Facebook provides a wonderful platform to find your audience. It’s free, used by millions of users from all walks of life and there are plenty of ways to use it to get your brand out there in the wild.
Facebook now experiences beyond 1 billion daily active users on average and with all of them scrolling through the news feed, you simply can’t ignore this source of traffic when it comes to your marketing endeavors.
Wouldn’t it also be wonderful if you could drive thousands of daily visitors to your website without spending a dime on fancy marketing tools? Whilst you’ve probably been witness to Facebook posts that have driven wild amounts of traffic (becoming viral in the process) it’s actually extremely difficult to predict what will fly and what will sink.
Fortunately, there is more to Facebook than simply posting interesting news or humorous stories – you can advertise to boost your posts reach and at least illicit some control over how much exposure you get from it.
You’ve got to be careful though – Facebook’s primary driver is to get you to spend money and it’s extremely easy to blow through all of your money and get poor results. If you don’t know what you’re doing, using Facebook’s Business Manager can seem extremely daunting but there are things you can do and tools you can apply to make it easier.
For those business owners, who truly care about saving time and making money, we’ve gone through 7 tools to consider using to grow your small business.
1. Facebook Ads Manager
With Facebook Ads Manager, you have access to all of the marketing tools necessary to create targeted ads meant to reach your audience. This is where all marketers start. It’s the most basic Facebook marketing tool but that doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer. There is a steep learning curve but if you want to take your posts and place them in front of your perfect customer, it’s a must.
There is a five-step approach to getting started with Facebook Ads:
• Create a Facebook page or use one that is already existing.
• Provide information on what you want to promote.
• Choose the appropriate audience for your ad.
• Set your budget.
• Track your results.
This is the one advertising tool you need to fully understand if you plan on reaching your goals. Whilst Facebook has continued to add to the manager, making it a little disjointed, it’s actually not too complicated to get the basics under your belt.
2. Facebook Ads Manager App
If you’re constantly on the go, this is the app for you. There are billions of smartphone users worldwide and this number is expected to grow even larger over the next four years. That’s why Facebook has created a dedicated app for mobile users to manage their Ads on the go.
You can use the mobile Ads manager app to control all of your marketing campaigns without the need for a desktop computer. By using the app, you can:
• Track ad performance.
• Edit existing ads.
• Edit schedules and budgets.
• Create ads.
• Receive push notifications.
You could be travelling on the underground and you remember that you didn’t increase your campaign budget. Using the app you could jump into the campaign settings, increase the budget and go back to reading your book – all without getting sweaty palms and racing back to the office to make the adjustment. Simple and accessible.
3. Qwaya
One of the top platforms for creating Facebook advertising campaigns is Qwaya. There’s a few features worth noting but the two main ones are:
Ads A/B Testing
Everyone (and their dog) should be A/B testing their ads. You’ll never know where to spend your money if you don’t keep track of what works and what doesn’t. With Qwaya, you never have this issue as you can test every variable imaginable ensuring that you know what’s performing best at all times.
From ad type to news feed placement strategy, use this feature to get more out of every pound you spend on your social media strategy.
Scheduling
The more online marketing campaigns you run, the more difficult it is to track what’s active and what’s not when it comes to boosting your lead generation. This isn’t an issue when you use the Qwaya scheduling tool. This allows you to schedule campaigns at times when your ROI is highest. Why run ads when your target audience isn’t online and ready to buy? It’s a waste of good marketing effort. You need to schedule your campaigns based on targeted days and times.
Qwaya isn’t as simple to use as Facebook because it’s designed for folks who have been dealing with campaigns for a while. If you’ve got experience building and managing campaigns in Facebook Ad Manager then this tool will save you lots and lots of time.
4. AdEspresso
Complicated tools are everywhere. The pitch is usually great but when it comes time to start using them, it’s a huge time sink and you end up spending more time than before without achieving as much.
AdEspresso keeps things simple and by doing so, it provides it’s users with one of the most powerful tools on this list. When it comes to Facebook advertising and marketing tools, this one is by far the simplest and most straightforward. It only takes a few minutes to setup and the learning curve is minimal but the results are astounding.
If you read our other blogs, you’ll know that we’re numbers focused. The more data the better and the more chance of quality lead generation. The AdEspresso is a great tool but the main piece that excites me is the analytical element. It gives me sweaty palms..but for a good reason.
• Clean, easy to understand visual analytics.
• Customisable dashboards, allowing you to pinpoint top performing ads and focus on the numbers that mean the most to you.
• Detailed metrics for those who want to dig deeper. A lot deeper.
Another great element of AdEspresso is the Academy.
With a variety of training tools, all of which are free of cost, you’ll never find yourself lost and searching for answers. For example, there is an entire section on how to create your first social campaign, complete with a video that walks you through the process.
If you were to ask me which Facebook marketing tools best suits everyone – this would be my answer. Perfect for both beginners and seasoned veterans.
5. Hootsuite Ads
Hootsuite is one of the biggest names in the industry, with millions of brands and individuals using the service to schedule updates.
Hootsuite Ads allows you to take your Facebook advertising campaigns to the next level. The perfect solution for anybody seeking a simplified tool. There are several elements which are valuable;
• Ability to create ads quickly, with as few as two clicks.
• The application automatically scans your Facebook Page and news feed, seeking the best posts to promote to your target audience.
• Assistance defining goals for each ad, allowing you to tailor your marketing campaign to achieve maximum results.
• Advanced ad management features, allowing you to spend less time on ads and more time building your small business. So, you have access to a central location for managing both paid and organic content.
Hootsuite Ads doesn’t do anything to complicate the process of creating and deploying Facebook ads. Hootsuite says –
Take the guesswork out of social media marketing. Out automated targeting and bidding algorithms will turn you into an ad expert.
6. Driftrock
Top brands currently use Driftrock including Coca-cola and BMW. This tool has a lot of features and the way you would use it is below.
• Create
• Automate
• Trigger
• Lead Response
For example, you can trigger ads based on weather, TV schedules and other signals. Imagine being able to run adverts for Umbrellas every time it rains.
With Driftrock, you no longer have to worry about turning off campaigns which are event based. You can now use a variety of other signals too to control your campaigns – not only does this improve the relevance of your ads but it also increases the chances of returning a positive ROI.
7. AdRoll
Retargeting on Facebook is all the rage for savvy lead generation as it allows you to reach customers when they’re most interested in what you have to offer.
AdRoll explains the process in very simple terms.
• Someone visits your website
• They leave your website without completing the desired action for lead generation, such as making a purchase.
• While using Facebook, they are presented with your retargeted ads on their news feed.
• They click on the ad, returning to your website to complete the desired action.
AdRoll is marvellous. It allows you to reach potential customers regardless of the device they are using, and equips you with the ability to show them a relevant ad based upon the content they just consumed from your site. We’re big fans of remarketing – every business should be running remarketing and it’s a shame to come across so many who haven’t even heard of it. Remarketing – powerful stuff.
Summary
More than 900 million people visit Facebook every day. You can either ignore this audience or do whatever it takes to turn some of these folks into paying customers.
With Facebook, when you do find a campaign that returns a profit – you can scale it accordingly. Maybe you want to invest more money in to this strategy or maybe you need to step back because it’s generating too much business. Facebook gives you the tools and the flexibility to draw in more customers when you need them and scale down when you don’t.
With all marketing campaigns there is a risk that you will lose money if you take a misstep or trust a misplaced assumption. But, if you rely on these tools, you’ll have a better foundation to run campaigns and give you the best chances of running one successfully.
