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With over 3 billion active users worldwide, Facebook provides an unmatched platform to promote your business and reach your target audience. This article will break down the steps and strategies needed to effectively utilise Meta ads and optimise your Facebook business account.
Understanding the Importance of Facebook for Business
Facebook's importance for businesses cannot be overstated. The social media giant provides you with a platform to engage your customers, extend your reach, and build your brand. It’s an unprecedented opportunity to reach a diverse and widespread audience. Its versatile features, such as Meta Business Suite, Marketplace, Groups, Reels and ads through the Meta Ad Platform, offer great ways for you to promote and grow your business.
Facebook is more than just a platform to post updates. It allows brands to connect with customers on a deeper level, fostering relationships, building trust, and nurturing loyalty. It allows your customers to engage with your brand, ask questions, leave reviews, and share experiences, creating an environment that encourages two-way communication.
This promotes a sense of community and engagement and gives your brand ‘human-like’ qualities – which is an integral part of building a strong and sustainable customer base.
The huge amount of data Facebook has on its users also makes it incredibly valuable tool for pinpointing your target market. You can craft personalised, targeted ad campaigns, ensuring your content reaches the right demographic. You can also build audiences based and tailor your message to people based on where they are in their buying journey with you. Ultimately, this maximizes your return on advertising spend and achieves greater marketing efficiency.
Meta Business Suite provides a single place to manage and operate your business presence across Facebook and Instagram. This centralised and streamlined experience makes it relatively easy to manage messages, monitor performance, and conduct marketing activities.
On Facebook’s website, they share the case study of Sofia’s Restaurant, a small local eatery in Connecticut, New York. It’s a small local eatery that was struggling to increase its customer base using traditional marketing methods. They leveraged Facebook for business, creating a Facebook Page where they regularly posted engaging content about their menu and dining experience. They also used Meta ads, utilising Facebook’s user data to target food enthusiasts in their local area. This strategy led to a substantial increase in brand visibility and engagement. Over a six-month period, their Page likes increased by over 300%, and footfall to their restaurant improved by more than 80%, showcasing the power of Facebook in driving sales growth.
Meta Business Manager vs Business Suite
One of the more confusing aspects of Meta is that there is Meta Business Manager and Meta Business Suite. Meta Business Manager (formerly known as Facebook Business Manager) was introduced in 2014, making it considerably older than Business Suite, which started its rollout in 2020.
Business Manager is exclusively accessible on desktop, whereas Meta Business Suite is available on both desktop and mobile devices. Eventually, Meta has said they’ll be merged into one, but for now you’ll need to navigate both.
Business Suite is where you’ll manage most of the ‘front facing’ aspect of marketing on Facebook and Instagram. Scheduling posts, managing your direct messages, managing your Page, boosting posts and so on.
Business Manager is primarily focussed on the ‘back end’ for things like detailed business settings, the full Ads Manager, Audiences tool and various other tools.
When you go to business.facebook.com you’ll start at Business Suite. Click on the 3 horizontal menu lines (often referred to as the ‘hamburger’) to show all the tools Meta offers.
Anything with the small launch icon (a square with an arrow pointing up to the right) lives in Business Manager. Click on one (for examples, Ads Manager) and you’ll be launched into Business Manager:
Once you’re in Business Manager, you can get back toBusiness Suite by clicking All tools, then Meta Business Suite:
Yes, it’s confusing, but you’ll get the hang of it relatively quickly.
Getting Started with Meta Business Manager
Getting started with Meta Business Manager entails a few straightforward steps. Start by creating your Business Account:
1. Go to business.facebook.com/overview.
2. Click Create an account.
3. Enter a name for your business, your name and work email address and click Next.
4. Enter your business details and click Submit.
Once done, you can add your business's Facebook page, then connect your Instagram business account. Think of your Business Account like a smartphone, and the various Meta tools (Facebook Page, Instagram account, ad account, etc.) as apps on your smartphone.
Next, you can add people and assign them roles and permissions based on what they need to manage. For example, you might offer your marketing coordinator the ability to manage your Facebook page, whereas a digital marketing agency might be granted the ability to set up and manage your ad account. You’re in full control of who has access to different tool that sit under your Business Account.
Once you’re set up and you’ve assigned roles, you're ready to explore the full range of tools in Meta Business Suite and Business Manager. We recommend you explore all the options by clicking on each feature and following the help prompts available. You’ll quickly learn what options are available, and you’ll find it relatively straightforward to use.
