Tips for Optimizing Your Facebook Ads for Page Likes

Facebook ads are some of the most effective paid marketing available. That’s not to say that they are the ultimate solution for you, or even the right solution for you, but they offer you some great benefits that you can’t deny. Facebook ad optimization is critical. Here are a few tips to optimize your next Facebook ad campaign to gain more targeted likes for your page:

Engaging imagery

Don’t settle for simply using your logo in the next ad campaign that you run on Facebook. The trick to getting people to click is to use imagery that stands out from the crowd and grabs users’ attention. We recently ran an ad test that brought in 80-plus targeted new page likes. And the best part is that they only cost $0.55 per like. The imagery we used was engaging enough that it stood out from the other posts in users’ news feeds and got them to click.

Catchy subject

Don’t  use subjects such as, “learn more about what we do.” No one, or at least very few people, will be enticed to click on that boring message. Try something fun and ask a question. Let’s say your company sells shoes. Try something like, “Want to learn how our shoes can speed up your 40-yard dash time?” A clever phrase, accompanied by the above-mentioned imagery, can be effective in convincing users to click on your ad and like your page.

Target, target, target

Don’t target the ad out to just anyone. First, make sure you are sending it out only to people who don’t already like your page. Otherwise, your ad is pointless if you are trying to gain new page likes. Once you’ve got that clicked, now you can get down to the real targeting. You can get pretty in-depth here with your selections. Facebook ads provide you with a lot of targeting options. Here are a few of the important ones:

• Make sure you select the right age group. If you are targeting the 18-24 demographic, be sure to specify that. You don’t want to be targeting all ages if your product only appeals to a small segment.
• Look at location and language. Be sure you are targeting the right regions, countries, states, etc.
• Narrow down your audience to specific interests. Not only can you go as deep as targeting users by interests like business and industry, fitness and wellness, hobbies and activities and others, you can get even more detailed within those categories. For instance, within the fitness and wellness category you can narrow down your audience to those that are interested in decathlons, bodybuilding, meditation, weight loss, etc. The audiences for each of these will likely be different, so take your time and narrow it down as much as you can to target the right users.

Set your budget

You don’t want to go broke from your Facebook ad efforts, so make sure you specify the proper budget before you submit your ad. You can set a total budget for the life of your ad, or you can set it to spend a specified amount per day. These are both great options.

• With setting a daily limit, you can disburse your ad evenly across a set number of days.
• By setting a total budget amount, your ad may end up running out within less time than specified, but you may reach your goals quicker.

Try spending a smaller amount first and testing. You need to know how it’s going to work for you. If you go all-in on the first shot and fail, you won’t have any budget to work with for future ads. The key is to gain as many targeted page likes as possible, but to not break the bank doing so. If you do it wrong, you can end up spending tons of money and only gaining a few new likes on your page. Spend a little the first few times and see what works best for you. Adjust your campaign as necessary until you get it right.

Hopefully these tips can get your started in the right direction. We’d love to hear other tips and tricks that have worked for your Facebook ad campaigns.

 Anthony Gaenzle  is Director of Marketing at EnVeritas Group