There are over 2.6 billion active monthly users on Facebook globally and over 346.2 million active users from India. Chances are your prospects are also on Facebook.

Facebook ads are one of the most effective ways of reaching out to a laser targeted segment of a business's prospects.

In our 6+ years of experience as a digital marketing agency, we have noticed that Facebook ads have the highest ROI (up to 50X) among all paid online advertising channels and platforms. Especially for small and medium eCommerce websites, local businesses, and local service providers, Facebook ads are highly profitable.

To help small business make sense of Facebook Ads and make it a profitable investment, we have shortlisted 5 steps that ensure the best ROI results for a small business Facebook advertising campaign:

Select your marketing objective
Define your audience
Set up your budget and schedule
Design your advert
Understand Facebook Ad Reports

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1. Select Your Marketing Objective

A marketing campaign can broadly be divided into 3 objectives:

Awareness Campaign

- An awareness advertising campaign is focused on generating awareness in your products and services. These campaigns help in increasing the brand awareness of your business. Awareness campaigns also inform your prospects how your business can bring value to their lives.

For example, Home Mart, a local supermarket in JP Nagar, Bangalore can advertise their fresh and organic produce to people living in and around their neighborhood JP Nagar. That'll help the business increase awareness about their higher quality products as well as their brand. The next time someone in JP Nagar is thinking of buying fresh vegetables, they'll be more likely to buy from Home Mart thanks to increased awareness of their products and brand through Facebook Advertisements.
Consideration Campaign

- Consideration campaigns get your audience to start thinking about your business, products, or services and look for more information about it. Consideration campaigns are aimed at encouraging prospects to take the first step to engage with your business.

For example, Home Mart, a local supermarket in JP Nagar, Bangalore could run a consideration campaign to encourage its prospects to click on their websites' link, download their app, or just signup for more information.
Conversion Campaign

- This campaign is focused on getting high-value action from your prospects. Events, like adding a product to the cart, or submitting a form on your landing page, or making a payment on the website, are considered conversions. Conversions can be of multiple levels.

For Example, If we consider an eCommerce website, Add to wishlist could be a level 3 conversion, Add to Cart, can be a level 2 conversion, and placing the order and making the payment can be a level 1 conversion.

2. Define Your Audience

While defining your audience you can make use of Facebook targeting options like:

Age
Location
Gender
Income
Language
Education
Facebook Pages, brands, news, magazines, followers and unfollows, and more

It's recommended to define an audience between 10,000 - 100,000 to make your advertising campaign effective.

3. Set Up Your Budget And Schedule

Facebook provides the most budget-friendly advertising options among all digital marketing channels and platforms. You can set a budget starting from Rs. 75 or $1 per day.

You can set lifetime budgets or daily budgets for your campaigns.

You can also schedule your campaigns for maximum ROI based on your audience and your business timings. For example, you advertise only on weekdays or you can advertise only during your business's working hours say 10 AM - 7 PM, etc.

4. Designing Your Advert (Ad)

On Facebook ads, you can choose from multiple ads format such as:

Carousel
Single image
Single video
Slide show
A mix of images and videos etc.

The image resolution of 1200 X 628 pixels is recommended for your desktop campaigns.

The image resolution of 1080 X 1080 pixels is recommended if you are running mobile ads.

Nowadays video ads are resulting in maximum conversions at minimum costs.

There are five essential parts to your ad:

Image / Video
Headline
Text description
Call to action
Link description

Try A/B testing with your ads copy for the above 5 essential elements to arrive at the most engaging and lucrative combination.

Run A/B testing campaigns for at least 4 days to help identify a clear winner.

5. Understanding Reports & Ads Optimization

Understanding the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of your ads is very important to run a successful campaign.

Some of the most important KPI's are:

Impressions
Link Clicks
Likes
Shares
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Conversion Rate
Return on investment (ROI)
Cost per click (CPC) - Read more about CPC here.
Cost per 1000 impressions (CPM)
Cost per conversions

There are many more KPI's available in Facebook ads reports.

You can create custom reporting columns with the KPI's that matter to your business the most.

You can also arrange the columns in different orders to make the most of Facebook ads reports.

Once you start understanding the KPI's, you can start to optimize the ads to generate maximum results.

For example, if you notice that one of your product's image is getting the most clicks, then your increase the budget if that ad and reduce the budget your other non-performing ads.

This way you can increase your ads ROI.

Are you new to Facebook Advertising?

We can help you get the most bang for your buck.

We are a full-service Digital Marketing agency in Bangalore India.

Our services include:

Infographic: Small Business Guide To Facebook Advertising

Are you new to Digital Marketing?

We can help you get the most bang for your buck.

We are a full-service Digital Marketing Agency in Bangalore India.

Our services include:

1. Select Your Marketing Objective

Awareness Campaign

Consideration Campaign

Conversion Campaign