Facebook Ads Manager Walkthrough
Ads Manager is a powerful tool offered by Meta. It allows you to manage and optimise your advertising campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Meta Audience Network, which is a collection of websites that deliver Meta ads.
Ads Manager provides businesses with the resources necessary to create and run targeted ad campaigns, monitor their performance, and adjust as necessary to maximise returns on ad spend.
Ads Manager lives in Business Manager and give you the full range of advertising features. Ads Manager is NOT the same as running ads through Meta Business Suite, which is a watered-down, easier version of Ads Manager.
Meta provides a great online resource that walks you through all the features offered by Ads Manager.
Your Meta ad account
As you begin your journey with Ads Manager, the first step is setting up your ad account. In the same way you need a bank account to transact with a bank, you need a Meta ad account in order to run ads on Meta.
Every Facebook user is given a personal ad account by default. You can go to Meta Ads Manager ad accounts page to see yours.
However, in order for your business to advertise with Ads Manager, your Business Account (the one you created above) will need its own ad account. And you can’t have an ad account until you have Facebook page, so follow these steps:
• Create a Page for your business, or request an admin, editor or advertiser Page role
• An ad account for your Business ID should be created, but if for some reason it hasn’t been, you can create a new ad account.
Running a campaign in Ads Manager
To start a new campaign in Ads Manager, click Create.
At the Campaign level, you’ll need to choose your marketing objective from options that range from brand awareness, engagement, conversions, and more. Select the ones most closely aligned to what you’re trying to achieve.
At the Ad Set level, you’ll need to define your audience. Facebook Ads Manager excels in its ability to segment audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviour, and other specific factors.
You can also create Custom Audiences, which are lists of people who have interacted with you before.
After determining your audience, you select the placement of your ad, which is where your ad will appear. Choose Advantage+ Placements to let the ad algorithm decide where to show your ads, or manually choose between Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or the Audience Network.
The final things to do at the Ad Set level is set a budget and schedule the run time of your campaign.
After the Ad Set level is the Ad level, where you’ll create the ads that people can actually see. One of the most notable aspects of the Meta Ads Manager is the ability to create engaging and eye-catching ad creatives. It provides various ad formats like single image, carousel, video, slideshow, and more. The 'Ad Preview' feature allows you to view how your ad will appear across different placements before it goes live.
When you’ve created your ad, enter payment details (if you haven’t already), then launch your campaign. It will first go through an automated ad approval process to make sure you abide by Meta’s advertising policies.
But the work doesn't stop once your ad is live. Monitoring and analysing the ad's performance is crucial for optimising results. The Meta Ads Manager provides detailed reporting tools that show metrics like reach, impressions, click-through rate, and conversions, allowing for data-driven adjustments to your campaign strategy.
You can see an incredible array of Meta advertising success stories, which you can filter by business size, location and industry.
Developing Effective Facebook Ads
It’s scary at first, but once you’ve run a few campaigns, you’ll start to become more and more comfortable with the Meta Ad Platform. But knowing how to run ads doesn’t mean that your ads will be successful. An impactful ad is not merely about the creative aspect; it involves understanding your target audience, crafting a compelling message, and optimising your ad based on data-driven insights.
Understanding your audience is the first step. The more you know about your target audience – their interests, behaviour, and preferences – the better you can tailor your message to resonate with them. Meta’s detailed targeting tools allow you to reach a specific demographic, ensuring your ad is seen by those most likely to engage with it.
Next, the actual creative aspect of your ad comes into play. Here, the aim is to catch the eye of the viewer and evoke interest in your product or service. This can be achieved through high-quality images, videos, and compelling copy. It's essential to keep your message clear, concise, and engaging. Moreover, a clear call-to-action is pivotal in driving the user to take the desired action, be it making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or visiting your website.
Monitoring and optimising your ad campaigns is an ongoing process. It's critical to make data-driven decisions to enhance the performance of your ads. Facebook Ads Manager provides a wealth of data, including click-through rates, conversion rates, and engagement statistics, which can be used to adjust and refine your ad strategy.
In conclusion, harnessing the power of a Facebook account for business can transform your online presence and rapidly increase brand awareness and sales. By understanding Meta’s comprehensive set of tools and its powerful Ads Manager platform, your business can reach its target audience, increase engagement, and ultimately grow its bottom line. The key to success is a well-structured strategy, data-driven decisions, and continual optimisation of your Facebook account for business. Ensure you keep learning and adapting to keep your Facebook marketing strategy cutting-edge.
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