Facebook Ads & targeting your market with Amanda Perry

Pedddle founder Nicki recently spoke to Amanda Perry of Soup Agency, the digital marketing specialists, to chat through Facebook Ads and what they could mean for your business, and why getting social via Facebook and Instagram is so important right now.

It’s more vital than ever for businesses to pull together in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. We all feel vulnerable – and that’s ok. None of us are alone. It’s ok to ask for support, and we can use this as a golden opportunity to reach out to our audience and utilise the online resources available to us.

Pedddle have and always will be huge champions of British trade and shopping small, and we hope these tips can help you.

Here’s our Q&A with Amanda:

Facebook Ads & targeting your market with Amanda Perry

What is the difference between an ad campaign and a boosted post?

A boosted post is created for reach – if you have a post that’s doing well and gets lots of engagement and ‘likes’, boosting a post an easy way of paying Facebook to show that post to more people, reaching a wider audience.

Facebook Ads are more of a sales funnel – they find people that have never heard of your business before but are your target demographic, and convert them into sales.

What is re-targeting and how do you ‘re-target’ your audience?

Re-targeting in an advertising strategy involving showing adverts to social media users based on their prior internet use. They say that people need an average of 12 ‘touches’ in order to engage with a brand – i.e. they need to have come into contact with your brand an optimal number of times.

We re-target an audience to make sure we’re targeting people who are most likely to buy into your brand. Re-targeting also allows you to assess campaign results more accurately – see below question about pixels.

What is a website Pixel and how can it help me?

A Pixel is basically a piece of coding which is an 8-10 digit number – it may sound super techy but we promise it’s easy to understand! Most bespoke websites have one (such as Pedddle).

Soup Agency have their own Pixel too, which you can easily drop into your campaigns in order to assess their effect. Boosting a Facebook post would show you how many ‘likes’ you can get on a post, but it doesn’t give you any insight beyond that click, therefore it doesn’t matter if your website has a Pixel or not. However, using a Pixel is crucial for a Facebook ad campaign, as it allows you to see the effects of your campaign beyond the click, such as engagement and reach, so it’s more important for campaigns targeted to specific audiences (and this is how it links to re-targeting).

Is it best to go for reach, traffic or another category on your first boosted post?

There is a huge difference between boosting a post and creating a Facebook Ad campaign.

It is possible to convert a sale just through a boosted post, but it’s not a predictable or scalable way to grow your business to rely on that avenue.

If you want to grow your business further, creating an effective ads campaign is key.

You can log into your Facebook and go into the Facebook Ads Manager setting (on all Facebook business pages), which will allow you to see conversion rates, engagement rates and so on. For example, if you choose to raise the awareness of your brand then Facebook would find people likely to remember you. If you wish to create traffic to your website, Etsy shop, Folksy shop or similar, then you would seek people likeliest to click on your page. If you choose to raise conversions, then Facebook will find people most likely to buy your product and convert it into a sale.

Amanda suggests that you ALWAYS use Facebook’s conversion tools to track your Facebook Ads campaigns. An average conversion rate is 2%, and a high conversion rate would be anything over 4%. If you’re thinking of setting up an ads campaign, looking to raise your conversions first is a good idea. If you already have an above-average conversion rate (4% or higher), then perhaps test out a traffic campaign instead.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel (sometimes called a purchase funnel) is a term common in digital marketing. If you haven’t heard of the term already, it’s basically a visual representation of the customer journey, depicting the sales process from initially coming aware of your brand to eventual action.

Is it advisable to do split tests?

Split tests (or A/B testing) are a method of conducting controlled experiments in order to improve your website metric or social media page, such as getting more clicks or purchases.

Amanda advises not to use Facebook’s own method of split testing because it’s based on their conversion rate of 50%, which is much higher than small businesses would get, so gives unrealistic results.

However, Amanda does think split tests are a good idea if you can use a proper agency (such as Soup Agency) who really know what they’re doing! In order to split test, you would then run two difference Facebook posts at the sametime, to the same audience, to assess the results of Facebook Ads.

Remember: Audience > Creative > Copy > Hook

What do we mean by this?

Audience = Your target audience, whoever your ideal demographic is.

Creative = Your imagery. On Facebook, you could use a single image, a photo carousel, a video and so on.

Copy = This is the text you write in order to sell the item.

Hook = This is what hooks in the customer and what they respond best to. It could be an offer, e.g. 25% off or ‘Buy 3 Get 1 Free’, or your brand story, such as ‘these items are hand-crafted in remote Wales’. The hook isn’t always a discount or special offer, sometimes it’s your storytelling and authenticity.

How much money should you spend on Facebook Ads?

If you have £50 a day it’s better to spend £10 in 5 days than £5 in 10 days – spend more over less time to optimise your campaigns.

Soup Agency has worked with all sizes of business, but they think £5 per day is the minimum amount you need to see results – but if you can track it with another amount to see how it works for you, then great!

Nicki knows one of Pedddle’s candlemaker’s who spent £40 per day on ads – but as a result they had over £400 worth of sales a day! He had honed his audience so well that the Facebook algorithm was able to detect exactly who would buy his candles.

If you know what you’re doing with Facebook Ads campaigns and have confidence in it, then there’s no harm in putting your money to it. Sometimes it can be less risk than attending events, if nobody turns up! Once you get your sales funnel right, social media can be incredibly beneficial.

How much text is optimal on an ad?

On creative Facebook posts, you can’t have more than 20% text.

On the actual text body, there is no set formula and your copy should also be tested. We have 3 categories at Soup Agency which we test with – short, medium and long form (¾ short paragraphs).

Does a single image or photo carousel work better in posts?

Generally these are both the two best performing ad types. You could test whether a single image, photo carousel or even a video works best for you.

With a video, it depends how much your audience watch as to whether they are likely to buy from you in the future. If they watch at least half of your video, it shows they’re a warm audience and good to re-target.

Is it better to have a narrow or wide audience?

It’s better to target small high audiences – the beauty of the Pixel is that it allows your ad account to store all data. If you regularly put content out then Facebook knows your market and the kind of people that like your stuff, so it’s better to have a broad audience – it depends how much content you put out and how well Facebook can therefore ‘know’ your business.

Is it the right time to push your business?

In the wake of recent news and Coronavirus chaos, it’s easy to feel as though you shouldn’t be pushing your business when so many are suffering. However, every single business needs help in these times of crisis, and being on lockdown is a great time to really focus on how you can spread the word about your business online and plan for the future.

Facebook Ads are ideal at this time.

When is the right time to start targeting?

Right now there’s so much uncertainty – people are having to work from home AND home school their kids too. Amanda suggests that although it’s not all good news and it’s a hard time for us all, in a few weeks we’ll reach a ‘new normal’ once we know what we’re dealing with.

Online is the place to be – everyone is suddenly online all day, every day.

Use your business to offer people real value in their lives

We all need to help each other in any way we can in the current climate. Whether you sell home-baked goods, crafts or homewares, we all need home comforts right now, especially if we face a long time being in our own homes.

You can still offer real value to people if they are stuck at home. With Mother’s Day nearly here and birthdays and anniversaries continuing, you could offer gift wrapping services and post gifts directly to a recipient. If you sell cards, why not offer to hand-write a message and post it to the recipient directly, or include a little hand-written note for purchases to brighten their day and thank them for buying your products.

If you make crafts or usually offer workshops, could you teach that online or run online workshops?

Think about the things that people really need right now, and try and position your business in a way that’s helpful to your customers.

Use this time to build your audience, so that when we can resume social activities in a few months they are ready to buy into you.