How To Create Facebook Ads For Beginners: Complete Guide

Consider a marketing tool that assisted you in locating your perfect clients based on their preferences, interests, and purchasing patterns. A program that optimized the distribution of your ads to put your message in front of those most likely to convert, saving you time and money. Facebook Ads.

That's what you get with Facebook advertising, a tool utilized by a lot of ecommerce business owners and marketers, particularly those who are just getting started and don't have much advertising expertise or a lot of money to spend on ads. As long as they're ready to master the fundamentals, anyone can use Facebook ads to power their business expansion.

This beginner's tutorial will explain how to build up a Facebook ad campaign to increase sales for your company as well as look at what makes Facebook such a well-liked advertising platform with so many firms.

How to advertise on Facebook: A step-by-step guide to creating Facebook ads

Step 1: Set up your Meta Business Suite

Many people who lose up on their Facebook advertising attempts do so due to erroneous account setup or being so daunted by Facebook's plethora of ad possibilities that they never got as far as acnducting a campaign.

To guarantee that you get off to a good start, make sure your Meta Business Suite account is properly configured.

Your Facebook ad account, company pages, and other tools you'll need to execute your advertisements are all located in the Meta Business Suite part of Facebook.

Go to business.facebook.com and select Create Account to create your Meta Business Suite account.

Facebook will request your name, email address, business name, and Facebook business page (if you don't already have one, create one first).

The next step is to add an existing advertising account or establish a new one. Ads can be selected in the left menu bar to do this.

Create an account by following the instructions. This is your advertising center, from which you can access every Facebook page related to your company.

Step 2: Install the Meta pixel

Understanding whether or not their advertising truly worked is one of the most common problems experienced by new Facebook ads. Without installing the Facebook pixel, you won't be able to see whether an advertisement resulted in any purchases on your website, even though it is possible to boost a post or even set up an advertising campaign via Ads Manager.

Your Facebook ads and your website are connected through the Facebook pixel. Before you start paying for advertisements, you must first generate the pixel—a tracking code—in your Meta Business Suite account and put it on your website. It displays every action that website visitors who arrived via Facebook ads made on your site. In essence, the Facebook pixel tells you not only if your advertisements were successful but also which precise audiences and creative elements were responsible for those conversions.

Setting up your Facebook pixel in Online Store

It's simpler than it sounds to install the Facebook pixel on your website, and coding is rarely necessary.

To set up your Facebook pixel if you're using Online Shop, just copy your pixel ID (a 16-digit number) from your Meta Business Suite account and paste it into the Facebook pixel ID box, which is found under Online Store in the settings section of your online store.

Within a few hours of adding your pixel ID to your online business, you ought to start seeing activity on your website. Your Meta Business Suite account's Pixels section keeps track of statistics like visits, cart additions, and transactions.

Step 3: Create Facebook audiences

One of the keys to success with Facebook advertising is selecting the correct audience for your advertisements. Facebook has billions of users worldwide, so using its audience tool can help you locate the people who are most likely to be interested in your business or product.

You may make lists of individuals to target with your advertising in the Audiences part of Meta Business Suite. These lists may be built using a variety of parameters found in the audiences section, but they can be broadly categorized into two groups: retargeting and prospecting.

Retargeting: Converting warm audiences

An individual who has been to your website, put something on their shopping cart, or following you on Instagram is more inclined to think about purchasing from you; they may only want some encouragement.

Retargeting is one of the most efficient types of Facebook advertising if you've ever viewed a brand's website and then found yourself targeted by its adverts every time you open Facebook or Instagram.

The Meta Business Suite's Custom Audiences function, found in the Audiences area, allows you to build Facebook retargeting audiences. Through Custom Audiences, Facebook gives you the chance to access all the information collected by your Facebook pixel and business pages.

You are given a selection of several sources to choose from when building a Custom Audience. Customer lists, websites, and catalogs are the three key sources ecommerce organizations will want to leverage.

1. Customer list

You may submit a list of phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact details you've gathered from leads or customers using the customer file feature. Facebook links this data to its users, allowing you to target them specifically with your adverts.

Using a customer list to build an audience is a terrific way to contact email subscribers who haven't made a purchase yet or re-engage prior customers with new offerings.

2. Website 

You may build a retargeting list using internet traffic to target your website visitors. Based on the activities completed or websites visited, you may construct lists of different sizes here. People who visited your website during the last 30 days or who added something to their basket within the last 7 days are common retargeting lists that often convert well.

