🤔 How Do Facebook Ads Really Work?

If you have a Facebook account, or even if you occasionally visit the social network to look up information, chances are that you have been exposed to advertising. We can infer this because as of Q4 2020, there were approximately 10 million advertisers who took advantage of advertising on this network. It is pretty easy to understand why Facebook is the kind of social media advertising; after all, it manages to attract nearly 2.7 billion users each month.

You may be wondering if Facebook advertising works; as in: Are they really effective? The answer is yes. Whether you operate in the business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) sector, social media advertising can work for you, particularly if Facebook is one of the platforms you target. The return on investment (ROI) is pretty enticing for many business models. To better understand this effectiveness, take note of the following:

The New and Improved Algorithm

Since 2018, advertising on Facebook has improved considerably in terms of ROI, and this has a lot to do with artificial intelligence. The engineering team at the world’s most popular network spends a lot of time developing machine learning techniques that understand the motivation behind why users will click on certain advertising displays.

As can be imagined, FB engineers are instructed to not give up the secret sauce so easily, but we do know that they have gotten pretty good at predicting advertising clicks. When you get started with a promotion and marketing program, you start off with a campaign objective, which can range from driving traffic to increasing brand awareness. You will then choose between display formats, which include:

* Images
* Videos
* Carousel
* Experiences
* Collections

Although you can choose any format you believe will be conducive to your campaign, you would be better off following the algorithm recommendation because it is based on extensive machine learning. Once the format is selected, you will need to review if your campaign falls under Special Ad Categories, which are subject to certain compliance requirements.

Setting Your Ad Spending Limits

This is one of the best features of the FB advertising program. You can get started with less than $10 for the purpose of testing things out. Speaking of tests, you can select A/B testing so that you can see which version of your ad format works best with regard to audience, content, and placement. This is a substantial plus.

The final steps involve languages, flexible budgets, scheduling, target audiences, delivery, and tracking. Once your campaign launches, you will have an opportunity to check on real-time analytics and insights so that you can make adjustments on the fly. This is pretty much all you need to know to get started with Facebook Ads.