Why Businesses Should Use Facebook Ads

by Tim Mugabi July 27, 2021

One of the most persistent challenges shared by businesses, regardless of the industry they’re in, is consistently finding new customers. In today’s competitive climate, not only do consumers have more choices than ever before but there are more things fighting for their attention as well.

But the question is, why exhaust your business’ precious resources trying to get the attention of your target audience when you can simply go to where their attention already is?

That’s where Facebook ads come in.

As well as giving you the opportunity to market your business to one of the largest collections of people in history, Facebook ads allow you to reach them on a platform on which they already spend a lot of their time. Put another way, instead of hoping your ideal customer finds you – Facebook ads put you in the driver’s seat and lets you go straight to them.

In this article, we share seven key reasons why you should use Facebook ads to market your business.

1. Lots of People Use Facebook

The first and foremost reason to use Facebook ads is that a lot of people use Facebook. In fact, as of May 2021, Facebook (including Messenger) has over 2.8 billion active monthly users worldwide, with 2/3 of those people using it every day.

In terms of popularity, Facebook is only outranked by Google and YouTube. Combine that with the fact that the average person spends nearly 2 and a half hours on social media and chances are good that when someone is online, they’re using Facebook.

Better still, as well as having a colossal active user base, over 98% of Facebook’s users access their account via a mobile device – with 81% using it exclusively through a phone. This provides you with a cost-effective, visually-rich mobile platform to promote your business on. This can give you a considerable advantage over your competition when it comes to reaching segments of your target market that exclusively make online purchases through their phones.

2. Organic Reach Isn’t Enough Anymore

There used to be a time when a business would set up a Facebook page for their business, post on it occasionally and hope to generate a few leads. However, that strategy no longer works, as your organic reach (the number of people who’ll see your content without the use of ads) won’t be sufficient. Your content simply won’t appear in enough people’s newsfeeds to create the kind of buzz around your business that you’re looking for.

The reason for this is that the sheer volume of content being published on Facebook has increased dramatically. Consequently, Facebook has tweaked their algorithm so their users’ newsfeeds prioritise posts from family, friends, and those related to things they’re most interested in. As a result, Facebook minimises content posted from businesses in newsfeeds unless they’ve paid to promote it.

So, if you believe in Facebook’s potential to consistently attract new customers for your business, you’ll have to put some money behind your marketing efforts to see results.

3. Set and Control Your Own Budget

Although even though you now need to pay to see a return on your Facebook marketing efforts, the costs are in no way prohibitive. In fact, another of the major benefits of Facebook ads is that you can set your own budget.

You can choose between spreading your budget across specific ad sets, i.e., a group of ads with the same audience and objective, or an entire ad campaign. You can also choose to set a daily budget or a lifetime budget (how much you’re willing to spend on a particular ad set or campaign over a specified period).

Facebook will then take your budget and allocate it in the most efficient way, based on your advertising objective and maximum bid (the most you’re willing to pay to have your ad displayed to your target audience).

Best of all, you can easily change your budget at any time. You can start with an amount you’re comfortable with, experiment with different ads to see what your audience responds to, and then put more money behind the ads that perform best.

4. Powerful Targeting Capabilities

Because Facebook holds so much user data, it allows you to specify the type of person you’d like to target with your ads with incredible precision. Facebook ads let you hone in on your business’ ideal prospect according to a wide variety of criteria, including:

Location
Gender
Age
Interests
Relationship status
Major life events (graduating, getting engaged or married, had a child, etc.)
Job title
Education level or history
Spoken languages
Interests
Behaviours and recent purchases

Also, once you discover the kind of person that best responds to your ads, you can create lookalike audiences. This is where you enter the characteristics of people who had seen your ads and went on to purchase from you and Facebook displays your ads to similar people (who ‘look’ like your previous customers). Conversely, you can also make great use of blocklists, which prevent your ads from appearing in places that haven’t resulted in any leads or that aren’t in line with your brand.

