How to Advertise on Facebook [Complete Guide]

Advertising on Facebook has not said its last word. Despite the emergence of new players on the social media scene, knowing how to advertise on Facebook remains an essential skill for many marketers as the number of active users of the platform continues to increase.

Do you want to advertise on Facebook? Read on to find out everything you need to know: how much a Facebook ad costs, how to create your first campaign, and much more.

 

What are Facebook ads?

Facebook ads are paid posts that a business uses to promote its products or services to Facebook users.

 

Facebook ads typically target users based on the following criteria:

• Demographics
• Place
• Areas of interest
• Other Profile Information

The company sets an advertising budget and makes an offer for every click or thousand impressions the ad gets.

Facebook ads appear everywhere in the app, including in the user's News Feed, Stories, Messenger, Marketplace and more. They look similar to traditional posts but still include a "sponsored" mention to indicate that it is an advertisement. Facebook ads include more features than regular posts, such as action buttons, links, and product catalogs.

 

Types of Facebook Ads

Marketers can choose from several types and formats of Facebook ads to achieve their goals:

• Image
• Video
• Carousel
• Instant Experience
• Collection
• Form
• Slideshow
• Story
• Messenger

With the wide range of formats available, you can choose the type of Facebook ad that best suits your business goal. Each ad has a different set of action buttons to guide the user to the next steps.

 

Image Ads

Image ads are the most basic format on Facebook. They allow a company to use an image to promote its product, service, or brand. There are several types of ads, placements, and aspect ratios available.

Image ads are suitable for campaigns that rely on strong visual content that can be embodied in a single image, whether it's an illustration, a graphic or a photo.

You can create an image ad in a few clicks by boosting a post with an image that already exists on your Facebook page.

Easy to create, image ads can be a great showcase for your offering if you use quality images. They are suitable for all stages of the sales funnel, whether you want to improve your brand awareness or promote a new product to increase your sales.

However, image ads have their limitations: you have to get your message across with a single image. If you want to highlight multiple products or show how your product works, this format is not the best choice.

 

Video ads

Just like image ads, video ads on Facebook allow a business to use video to showcase its products, services, or brand.

They are especially relevant for product demonstrations, tutorials, and moving elements.

The video can be up to 240 minutes long, but that doesn't mean it has to be that long! Shorter videos usually get more engagement. Facebook recommends not exceeding 15 seconds.

Video ads can add movement to a user's feed, like this short video ad from Taco Bell:

The downside of video ads is that they take time to produce and can be expensive.

 

Technical characteristics of video ads

Minimum width: 120 pixels

Minimum height: 120 pixels

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 pixels

Aspect ratio: 4:5

Video file size: 4 GB maximum

Minimum video length: 1 second

Maximum video length: 241 minutes

 

 

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads can display up to ten images or videos that users can scroll through. Each has its own title, description, and link.

Carousels are great for showcasing multiple products. Each image in the carousel may even have its own landing page designed specifically for that product or service.

This Facebook advertising format is also useful for accompanying users in a process or to present a series of related products.

 

Instant Experience Ads

Instant Experience ads, formerly known as "canvas ads," are interactive ads that are only available on mobile. They create interaction between users and your promotional content on Facebook.

With Instant Experience ads, the user can navigate through a carousel of images, tilt the screen in different directions, or zoom in and out of content.

Facebook recommends using between five and seven images or videos in each Instant Experience ad to get maximum interaction. Ready-made templates are available to save you time and reuse the same theme throughout the advertisement.

 

Technical characteristics of video ads in Instant Articles

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 pixels

Aspect ratio: 9:16 to 16:9

Video file size: 4 GB maximum

Minimum video length: 1 second

Maximum video length: 240 minutes

 

Technical characteristics of image ads in Instant Articles

Maximum file size: 30 MB

Aspect ratio: 1.91:1 to 1:1

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 pixels

 

Collection Ads

Collection ads are a kind of immersive carousel that enhances the user experience even more. The user can window shop and browse your product range on mobile. These ads are more customizable than carousels and appear in full screen. The user can purchase a product directly from the collection advertisement

The company can also let Facebook's algorithms choose which products from the catalog to include in the ad for each user.

Collection ads are perfect for large companies that offer a variety of products and services. Conversely, smaller businesses with a more limited product range may be better off using other types of advertising, such as carousels.