3. Catalog

You may connect with users who have engaged with goods in your catalog using this unique audience.

Prospecting: Finding new customers

Even more effective than retargeting previous clients and converting website visitors is finding new clients when utilizing Facebook ads to grow your business.

Advertising to people who haven't made a purchase from you or interacted with your business online is known as “prospecting” and entails looking for new clients. This includes the vast majority of Facebook's billions of active users for small and medium-sized businesses, and figuring out how to start whittling down that list can be challenging.

Facebook developed two helpful resources to assist businesses in finding the most suitable new clients:

1. Lookalike Audiences

Using a list of clients or leads you've previously gathered is one method Facebook discovers promising possibilities for your company. Lookalike Audiences establish a new audience of Facebook users who are similar to your current customers using the information from your Custom Audiences.

Any of your Custom Audiences may be used to generate Lookalike Audiences, which can be made up of people who resemble 1% to 10% of the population of a certain nation. An easy first target for your prospecting efforts is a 1 percent Lookalike Audience, which is made up of persons who most closely match the Custom Audience source.

Moving to a 3%, 5%, and finally, 10% Lookalike Audience may provide you additional scale while still being connected to a user profile that matches your client when your targeting and budget are increased.

2. Interests, behaviors, and demographics

You may leverage Facebook's interests, habits, and demographics data to construct prospecting audiences utilizing the stored audiences option if you don't have a list of former clients or website visits to establish a Lookalike Audience.

The breakdown of each category is shown below, along with illustrations of its sub-groups:

• The pages and information that Facebook users have interacted with are related to interests (e.g., K-pop, scuba diving, exercise).
• Behaviors are user activities that Facebook has logged (e.g., celebrating a birthday, moving to a new city, having a baby).
• User profile data is included in demographics (e.g., new moms, engineers, college grads).

From all of the possibilities accessible in terms of interests, habits, and demographics, there are probably some audiences you'll want to test. It's recommended practice to test each audience separately to determine which one performs best because interest, behavior, and demographic audiences are typically fairly broad and comprise hundreds of thousands to millions of individuals. You may begin experimenting with additional audience layers to widen your prospecting efforts once you have focused on the audiences that respond to your advertising.

Step 4: Create a Facebook ads campaign

Go to the Ads area of your Meta Business Suite account and click the Create Ad button to start constructing your first campaign. You will then be prompted to choose a goal.

There are 6 categories of goals within Facebook ads:

• Automated ads: Facebook will test 6 different ad versions to see which performs best.
• Get more website visitors: for when you want to get more website traffic.
• Boost a post: in cases where you want to promote an organic post.
• Get more Messages: the goal for running click-to Messenger ads.
• Promote your Page: simple ads that promote your Facebook Business Page.
• Get more leads: for collecting contact info from people on Facebook.

Think about your company's objectives and what you hope to accomplish with your Facebook ads, and let the answers inform your choice.

Facebook will always charge you for impressions—the number of users who see your advertisement—regardless of the aim you select. It is crucial to let Facebook know what your aim is so that your advertising may be tailored to help you achieve it. You won't be assured to achieve your goal if you choose Traffic when what you're after is website purchases because it wasn't the target you selected at the campaign level.

Step 5: Choose your creative and schedule

The creation of the creative, or the actual ad, is the next phase in the Facebook ad creation process.

Facebook advertising has its own set of best practices for Facebook ad creative that converts, making it quite distinct from traditional advertising.

You may choose the Facebook business page or Instagram account that will display your advertisements when you create an ad. Even if it isn't your primary campaign target, this side benefit is a fantastic way to increase brand recognition and social media followers.

After setting your creative, you have the opportunity to choose:

• The budget you want to spend.
• Which audience do you wish to target?
• The placement of your ads within Facebook’s network of products.

A prospecting or retargeting list you made in the Audience area will be available for you to choose from and edit. Your target may be further restricted by selecting locales, genders, ages, and languages, which also gives you additional testing options for various ad sets. To build your audience, click Create New.

The duration of the ad campaign comes next. Ads can either run constantly or on a certain date that you choose.

After that, input your budget and decide if it should be a daily or lifelong budget. Several factors determine how much money to spend, including:

• The cost of your product: higher-cost items generally require a higher ad spend.
• How much money you’ve budgeted for marketing: you can only spend what you can afford.
• Your average customer acquisition cost: if you have tried paid advertising on other platforms and have a customer acquisition cost, you will want to apply it here.
• The objective you’re optimizing for: sales-focused objectives like purchases usually cost more than awareness-focused objectives like engagements and clicks.

