Startup Guide: How and when to use Facebook Ads

Many a times I have seen web startups saying that Social media ads doesn’t work as effective as Google/Search based ads. We have tried and tested both Social Network ads and Search based ads, and have found that they both are equally efficient depending upon the need.

There are not many forums which actually guide startups how to use such networks to get a good value for their money. Let me give you some of my own examples which would help you in deciding when and how to use Facebook ads to get best results.

First and the foremost, the thing to understand is that Social network ads serve a completely different purpose as against search based ads. People click on search based ads in hope of finding something useful in relation to what they are searching. If they find relevant content they get hooked to the site!

But Facebook is a different platform and it is a place where people go to connect with friends and enjoy their time on various activities like ‘Playing Games’ and engaging over friends’ activities and other page updates. The problem is in making user notice your ad among so many other engaging activities which he/she is already doing on Facebook.

When we (iDubba team) used facebook ads for the first time to promote our special “Australian Open alerts/T-shit give away” feature we faced a bad response. Not in terms of ad not getting clicked but in terms of efficiency. Bounce rate was high and click through rate (CTR) very low.

But when we did the ad for our “IPL alerts/T-shirt giveaway” we got a great response with high CTR, low Avg. CPC and very low bounce rates. [Check the image]

So here are some tips:

When to use Facebook Ads:

1. Do not promote your usual website or stuff with Facebook ads. In other words don’t promote anything from a long term perspective.
2. Always use Facebook when you need to do a short promotion with referral/reward program.
3. If you want to promote your Facebook page related to your website, do use Facebook ads as they can get you some real good customers.
4. When you think that the keywords for a particular area of business are going to be costly, opt for Facebook as against Google.

How to use the Ads:

1. Make it Attractive

Biggest Challenge for any ad maker is to make the ads interesting enough, so that users get attracted even when they are busy doing their regular stuff.

2. Target only the right audience:

Don’t get lured when Facebook says ‘targeting 1 Million users’, instead carefully choose your target audience by searching for correct keywords. As you can see in the image our ad targeted only those people who were interested in Cricket/IPL.

3. Try it first and then put your money:

Start with amounts as small as 2dollars per day, and as you see traffic coming and CPC going down, increase the budget.

4. Keep a check:

If you think the ad is not performing as you expect it to. Pause it and edit it, try to tweak it till the time you get a satisfactory response.