In previous articles, I’ve hinted that Facebook ads are one of the most effective ways of generating new leads. But you’re probably thinking Facebook is dead. 

Or do you find yourself thinking that more people deserve to see this magnificent example of your work? I know – let’s boost it!

So, you hit that boost button, choose a random amount of money, try half heartedly to target the right demographic and hope for the best. Did it work?

Or did it feel like buying a lottery ticket or sticking a tenner on a random horse? Most people dipping a toe into Facebook Ads for the first time have no goals, no plan and no way of measuring the results. It’s just blind boosting. 

But…there’s a much better way. 

It all starts with the Facebook Pixel. The Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that you place on your website. It records the behaviour of any visitors to your site who are also logged into Facebook or Instagram at the same time. 

Over a period of time, Facebook builds up a profile of the types of people who visit each area of your site.

RETARGETING

With the Pixel in place, the quickest, easiest win is to retarget anyone who visits your site with a specific piece of content. You’ll know what I’m talking about – visit an online store to browse and within minutes, those products are following you all over the internet. Yes, you’ve been retargeted. 

But here’s the thing. It doesn’t have to be obvious or salesy.

How about retargeting ONLY those people who have submitted a contact form with a nice Instagram story or showing them a blog about planning their wedding. You can retarget your very specific audience with content that doesn’t look like an advert. 

And if you choose to retarget only the people who visit specific pages, then retargeting campaigns only need a micro budget and yet, they are laser focused.

Why not…

• Retarget visitors who view your gallery page with a video slideshow on Instagram TV.
• Retarget people who read a specific blog post with similar content.
• Retarget visitors who go to your contact page but don’t complete your form, with a video introducing yourself. 

LOOKALIKE AUDIENCES

The next weapon in the drawer is Facebook’s lookalike audience feature. 

Who are your best-behaved website visitors? Maybe it’s the people who fill out your contact form, or visit your gallery?

You can ask Facebook to build an audience of people who look and behave just like them, but who aren’t them. Those people will have the same interests, belong to the same groups, or like the same pages. They will be a fresh audience, but a hell of a lot warmer than the audience you’ll find if you randomly boost a post. 

This takes the guesswork out of building an audience. No more targeting people based on their interests, or geographic area or personal status. Sure, you can do that after you’ve built your lookalike audience, to squeeze down your audience even further. 

But it all starts with the lookalike audience built from the data your Facebook Pixel gathers. Even if you have no intention of running paid ads anytime soon, get your Facebook pixel installed so it can quietly gather data in the background.

MEASURING SUCCESS

This the final piece of the puzzle. Most people give up on Facebook Ads or tell themselves that they don’t work, because their only experience is boosting posts. And the outcome of boosting posts isn’t measurable. 

The only way to measure the success of a paid ad is to have a conversion goal (or page in your website) that can only be reached through having responded to your advert. 

For example, using an ad to drive traffic to your website home page isn’t highly effective, because the specific impact can’t be measured. 

Instead, set up a conversion goal of reaching a sign up ‘success’ or thank-you page. Facebook will report back to you exactly how much money it took, per person, for your visitors to reach that page. With that knowledge, you can decide if it’s a price you’re willing to pay for a new lead.

Similarly, sign up success pages are also used to retarget visitors and give them a final nudge, as we discussed earlier. 

If you’ve been a random booster, or are new to Facebook ads, the first thing you need to do is get your Facebook Pixel into your site. 

We’ve put together a simple tutorial that will have you up and running in under ten minutes.

Goodbye boosting, hello pixel power!

Facebook Pixel Power