By assigning adequate funding to reach your objective, you should always make sure you are giving Facebook advertising a fair chance. You must allot time (and money) for Facebook's “learning phase,” when its algorithm reviews your data after your advertisements have been placed. To optimize your campaign budget across ad sets and achieve the greatest results, you may utilize Facebook's campaign budget optimization (CBO).

Finally, ad settings let you choose where you want your advertisement to appear. Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger advertisements are all options.

Click Promote Now after you're done and everything looks okay. Then Facebook will assess your advertisement. It will go online if authorized!

Retargeting with dynamic product ads

The dynamic product ad is one of the most popular Facebook ad types for e-commerce. You've probably seen a dynamic product ad in action if you've ever browsed an online store and then been retargeted with the identical things you looked at. These advertisements combine your Facebook pixel data with your Facebook product catalog so website visitors are shown items they have already looked at or put in their shopping cart.

Another link that may be created inside Meta Business Suite, under the Assets tab, between your company website and your ad account is the Facebook product catalog. Through your Facebook pixel, you can build a catalog, or if you use Shopify, you can connect the Facebook sales channel and have your items sync with your ad account automatically.

When you're ready to build a dynamic product ad and your catalog is complete, go back to the Ad Manager and start a new campaign with “Product Catalog Sales” as the goal. By doing so, you'll be able to decide to who you want to advertise relevant items and choose your product catalog at the ad set level.

Dynamic product advertising may be used for prospecting, in addition, to retargeting previous customers or website visitors. If you select this option, Facebook will display items from your store it thinks potential customers would find relevant based on their profile information, even if they have never been to your website before.

Step 6: Optimize your Facebook campaigns

Setting up a campaign on Facebook is a crucial initial step, but if you want to thrive there, you'll also need to understand how to track its ad success and improve it over time. Generally speaking, you should review your Facebook advertising at least once every day (even more frequently as you increase your spending).

If you don't notice any transactions after a day, it could be tempting to adjust your targeting or turn off an advertisement, but it's crucial to remain patient.

The algorithm for Facebook ads needs time to discover which users are most interested in what you're offering. Try delaying further investment or shutting down your ad to test something new until it has received at least 1,000 impressions if you are unsure whether to switch off your ad.

Creating a funnel

Both prospecting and remarketing should target certain demographics, but they often perform best when combined to form a “funnel.”

A funnel is a marketing technique founded on the uncomplicated premise that the great majority of the population you are marketing to isn't immediately ready to make a purchase. A funnel-based marketing strategy focuses on customizing your advertising based on the likelihood that your audience will make a purchase and their level of knowledge of your brand and items.

By using a cold group of potential buyers, such as a Lookalike Audience or a behavior-based audience, in one campaign and retargeting website visitors in another, you may create a funnel on Facebook. Your funnel may get more complex when you increase your advertising budget by running many campaigns that target buyers at various points along the funnel:

The aforementioned illustration demonstrates how one campaign may be used to generate traffic and awareness from a bigger audience at the top of your funnel, and subsequent campaigns can re-engage or retarget that traffic to encourage them to make a purchase.

Choosing a less expensive, higher-funnel objective, such as traffic or adding to carts, might produce a list of prospects to retarget with a second campaign if prospecting using the Purchase Conversions objective is not delivering sales for your company. By doing this, you can use Facebook advertisements to successfully establish a funnel where you can offer each target demographic differently and entice them to return to your website and make a purchase.

Types of Facebook ads

Your goal and the kind of ad you employ will determine how successful your Facebook advertising is. However, because there are so many distinct styles to pick from, creating effective, high-performing advertisements can be difficult for many newcomers.

We've highlighted five essential Facebook ad styles you can utilize to assist you to get beyond this obstacle.

Image

The norm for Facebook advertising is single picture advertisements. One of the most powerful ad forms, they are simple to create and provide a clear platform for you to advertise your company. A sequence of photo-only advertising beat other ad formats in a Facebook research for generating unique visits.

When you need to make an advertisement fast or with a limited budget, image advertising is the perfect option. If you want more specific targeting choices, you may build an image ad in Facebook Ads Manager, or you can create one directly from your Facebook page as a boosted post.

Video

You may showcase your business or product with video advertising, which also draws visitors' attention to the stream. In Facebook ads Manager, you may make video ads or boost a post from your Facebook page that includes a video. These advertisements are seen on Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook.

