3 Strategies That Will Make Your Facebook Ads More Successful

[Shahriar Tasjid]

Facebook has had a rough time over the last few months. After news broke that a Trump-allied voter-profiling firm had improperly harvested the personal information data of 50 million Facebook users, the company's stock plunged precipitously, losing $37 billion in market value.

Yet this may be another case of a company being too big too fail. Billions of Facebook users continue to use the service to connect with friends and family, and companies will continue to find value in engaging different audiences on the world's largest social network.

Social media is constantly evolving, which can make any digital advertising strategy a dicey proposition regardless of what's happening in the current news cycle. Not only does the way we use social media as consumers change quickly, but the platforms are also getting more and more sophisticated with new and updated tools. A strategy that once worked wonders can become obnoxious to audiences — and even harmful to a brand — basically overnight.

While it's always a tough needle to thread, the only way to connect with consumers is through authenticity in your messaging, making a point to reach audiences where they're spending their time and connecting with them directly.

Of course, accomplishing this is easier said than done. But here are a few tips to get you moving in the right direction:

1. Throw out traditional ad display.

Traditional display ads are a thing of the past. The old reliance on impressions and clicks led marketers to lean heavily on click bait to maximize their ad traffic. Between the rise of ad blockers and the limited real estate of a tiny phone screen, the old display model has been steadily losing popularity.

So, what's the solution? The answer lies in native ads, which are viewed 53 percent more often than banner ads. Many social platforms realized that keeping garbage out of their news feeds actually made them more popular, and they even began tracking time spent post-click in order to recognize click bait.

As we move further into 2018, native ad spend will continue to replace traditional display dollars. But as more companies catch up to this trend, brands will have to implement the most effective strategy within native advertising to stand out. And how do they do that?

2. Maximize native ad reach.

Recent updates to AI technology have opened up Facebook ad strategies that are currently improving relations with today's internet audience.

The first is comment bots. You can use a platform to combine messenger bots with Facebook ads. Kamila Gornia, a business and marketing coach who specializes in digital marketing for modern, passion-driven entrepreneurs, suggests starting with the creation of a single engagement-producing post. For example, post a message that encourages consumers to respond with a specific comment to get a free gift. Gornia refers to this as a "yes ladder."

Now, if you're anything like me, you immediately perked up when you heard about this yes ladder. Here's how it works. When a consumer leaves the prompted response, this triggers an automated bot messenger to connect with him or her via a private message from your business. This opens a more intimate dialogue that your company can use to bring consumers through the sales funnel.

This stretches your ad investment because the higher the engagement on a post, the more people Facebook will show the post to organically without you having to pay for it. In addition, it's easier to get a micro-commitment like commenting "Yes" on a post than to get people to click away from Facebook, navigate to your landing page, and give you contact info.

3. Tailor your landing page to Facebook-based viewers.

A Facebook ad campaign does not end with Facebook. It can be easy to forget, but the audience that clicks to your page from a Facebook ad is distinctly different from one that arrives via Google search.

Google ads and Facebook ads generate drastically different types of traffic. While a Google searcher is often actively looking to buy, Facebook users are more often in "browse mode," meaning they are further from making a purchasing decision.

While the initial goal is naturally to drive clicks back to your site, a poorly optimized landing page will result in every cent of your Facebook advertising budget going down the drain. By monitoring and optimizing your campaign to approach a defined metric or conversion rate, you can build a follow-up campaign that is prebuilt for the audiences that were most engaged in the initial run.

These tips may not have made sense to implement five years ago, and chances are that in another five years, the game will have changed again. But immediately communicating with your target audience in a positive and alluring way is critical to your business's success today.

Source: www.forbes.com