A beginner's guide to social media ads
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If you’re running a business, chances are you’re going to have to engage in paid digital advertising at some point. You may already be running a Facebook page to engage with your customers but aren’t seeing much traffic on it. Perhaps you don’t have much of a digital presence at all and are looking to tap into the lucrative market of social media. No matter what the nature of your online presence is, you’re likely going to have to run ads.
Most social media platforms are out of their growth stages and looking to “harvest,” meaning purely organic traffic is down and paid traffic is made a priority to generate more revenue for social media companies. After all, the services aren’t free to run. That means you’re going to have to play ball with the way the platforms and their algorithms are running. I don’t believe in gatekeeping information or tips. I think anyone can and should set up ad campaigns to drive traffic for their business. In this article, I’m going to give a brief explanation on how to set up an ad campaign for beginners.
I’m going to keep the scope limited for this article and focus mainly on Meta platforms. I believe setting up ads on Meta is the most beginner-friendly out of all the different platforms to choose from, and in many cases, Meta platforms are applicable to most businesses whether they be B2C or B2B. However, there is information on here that is universal and many of the steps to set up the campaigns will be very similar on platforms such as Google or LinkedIn. So, if you’re looking to engage somewhere other than Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger, there will still be actionable advice in here for you if you continue to read.
Before you get started with setting up the campaign itself, consider what your goals are. Are you looking to drive sales through social media? Maybe you’re looking to bolster your social media presence and bring new followers to your page. Perhaps you have a big sale going on and are looking to drive interactions with a particular post involved with the promotion. Narrowing down exactly what you want your end goal to be allows you to see more desirable results.
You also should develop what your ideal target market looks like. You may have something already in mind, but dig deeper. Meta allows you to get very specific in your audience targeting, with many different selectors for demographics and psychographics that traditional marketing is not able to focus on. Marketing used to be forced to cast a pretty wide net, but social media marketing has the luxury of information that people provide in their profile and liked posts and pages. When you’re setting up your audience later, there will be a small graphic to display how many people you will reach with your audience settings. It will light up green, yellow, or red depending on how big your audience is. Try to get as specific as you can while staying on the green!
Setting up an ad is easy after developing the goal of your ad, as well as the audience you will be sharing it to. Log into Facebook and access the Ads Manager on the left menu of the homepage. If you don’t see it, hit More. After that, just hit create and select your campaign objective. Selecting your objective should align with the goal that you developed earlier. There are several objectives to choose from. Brand Awareness, Reach, Traffic, and Engagement are some of many different options. If you’ve never set up an ad before, you’ll also have to set up your account details.
Next up is defining your audience. This is the step I mentioned earlier where there are plenty of different options to home in on the best audience for your ad. You can target based on location, age, gender, language, interests, behaviors, and more. But I will stress again – try not to get too specific. Just because you can serve an ad to a 35-year-old male who moved into Dallas, Texas six months ago who loves Star Wars and carpentry doesn’t mean you should. Getting too specific can shut you out from viable customers who are just a little different from what you selected. If you have an existing database of customer data, you can also import this through custom audiences.
Now you will determine your ad placements, budget, and schedule. Ad placements are where your ad will appear. This can be Instagram, Newsfeed, Audience Network, Marketplace, and more. You can manually choose where the ad goes, but Facebook generally does a good job with automatic placements where it will maximize conversions. Then you will determine your budget and schedule. You can either choose a daily or lifetime budget for your ad. I would generally recommend a $200 monthly budget to take full advantage of Meta’s ad auction. After that, you can set a schedule for the ad or run it continuously.
It's time to create the ad. You’ll select an ad format between single image, video, carousel, etc. and move on from there. For beginners, I would most likely choose a single image or carousel as they require the least amount of time to prepare and are generally all-purpose. Create a graphic through a service like Canva or take an image relevant to your business for the creative. Afterwards, insert the copy. Good looking copy for a business includes a high-converting headline and description, as well as a clear call to action. If you’re having trouble, you could run a prompt through generative AI to get an example. Here’s one I made:
“Shop Now and Elevate Your Style! Hurry, the clock is ticking, and these deals won't last long! Visit us in-store or online.”
Obviously, there will be changes depending on your business’ industry and your own personal brand persona, but that is something that I cannot give exact advice on. Your own personal organization is unique and true to yourself, and I recommend leaning into that to give your ads (and your social media presence in general) that extra personal touch.
Afterwards, you must publish the ad and monitor its performance. Ads Manager does a great job at providing metrics in an easily understood format. Keep tabs on the ad and make sure it’s reaching the results you desire. Don’t hesitate to make any changes to the ad if you think it will increase performance. There are many more advanced ways to test an ad’s performance and metrics, such as A/B testing, but for a beginner I would just recommend sticking with the path of least resistance.
And that’s it! I hope this article has made it a little easier for you to set up an ad through Meta. I cannot stress how much I recommend running paid advertising nowadays, no matter what your business is. Social media is a lucrative market and, in many cases, far more effective than traditional media at representing your company and its products/services. Now you’re all ready to begin your paid advertising, and I hope you achieve the results you desire!