You may use Facebook video advertising to highlight distinctive qualities or share your company's history. Videos that last 15 seconds or fewer can help you draw in and maintain the attention of your viewers. A clear call to action (CTA), such as making a purchase or visiting a website, should also be included.

Carousel

Up to 10 pictures or videos can be used in a single carousel ad, each with its link. On their mobile devices, users may swipe left or right to go through the carousel, or if they're using the desktop client, they can click the directional arrows.

You can use carousel ads to:

• Give a tutorial or describe a method.
• Feature multiple products and link out to different landing pages.
• To educate potential customers, display a product from several viewpoints.
• Present one large image across multiple frames to create a more immersive experience.

Collection

To make it simpler for customers to browse and purchase your items, the collection ad style includes a full-screen Instant Experience. These advertisements have a cover picture or video and several goods beneath.

Collection advertising is an excellent method to highlight your product line, provide a pleasurable browsing experience, and support the conversion of curiosity into purchases. These advertisements may be displayed on Instagram, Facebook, and even Instagram Stories.

Facebook ad specs

Facebook ad requirements are one of many things to keep in mind while managing a successful Facebook advertising plan.

You should adhere to the suggested character limits, and picture sizes, and view campaign objectives when developing the finest Facebook ads for your company.

Image ads

Design

• File type: JPG or PNG 
• Ratio: 1.91:1 to 1:1 
• Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels

Text 

• Primary text: 125 characters 
• Headline: 40 characters 
• Description: 30 characters 

Technical 

• Maximum file size: 30 MB
• Minimum width: 600 pixels
• Minimum height: 600 pixels

Campaign objectives

• All but video views

Video ads

Design 

• File type: MP4, MOV, or GIF 
• Ratio: 4:5
• Video settings: H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan, and stereo AAC audio compression at 128 Kbps+
• Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels 
• Video captions: Optional, but recommended
• Video sound: Optional, but recommended

Text 

• Primary text: 125 characters 
• Headline: 40 characters 
• Description: 30 characters 

Technical 

• Video duration: 1 second to 241 minutes
• Maximum file size: 4 GB
• Minimum width: 120 pixels
• Minimum height: 120 pixels

Campaign objectives

• All objectives besides catalog sales

Carousel ads

Design

• Image file type: JPG or PNG 
• Video file type: MP4, MOV, or GIF 
• Ratio: 1:1 
• Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels 

Text

• Primary text: 125 characters 
• Headline: 40 characters 
• Description: 20 characters 

Technical

• Number of carousel cards: 2 to 10
• Image maximum file size: 30 MB
• Video maximum file size: 4 GB
• Video duration: 1 second to 240 minutes

Campaign objectives

• Conversions, traffic, catalog sales, store traffic

Collection ads

Design 

• Image file type: JPG or PNG 
• Video file type MP4, MOV, or GIF 
• Ratio: 1:1
• Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels 

Text 

• Primary text: 125 characters 
• Headline: 40 characters 

Technical

• Instant Experience: Required
• Image maximum file size: 30 MB
• Video maximum file size: 4 GB

Campaign objectives

• Traffic, conversions, catalog sales, store traffic

Facebook ad costs

The average cost of Facebook advertising, according to statistics gathered by WebFx, is between $0.97 and $7.19 for every 1,000 impressions. Campaigns aiming to increase page likes or app downloads may anticipate paying $1.07 and $5.47 per like, respectively.

On Facebook, there isn't a minimum spend requirement, and there are no setup fees to pay. You may determine and control your budget on this self-serve platform, setting it as high or low as you choose.

Tips for running Facebook ads

Here are some advice and techniques to help you make advertisements that work, reach more prospective clients, and improve the outcomes of your Facebook advertising plan.

• Browse the Meta Ad Library for inspiration. Uncertain about where to begin with creativity? Want to know what your rivals are doing? A full collection of ads that are now appearing on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger may be found in the Meta Ad Library. You may look up specific brands to see what advertisements are currently airing and how they are promoting their items. Use this knowledge as inspiration for your advertisements.

• Be authentic. Think about the voice of your brand. What about humor? Witty? Corporate-y? People are more inclined to connect with and learn more about your business, product, or service if your advertisements are more genuine.

• Show images of people using your product. People view pictures and videos of their friends and family when they go through their feeds. Use creativity that depicts people using your product to their advantage, exactly like they see daily from their network, to pique their interest in your advertisement. Use carousel advertising to give customers the choice of what they want to view if you want to incorporate independent product images or videos.

