This lesson teaches you how to advertise from a Facebook page.
As we learned earlier, teams can create posts about their products and services on a Facebook Page to build their brands online. This content is displayed to people that follow their Page. When business owners want to reach people who are not already familiar with their products and services, they can advertise on Facebook. Facebook ads appear with a sponsored label. Let’s look at an example of how to differentiate between a post and an ad.
Little Lemon is a local restaurant chain that serves traditional Mediterranean recipes with a modern twist. Tahrrisha just joined the team as a marketing specialist. Little Lemon has started a delivery service, and Tahrrisha wants to promote it to potential customers. Below is a post and an ad that Tahrrisha creates for Little Lemon:
Disclaimer: Little Lemon a fictitious business designed by Meta. Any similarities to content produced by real-life businesses aren’t intentional.
This is a post on Little Lemon’s Facebook Page. Posts are public but will only appear in the feed for people who follow Little Lemon’s business Page already.
Sponsored
The Sponsored tag notes that this post is paid content.
This is a button people can click or tap to take an action when they see an ad. It should link to a business’s website or another page directly related to the desired outcome of this ad.
Add a headline to get people’s attention and tell them what the ad is about. Tahrrisha can also add text to explain what the ad is promoting and which actions to take on Little Lemon’s website.
Advertising on Facebook enables you to reach people who are not already following your Facebook Page or Instagram business account. You can use ads to reach people who are likely to engage with them based on their location, interests and other factors.
Ads can increase traffic to your website, prompt people to purchase products or services, and more. Facebook offers options to help businesses work within their budgets to create ads that align with their goals.
There are several ways to advertise on Facebook. First, let’s look at how you can advertise from a Facebook Page. You have two options: boost a post on your Page or create an ad using the advertise link.
Boost a post. Select from previously published posts to boost as advertisements.
Create an ad using the advertise link. Create a new ad from your Page. You can create many different types of ads for different goals, such as raising awareness for products or services, getting more people to attend upcoming live online events or increasing sales for your business.
You can boost an existing post on your Facebook Page to create an ad. Boosting a post can help it to receive more reactions, shares and comments. It can also help you reach new people who are likely to be interested in your Page or business but don't currently follow it. Once you boost your post, it is considered an ad. For people seeing your ad, the only visual difference between an organic (unpaid) post and a boosted (paid) post is the addition of a sponsored label and an action button.
For example, Tahrrisha wants to start advertising the new Little Lemon delivery service. She shares a post with pictures of menu items on the Little Lemon Facebook Page, which gets a lot of engagement through comments, likes and shares. Since Little Lemon followers seem enthusiastic about the delivery service, Tahrrisha wants to attract more attention and decides to boost her post.
Select the Boost post button on your desired post. Tahrrisha selects a post about new menu items.
Set your goal. This is the result you hope to achieve with your ad. Tahrrisha wants to get more engagement on her post, so she selects Get more engagement, which will show her ad to people who are likely to react, comment and share.
Add an action button. Tahrrisha sets her action button to read as Learn more and links the photo to the Little Lemon website, where customers can explore the menu and place orders.
Define your audience. Reach people by location, characteristics, age and gender. Tahrrisha wants to reach people within delivery range.
Set your placement. Do you want your ad to run on Instagram as well as Facebook? Tahrrisha decides to run this ad on both.
Set your budget and duration. To start, Tahrrisha decides to boost the post for the next seven days and spend $10 a day. Then she clicks Boost post now.
Boost a post to help grow a business Page. Boosted posts can reach and increase awareness for people who don’t already follow your Page.
Set a website as the destination of a boosted post. Direct people to your website to help increase traffic and conversions.
Start with popular posts. Boost posts that have had large engagement and success with your existing audience. There is a high chance new customers could engage with the content in a similar way.
Have high-quality ad creative. The images and videos on your Page may provide people with their first encounter with a business, so use posts with the highest quality visuals to represent your brand.
Boost posts that resonate with current trends. Focus on products and services that are most relevant to customer needs.
Boost a post for seasonal moments. Timing posts to special moments or holidays can help increase engagement.
You can also create new ads from your Facebook Page without using existing posts by promoting new ads. Different ad types and settings are available depending on your unique goals.
When you’re ready to try this advertising method, think about your business goal, then choose a corresponding goal from the options under Advertise.
How would you like to grow your business?
What will the message of your ad be, and how will you convey it?
Who do you want to see your ad?
How much do you want to spend, and for how long?
Which account will you use to pay for your ads?
One way to streamline these decisions is to use Automated Ads.
You can use Automated Ads for a simplified way to boost engagement on a regular basis. Automated Ads provide a continuous plan for advertising a Page’s highest performing posts on a daily budget. When you enter your goals, Automated Ads recommends personalized ads based on these objectives and makes suggestions based on the ads that perform best.
Follow these steps to try it:
Go to your Page and select Promote.
Select Get started with Automated Ads.
Confirm the ad account you want to use for this plan. The ad account you choose will determine how you pay for Automated Ads.
Choose up to three categories that represent your business.
Select your business channel: online, direct contact or in person.
Enter interests your customers have in common to create a more specific audience for your ads.
Choose a plan. Facebook will recommend a plan for audiences and creative elements, such as an action button, based on the answers submitted to help you achieve your goal.
Create up to six versions of your ads, selecting creative elements such as images, text, links and an action button. The versions that perform best will be displayed.
Select the audience and placements for your ads.
Designate your daily budget. Your ad will run continuously on an average daily budget, so actual daily amounts may vary. You can edit your budget or pause your ads anytime.
Review your ad and select Promote to begin advertising.
If you want more control over campaign specifications and creative decisions, you can create ads manually.
For example, Tahrrisha wants to get more people to visit the Little Lemon website to learn more about the restaurant and place orders. Let’s take a look at how Tahrrisha builds an ad from the Little Lemon Page.
Think about what business goal you want to achieve. Since Tahrrisha wants to increase traffic to the delivery service landing page and get more online orders, she selects Get more website visitors as her goal.
Ads have three key components: visuals, text and an action button. Tahrrisha decides to create a carousel ad so people can browse through several menu items.
She writes “Little Lemon for Delivery” for the headline of the ad. In the ad description, she writes, “Enjoy Little Lemon favorites, now from the comfort of your home." She chooses Learn more for her action button and adds the link to the delivery service landing page with more information about the service and the menu.
Think about who your customers are and what would motivate them to make a purchase. Based on the demographics of current Little Lemon customers, Tahrrisha adjusts the age range for this audience to 18-65 years old and selects all genders. Tahrrisha sets her location to people within delivery service range.
Since Little Lemon is active on both Facebook and Instagram, Tahrrisha turns on advantage+ placements to optimize for both of her audiences.
Decide how much you want to spend on your ad per day and how many days you want it to run. Tahrrisha decides to run her ad for the next two weeks and sets a daily average spending limit of $5. Then she selects Publish to begin advertising.
Now that you know the different ways to create ads from a Facebook Page, let’s look closer at how to create more complex ads using Meta Ads Manager.
True or false?
Boosting a post will make it appear again in the Feeds of only your followers.
Boost the most popular posts from a business Page to increase awareness about products and services for new audiences.
Use Automated Ads to boost the highest performing posts with a daily budget.
Create your own ad that aligns with your business goal.