 

Form Ads

Form ads are only available on mobile, as they're designed for people to easily provide their contact information, without having to type a lot of stuff.

They are perfect for subscribing to a newsletter, signing up for a product trial, or requesting additional information. Several car manufacturers have used it to encourage road tests.

 

Slideshow ads

Slideshow ads consist of 3 to 10 images or a video that plays in a slideshow. These ads are a good alternative to video ads because they use up to five times less data. This makes them the best choice for markets where people have slower internet connections.

Slideshow ads are also a good place to start for beginners in video creation.

 

Ads in Stories

Mobile phones are designed to be held upright. Stories ads are a full-screen vertical video format available only on mobile. They allow you to maximize screen space without the viewer needing to rotate their phone.

Currently, 62% of Americans say they plan to use stories even more in the future.

Stories can consist of images, videos, and even carousels.

Here's an example of a video turned into an ad in a story:

It's easier to express your creativity in a story than in a traditional image or video ad. The company can have fun with emojis, stickers, filters, special effects, and even augmented reality.

The downside of Facebook stories is that they don't appear in Facebook news feeds. So users may not see them as much as other Facebook ad formats.

Facebook Stories also require different formatting than video or image ads, so you may need to create original content specifically for stories.

Technical characteristics of  Videos ads  in Stories

Recommendations: Highest possible resolution (at least 1080 x 1080 pixels)

Aspect ratio: 9:16 (1.91 to 9:16 supported)

Video file size: 4 GB maximum

Maximum video length: 2 minutes

Dimensions of image ads on Facebook

Images in Facebook feed

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 pixels

Minimum width: 600 pixels

Minimum height: 600 pixels

Aspect ratio: 1:91 to 1:1

 

Messenger Ads

Messenger ads appear in the Facebook Messenger tab. Since it's where people spend time chatting with family and friends, Messenger ads add a more personal touch than video or image ads in the feed.

People see your Messenger ads in the middle of their chats and can tap on them to start a chat with your brand. These ads are a great way to encourage interaction between users and your brand. For small businesses promoting local products or services, Messenger ads can help get the conversation started.

 

How to create a Facebook ad

If you already have a Facebook page for your business (which you should), you can go directly to Meta Ads Manager or Business Manager to create your Facebook ad campaign. If your business doesn't already have a Facebook page, you'll need to create one first.

In this article, we'll outline the steps you need to take in Ads Manager. If you prefer to use Business Manager, you can find more information in our guide to using Business Manager on Facebook.

Ads Manager is your starting point for advertising on Facebook and Messenger. It's an all-in-one tool for creating ads, managing where and when they'll run, and tracking campaign results.

 

Step 1: Choose your goal

Sign in to Meta Ads Manager and select the Campaigns tab. Then click Create  to start a new ad campaign on Facebook.

Facebook now offers 6 marketing objectives (up from 11) based on the expected results of your ad.

They correspond to the business objectives:

• Awareness: Introduce your brand to a new audience.
• Traffic: Redirect people to a specific Facebook Messenger web page, app, or conversation.
• Engagement: Reach a wider audience to increase engagement on your post or follow your Page, increase the number of attendees at your event, or encourage people to take advantage of a special offer.
• Leads: Attract new leads to your sales funnel.
• App promotion: Get people to install and use your app.
• Sales: Find people who are likely to buy your products or services.

Choose a campaign objective based on your expectations for that specific ad. Keep in mind that for conversion goals (like sales), you can pay for each action, but for exposure-related goals (like traffic), you'll pay for impressions.

For the purposes of this example, we'll choose the Interactions objective.

Click Continue.

Step 2: Give your campaign a name

Type in the name of your Facebook ad campaign and indicate whether your ad falls into a special ad category, such as credit or policy.

If you want to run an A/B test, turn on the Create A/B Test button  in the A/B Test section  to set this ad as your baseline. You can choose different versions to compare once this ad is published.

Scroll down to choose whether or not to enable Advantage+ Campaign Budget.

This option is handy if you're using multiple ad sets, but for now you can leave it off.

Click Next.

 

Step 3: Specify your goal

Depending on the campaign objective you choose, you can specify this in the Conversion section. In our example, we select the place where we want to spark interactions: our Facebook page. Then select the page you want to promote from the drop-down menu.

Some of the options in this step vary slightly depending on the lens you select.

 

Step 4: Set your budget and timeline

Scroll down to decide how much budget you'll want to allocate to your Facebook ad campaign. You can set a daily or lifetime budget.

