When spending your advertising budget, you may be wondering how to get the most bang for your buck. Because there are so many different advertising and marketing options. How do you know which will be the best fit for your business, which will reach the right audience and give your business the highest return on investment?

Even with all the changes, Facebook has gone through in the past few months. It’s still a great place to advertise your business. Facebook Ads is affordable, and you can target your “ideal” customers. Approximately 1.93 billion people are using this social media platform every day. Therefore you are bound to reach the audience you are looking for it.

Facebook Ads Strategy in 2022

More than 3 million businesses are actively advertising on Facebook. It’s a great way to reach the desired audience and inspire them to take action. Many people don’t understand their ideal customers and how to target the people they want to sell to. Therefore, the question is not whether you should advertise on Facebook to be successful. But the question is, how do you advertise properly with the ROI (return on investment) worth your time and money?

Things to know before you set up Facebook Ads

Before embarking on running Facebook Ads, making a specific plan in advance will make your campaign much more successful.

First, you need to understand your customer:

• Who are they?
• What is their standard of living?
• How much does it cost them to be willing to pay?
• Where do they live? (Both geographically and whether or not they own or rent).
• Where do they work?
• How do they spend their free time?

Once you understand who they are, you’ll want to go one step further. You’ll want to understand how they think. What is their emotional state and what needs do they expect to be met? How do they define themselves?…

Next, you’ll want to take a look at the average customer purchase journey. What steps do they take:

• Realize the problem
• Determine what the problem is
• Discover potential solutions
• Found you as an option
• Choose to buy your product

For each customer, this journey can be slightly different. However, they are generally divided into 3 categories:

• Awareness Stage (top of the channel)
• Consideration Stage (mid-channel)
• Decision Stage (end of the channel)

Why is this important to you as an advertiser? Because you’ll be tailoring your content, offers, and calls to action based on any stage of your customer journey.

Finally, you’ll want to divide your audience into segments based on where they are in the customer journey. It will allow you to make the right offer to the right person at the right time.

Here are some examples of potential audience segments:

• Any new customers in the “lead stage” walk into your funnel as a lead because they’re interested in your product.
• Potential customers have visited your website but have not taken action, you may want to remind them that you are there, waiting to be ready to offer a solution to their problem.
• People read your blog, engage with your blog, and keep coming back for more. They are more likely to share your content on Facebook or make a purchase.
• The customer has landed on a specific landing page.  Most of them are interested in that particular product.
• Cart abandoners almost made a purchase, but something stopped them. They may only need a slight push to complete their purchase.
• Returning customers love your brand. They have purchased from you in the past and come back again and again for more. These customers can act as brand advocates, liking and recommending your products to their friends.

As you learn more about your audience, you can explore different segments and identify different messages. Now, you should consider how your Facebook Ads strategy will differ based on the audience to who you are advertising and where they are in the buying journey. Consider the following possibilities:

• When you’re looking to engage potential customers, you can create ads around your brand or content to help them understand their problems. It is also a way to position yourself as an expert.
• When your goals change, you want to convert leads. You’ll use contests, giveaways, free trial offers, ads, and timed offers to encourage them to make a purchase.
• Once prospects become customers, it’s time to implement more premium offers, referral programs, upsell campaigns, and raw materials.
• Once a prospect becomes a customer, it’s time to implement more premium offers, referral programs, upsell campaigns, and helpful buying information.
• Facebook Ads strategy

Once you’ve established the foundation for Facebook Ads, it’s time to look at the different strategies you can use with your ads.

Depending on the audience segments you choose to target, these segments may not fit your budget. So, make sure to keep in mind all the audience research you’ve done as you go through these options.

Combine Facebook Ads with Content Marketing

Many companies make the mistake of targeting potential customers with ads designed to turn them into paying customers. Instead of turning them down with straightforward sales offers, provide them with helpful content that answers their questions and solves their problems. This needs to be short, interesting, and valuable. How do you do this?

• Create content.
• Share content on Facebook.
• It is possible to ask group members (and maybe a small number of your friends) to like and share posts.
• Boost your Facebook posts so you can reach a wider audience.

Use giveaways and contests

Facebook contests aren’t always about sales. Instead of offering a high-value potential prize to increase brand awareness, which will pay off in the long run by bringing new leads into your conversion funnel. Before entering a contest or giveaway strategy, review Facebook’s policies to make sure you’re not breaking any of their rules.

Use Facebook ads with leads to build your marketing list

A large number of followers on Facebook is great, however, Facebook “owns” your contacts. So if they decide to change the algorithm or shut down, you will lose access to those people.

Creating lead magnets, such as a free e-book or course, and then running ads, helps you build your marketing list. Consumers can enter their email addresses directly into Facebook in exchange for a gift. You can then add their emails to your marketing list and include them in your email marketing campaigns in the future.

Combine Video Ads

Not only do people love videos more, but their effective cost-per-click (CPC) is the lowest compared to other types of advertising. Adobe has found that “shoppers who watch a video are 1.81 times more likely to purchase those who don’t.”

Create Facebook and Google Ads

While these two platforms are separate, Facebook and Google can complement each other in a rather unique way.

Your strategy should depend on your campaign goals and the audience segments you want to target. For example, someone looking for a specific product, such as a new computer, may be ready to purchase and simply research their options. Using the right keywords and creating Google ads around them, could be a better solution for targeting potential customers on Facebook with increased brand awareness.

Use Facebook Ads on mobile

Before we go any further, is your website or landing page optimized for mobile viewing? This means that users will have a positive viewing experience no matter what device they use. Even though 94% of Facebook ad revenue is generated through mobile devices, you will be “throwing money out the window” if you direct potential customers to a website that frustrates them. When it’s time to come up with a Facebook Ads Strategy, the most important thing you can do is get to know your audience better. All the fancy strategies and new tricks won’t help if you don’t know who you’re selling to and how they’re about to make a purchase.

Take a moment to get to know your ideal customer, find out who they are, what they do, and what they want. When you understand where your potential customers are in their buying journey, you can better encourage them to buy your product. Facebook may have changed, but the value of understanding your customers will never change.