• Choose your ad objectives first to make better creative assets. Decide which KPIs are most important to your company before you start your first campaign, whether it's to boost sales or brand recognition. Make sure all of your campaign components, from the creative to audience targeting and bid type, relate to your primary goal to build powerful advertising campaigns.

• Combine ad types to create higher-impact ads. Images may assist demonstrate various benefits of your product, while videos are ideal for presenting your brand's narrative. Test which of a variety of ad types resonates the most with your audience before investing more money in it.

• Show ads across channels. You may run advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network for any budget using Facebook Ads Manager. To target consumers depending on the gadgets they like to use, you may also display adverts on particular devices. Avoid focusing only on one platform. Utilize the many products that Facebook offers by including the All Placements option in your ad settings to have your advertisements appear where your consumers are most likely to be found.

• Consider running click-to-Messenger ads. Did you know that people may start a Messenger conversation with your company when they click a Facebook ad? To respond to consumer inquiries, expedite the purchasing process, and promote a transaction, you may run Facebook advertising using Messenger ad placement.

Facebook Strategy Ideas

Use the following suggestions, whether this is your first or fifth Facebook advertising campaign, to increase leads and revenues.

1- Run click to Messenger ads

The Facebook feed and Instagram feed contain Click to Messenger advertising, a particular kind of Messenger advertisement. A user initiates communication with your brand when they click the call-to-action button on the advertisement. The lead generation and sales process may be automated with a chat marketing platform like ManyChat.

Brands that employ Facebook ads with a Messenger click-through see improved ROI and conversion rates. For instance, Solomon Mattress, a Thai mattress manufacturer, utilized Messenger advertisements to introduce a whole array of products. During the five-day campaign, the brand completed 700 transactions through Messenger and had a four times return on ad expenditure.

2- Promote organic content that already performs well

Have a successful organic Facebook or Instagram post or video? Make it a Facebook advertisement. An excellent indication that viewers would respond to the same material as a Facebook ad is high-performing organic content.

Additionally, you may repackage information into other ad formats. For instance, you might create a slideshow using photographs using the key aspects of a successful video. A free tool like Canva makes it simple to create social media photos if you're on a tight budget.

3- Work with influencers

One of the finest methods to reach new audiences online is through influencer marketing. Collaborate on ad creativity and marketing with influencers in your niche. To increase product sales and cut campaign expenses, influencers can run the advertisements from their personal Facebook and Instagram profiles.

Similar advertising was done by the lingerie company LIVELY. The results of using influencer material in their Facebook marketing approach were as follows:

• 75% higher sales conversion rate
• 27% lower cost per acquisition
• 50% higher return on ad spend

Why start advertising on Facebook?

It might be challenging to allocate your marketing money with so many possibilities available. Three factors sum up why new and seasoned company owners find Facebook particularly alluring:

1- Driving traffic from an active and engaged user base

As much as we hate to admit it, Facebook is an extremely addicting social network where we can interact with our family and friends. According to estimates, Facebook has more than two billion active monthly users who spend more time there than on rival social networks.

Additionally, Facebook controls Instagram and Messenger, two other widely used mobile applications that Facebook marketers may reach through its ad network. To bring so many engaged, active visitors to your landing page is impressive.

2- Targeting customers based on demographics, interests, and behaviors

Facebook is made for updating your network on personal information and updates, such as images from vacations, recently found music, and relationship statuses.

The connections and likes people make on Facebook and Instagram build extensive user profiles that marketers may use to target their adverts. Facebook marketers can compare their goods and services against a wide range of users' preferences, characteristics, and actions, increasing the probability that their ads will be seen by their target market.

3- Generating brand awareness

Both big and little companies frequently utilize Facebook and/or Instagram business pages to interact with their followers and clients online.

You can choose to have your brand's social media accounts serve as the source of your sponsored advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. One advantage of advertising on social media is that this frequently leads to greater brand exposure and new followers for your business.

Start using Facebook ads to grow your business

Because Facebook's advertising platform is designed to be simple to use even by those with little to no experience with digital marketing, bootstrapped businesses who don't want to employ an agency to run their commercials will find it to be even more enticing.

If you take the time to learn the basics of the platform, correctly set up your account, and launch a campaign, Facebook adverts may continue to drive your business as it grows.

Facebook ads FAQ