Pros and Cons of Facebook Advertising.
In this social media landscape filled to the brim with the competition, Facebook advertising presents brands with an opportunity to target the right people in a fun and interactive way. Due to the increasing number of restrictions placed on organic content, Facebook advertisements are like sweet relief.
What is Facebook Advertising?
Advertising through Facebook is quite popular because it allows you to target people based on their location, age, gender, interests, job titles, upcoming life events, and various other factors. It also provides you regular updates regarding the performance of your ads.
Facebook advertising enables you to tailor your campaigns according to specific goals and needs to maintain efficacy.
If you advertise on Facebook, you will have the option to place your ads in seven areas across Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger. Placements depend on your chosen objective and include:
– Feeds
– Stories
– In-stream
– Search
– Messages
– In-article
– Apps
There are pros and cons to every marketing strategy, and Facebook advertising is no stranger to this phenomenon.
Pros of Facebook Advertising:
Let’s first begin by highlighting the various advantages that it entails:
Wide Customer Reach
The popularity of Facebook traverses all genders, ages, and locations, making it the most used social media platform. It has over 2.6 billion active monthly users and is showing no sign of slowing down.
Owed to its mass reach, Facebook is the perfect platform to utilize if you want to reach a broad audience.
Furthermore, by installing Facebook Pixel code to your website, Ads Manager lets you remarket to users that have already visited your site before.
There is also a range of Custom Audiences for you to take advantage of, allowing you to reach users who are already familiar with your brand. This increases conversion rates and will enable you to maximize customer retention, creating a strong base of loyal customers.
A/B Testing or Split Testing
Facebook Ads Manager gives you the option to split test your ads to different custom audiences, locations, age segments, etc., all within a single campaign. This provides valuable data as to what sort of content works best for each of your target demographics.
Lead Generation
Facebook lead ads enable potential customers to conveniently submit information to you, regardless of the device in use. It allows you to create a lead ad form natively in your feed, which customers can easily use to request information regarding your product/ service or even schedule appointments.
The most effective part of this tool is that customers do not have to leave Facebook to submit the form.
Furthermore, if you link the data generated in Facebook’s instant forms with Zapier, it will automatically send it straight to your marketing or sales team.
Showcase Creativity
Immersive ad-sets like Facebook’s instant experience ads mean that users are transported to an app-like brand experience. The full-screen interactive concept allows brands to tell a story that delivers on engagement while providing an opportunity to showcase content marketing pieces that may otherwise be lost on a website.
Cost-Effective
In addition to its varied targeting options, Facebook is also one of the most cost-effective advertising channels. If you have a low budget, you can have your ad up and running from as little as $1 a day (depending on your ad), compared to platforms like LinkedIn where advertising costs can average at $5-$6 per day.
Visibility
A reassuring feature of Facebook advertising is that you have complete visibility and control of your Facebook ads and budget. Monitor your success on Facebook, so you know exactly how much you’re spending and the results you have gained from your campaigns.
You can also use the data provided in Facebook Insights to analyze your paid posts’ performance against your organic posts for you to make strategic targeting decisions for future ads.
Cons of Facebook Advertising
Well, every good thing comes with a downside!
Prohibition in Certain Content
Facebook attempts to provide a safe and enjoyable user experience, which is why some sectors are simply prohibited from advertising on Facebook.
Before adverts appear on Facebook, they go through a strict review process, which can take up to 24 hours in some instances. So if you are thinking of advertising your shady offerings, better luck next time!
(kind of a pro, if you ask me)
The 20% Rule
In the past, if your Facebook advert had more than 20% of the image covered with text, it would be disapproved. While Facebook has relaxed this policy in recent years, its best practice is to use less than 20% text in your image.
Think about using scroll stopping and impactful images to capture your audience’s attention, adding text to the copy sections where it’s meant to be. Facebook will make you aware of this and prompt you to alter your design.
Immense Competition
The increasing number of businesses using Facebook advertising means the likelihood of your advert standing out vastly diminishes. Catching people’s attention and getting your ad noticed amongst updates from their friends is proving to be more and more complicated and requires creative ad-sets, which can come at an additional resource cost.
Final Thoughts
Facebook ads are a great way to drive traffic to your website or a targeted landing page made exclusively to get the best results from your campaign. As you begin advertising on Facebook, you need to understand your goals, your offer, and, more particularly, your results.
With a sharp image and a copy, you can derive maximum results and become a pro at Facebook advertising. If you are wondering where to get started, then we recommend experimenting with ads with a small budget. After all, as the saying goes, an opportunity not taken is an opportunity lost!