Facebook’s fantastic targeting functionality is a highly effective way to learn more about your target audience. With it, you’re better able to connect with the kind of people who are most interested in your products, maximise your return on ad spend (ROAS), and get the most out of your marketing budget.

5. Remarketing

Remarketing, or retargeting, is a strategy that involves advertising to people who’ve already expressed interest in your business in some way. This could be through visiting your website, subscribing to your newsletter, clicking on a link in an email, or interacting with one of your Facebook ads.

Facebook makes remarketing possible through the use of its pixel: a small piece of code that’s added to your website to track people who’ve interacted with your business, as well as the manner in which they did so (pages they visited, ads they viewed, etc.). Facebook will then show these people your ads when they visit other sites, go on social media, use mobile apps, etc.

This strategy is especially powerful because each time a potential customer sees one of your ads, they become more familiar with your business– and with this increased familiarity comes trust. Now, of course, someone could purchase from your business the very first time they come across it (and isn’t it great when they do?). However, on average, someone has to interact with your brand seven times before they go on to make a purchase.

With remarketing, you can ensure that people who’ve already shown interest in your products get the necessary repeat exposure to form the desired connection with your brand. It’s an excellent way to boost your conversion rates and maximise the ROAS of your Facebook ads.

6. Variety of Ad Types

Another key benefit of Facebook ads is their diversity. You’re not limited to certain ad types, such as plain text, as is the case on some other platforms. Instead, you have the ability to create an array of creative, visually captivating ads comprised of different media elements, such as text, images, video, and sound. Types of ads you can create on Facebook include:

Photo
Video
Slideshow: Stitch together up to 10 images with music, text, etc.
Carousel: Comprised of up to ten images and videos
Collection: A featured video or image alongside four smaller images
Facebook Offers: Give prospects discounts and deals on your products
Playables: Interactive demos of your app or game
Instant Experience: Ads optimised for mobile users

These options allow you to get creative with your ads and come up with unconventional ways to capture your target audience’s attention and successfully convert prospects into paying customers.

7. Create Ads for Specific Business Goals

As well as allowing you to choose different types of ads, Facebook allows you to set the objective of your ads. Your advertising objective will be in line with your current business goals and is what you want a prospect to do when they see one of your ads. In other words, the specific action you’d like them to take towards making a purchase.

Facebook’s algorithm then takes this objective and optimises your ad by showing it to people who are most likely to engage with it. There are three types of business objectives: awareness, consideration, and conversion. Here’s a summary of each type, along with examples of specific objectives you could set for your ads:

Awareness

Brand Awareness: Increasing people's awareness of your business
Reach: Showing your ad to as many people as possible within your target audience

Consideration

Traffic: Sending people from Facebook to a specific destination like a landing page, blog post, etc.
Engagement: Encouraging engagement with your posts, including likes, comments and shares
Lead Generation: Collecting qualified leads for your business

Conversion

Conversions: Asking prospects to take specific action on your website, like downloading your app, registering their details, calling your business, or making a purchase
Catalogue Sales: Showcasing specific products from your range to generate more sales
Store Traffic: Promoting your physical business location to nearby prospects

Being able to define your objective allows you to reach prospects at different stages of their buying journey. It helps you to show the most appropriate ads to the right people which further boosts your conversion rate and maximises the return on your marketing budget.

Are You Ready to get started with Facebook Ads? We’re here to help

Pear Digital can help you set up and manage Facebook ad campaigns that will bring your business more qualified leads, help convert more leads into customers, and take your ROAS to new heights.

We’ll help you identify your target audience and create compelling ads that capture their attention and establish the desired connection with your products.

For examples of what we can do for your business, take a look at two of our recent campaigns for Maqio (76x ROAS) and Bully Billows (64x ROAS).

Ready to see similar results within your own business? Drop us a line and we’d thrilled to talk over your options.