throw in the towel, I’m going to share a secret:

At Marigold Marketing Group, we’ve found that testing even two variables leads to significantly better Facebook ad results.

To be fair, we didn’t just guess at which variables to test. We run and test hundreds of ads each week, and that has given us insight into what works best when it comes to things like campaign type, placement, conversion goal, etc.

Basically, we know what typically works best when it comes to better Facebook ad results. Yet, even when following all the best practices, it’s still beneficial to test each ad because there are significant differences when it comes to audiences and images. You’ll never know exactly what the audience will respond to until you test!

Here’s what you need to know about testing images and audiences.

Image

According to Kissmetrics, images can increase a piece of content’s visibility by 94%.

Posts with high quality images get more attention than those with no images or those with poor images.

Through our own testing, we’ve seen that images affect reach and cost per result, even when all other variables remain the same.

Here’s an example:

In the above image, 3 images were delivered to the same audience, with the same copy, the same call to action, the same landing page, and the same placement. In fact, everything was identical. Yet, the cost per lead varied based on the images alone.

Because images have such an impact on whether or not people will even see or engage with an ad, it’s important to test multiple images to see which performs better.

Still… there are an unlimited number of photos, and even more possibilities when it comes to graphic and photo combinations. Obviously, you can’t test them all. Here are some guidelines for getting started.

Images should be 1200x628 pixels, and keep text to under 20%. Although Facebook has changed their text ration rule recently, images with more than 20% text won’t reach the full audience.

To check the percentage of text on an image, Facebook has created a tool. You can find that here.

When it comes to creative, keep the colors, images, and fonts consistent with the landing page in which the ad is driving traffic. Having a drastically different landing page can lead to poor conversions, even if people are clicking through the ad in the news feed.

Finally, images that reflect positive sentiment typically do better than those with negative sentiment.

If you have a designer to create images, great. If not, it’s still possible to create images without using Photoshop or other graphics programs.

Canva is an easy-to-use, free, web-based application that allows users to click and drag to create images.

Or, select a stock image when creating an ad. Facebook allows users to select stock images and use them on ads for free. Just remember, not all images will comply with Facebook’s policy. So, don’t assume that the text meets the 20% rule just because it was found under the Stock Images section.

Now that we have the basic requirements, it’s time to test.

For a conversion campaign, we recommend testing 3-6 images. Let them run for a few days, then come back and make adjustments based on which ones are delivering better Facebook ad results. 

Let’s move to the second variable, audiences.

Audiences For Better Facebook Ad Results

We’ve talked a lot about building an audience, and the benefits of creating a warm Facebook audience before, but this is about testing between those audiences that you’ve created.

For most campaigns, we test 4-5 warm audiences and 5 cold audiences.

By breaking up the audiences, it’s easy to see which group is responding best to the ad. It also will give you control to put more money behind the audiences that are giving you a lower cost per conversion, and reduce spending (or turn off) audiences that aren’t responding as well.

Take a look at the following example:

Notice that even with the same photo (and all other variables being the same), each audience within our cold audience set performed differently with the lowest cost per lead coming in at just $2.75, and the highest being $4.81. That’s quite a difference!

You may also find that certain combinations are performing better than others. For example, maybe the audience made of email list subscribers is responding better to an image that includes your branding or face, but a cold audience isn’t responding well to that same image.

By breaking out your audiences and photos, it’s easy to adjust the ad spend to reflect these differences. If all of the audiences were grouped into one ad set, it wouldn’t be possible to make these adjustments.

Testing doesn’t have to be complicated. If you want to get a lower cost per conversion, but don’t want to run hundreds of variations of the same ad (or don’t have the budget to support such testing), start with just these two variables.

After a few days, jump back into the campaign and make adjustments. The results might pleasantly surprise you!

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them:

                       

Marigold Marketing Group | Facebook Advertising