Then, enter the start and end dates if you want to schedule your ad for later or go live immediately.

Scheduling your paid ads on Facebook is probably the most effective way to optimize your budget. This is because you can choose to run your campaign only when your target audience is most likely to be connected to Facebook. You can set a schedule exclusively for global budgets.

 

Step 5: Target your audience

Scroll down to set the target audience for your campaign.

Start by selecting your targets by location, age, gender, and language. In the Places section, you can include or exclude cities above a certain size.

You can also prioritize users who have recently shown interest in your product or service.

As you make your choice, keep an eye on the audience size indicator on the right side of the screen. It gives you an idea of the potential reach of your ad.

You'll also see an estimate of the daily reach and number of likes the Page could get. These estimates will be more accurate if you've already created campaigns, as Facebook will have more data at its disposal. Always keep in mind that these are estimates, not guaranteed results.

Now it's time to move on to detailed targeting.

Remember, effective targeting is the key to optimal ROI, and there are plenty of options for targeting your audience using Meta's Ads Manager.

Use the Advanced targeting field  to include or exclude certain people based on their demographics, interests, and behaviors. Feel free to go into detail. For example, you might decide to target users who are interested in both travel and hiking, but exclude backpackers on a budget.

 

Step 6: Choose your Facebook ad placements

Scroll down to choose where your ads will appear. If you're new to the world of Facebook ads, the easiest choice is to use Advantage+ Placements.

When you select this option, Facebook will automatically show your ads on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network when they're likely to perform best.

Over time, you will gain experience and may opt for Manual Placements. By choosing this option, you have complete control over the placements of your Facebook ads. The more placements you select, the more likely you are to reach your target audience.

Your options vary depending on the campaign objective you choose, but they may include:

• Device Type: Mobile, Computer, or Both
• Platform: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and/or Messenger
• Placements: Feeds, stories, reels, in-stream (for videos), search results, posts, overlay and post-loop ads in reels, articles, apps, and websites (external)
• Mobile devices and specific operating systems: iOS, Android, classic mobiles or all mobile devices
• Only with a Wi-Fi connection: the advertisement is only displayed if the user's device is connected to Wi-Fi

 

Step 7: Define your brand safety controls

Scroll down to the Brand safety section  to exclude all types of content that would be inappropriate for your brand.

For example, you can choose to avoid sensitive content and add specific block lists. Block lists include websites, videos, and publishers.

When you've selected all the options you want, check the page's reach and like estimates one last time

If you're okay with it, click Next.

 

Step 8: Create your ad

First, choose the format of your ad. Then enter the text and add the media of your choice. The formats available vary depending on the campaign goal you set at the beginning of the process.

If you're using an image, select your file from your Facebook gallery and crop it to fill your placement.

 

Use the preview tool on the right side of the page to make sure your ad appears correctly on all of your chosen placements. Once you're happy with your choices, click the green Publish button  to launch your ad campaign.

 

How much does a Facebook ad cost?

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to advertising budgets on Facebook. The cost of Facebook ads depends on a number of factors, including:

• Audience targeting. It's usually more expensive to show your ads to a small audience than to a large audience.
• Ad placement. The cost of an ad can vary between Facebook and Instagram.
• Duration of the campaign. The number of days and hours the campaign lasts affects the final cost.
• Competition in your industry. Some industries are more competitive than others when it comes to advertising space. In general, the higher the price of the product or the more valuable the targeted prospect is, the more expensive the advertisement will be.
• Time of year. The cost of an advertisement can vary depending on the season, holidays or other events specific to a sector of activity.
• Time of day. On average, cost-per-click (CPC) is lowest between midnight and 6 a.m., regardless of time zone.
• Place. The average cost of an advertisement varies greatly from country to country.

Setting the cost of a campaign based on goals

Setting the right campaign goals is essential to controlling the cost of Facebook ads. It also increases your chances of success.

Cost-per-click baselines vary depending on the campaign objective you choose. There are five main campaign objectives:

• Conversions
• Impressions
• Scope
• Link clicks
• Lead generation

The average cost per click varies depending on the objective of the Facebook advertising campaign. For example, on average, the cost of an impression-centric campaign will be $1.85 per click, compared to $0.87 per click if the goal is to convert to the market.

Choose the right objective for your campaign to achieve your goals while reducing costs.