4 Facebook Ads tips: get more out of your Facebook budget

As a business asset, you must tailor Facebook Ads to your product and your market. The following tips are intended for Facebook advertisers who are already busy, who know what the Facebook pixel is and want to get more out of their Facebook budget.

Before we start with the tips for more effect with your Facebook budget, first the main question:

What is a good CTR for Facebook Ads?

CTR stands for the click Through Ratio and shows the number of people in percentage that clicks after seeing the advertisement. Typically in online marketing 2 percent is mentioned as an average number, with 3 percent as good. It differs per location where the advertisement is displayed:

• In the newsfeed, a CTR of 1 percent is minimal;
• In the right-hand column (right-hand-side), 0.5 percent is minimal;
• 3 percent is certainly achievable for a dynamic product advertisement;

In addition, CTR also differs per sector according to research from WordStream.

Tip 1: Value CTR

CTR is just a number that says little without context. For example, you can use it to compare two ads. Which ultimately scores better? For this it is important to view the entire process including conversion and customer relationship. That one advertisement with 1 percent CTR may ultimately lead to more sales than the advertisement with 5 percent CTR.

When converting on the website such as purchase or request for quotation, it is wise to measure this with Google Analytics. This way you can see again through which channels the conversions come in, and which supporting role the different channels have had. With a good CRM system you can link data from Google Analytics to your sales data per customer, so that you can clearly see what the costs are per new customer per channel and what the final costs per customer are. For example, you can learn that the one iPad promotion, although it yielded a lot of customers, was only for one purchase. And that extensive explanatory text that only generates drop-by-drop customers ensures much more revenue in the long term.

Tip 2: More CTR with more relationship

CTR depends on the relationship with the segmented target group. If you choose segmentation based on interest, then you actually opt for a 'hard sell', with a good perspective but a 'hard sell' nonetheless. You can compare it with the one director of that company you want as a customer, who you happen to see at your son's football match. How do you like 'they play fun, hey' to 'you have that one company, right? Are you still searching ..."?

It is easier when you know each other, for example because you are both volunteers at the football club. Translates to Facebook that is the connection with your Facebook page. You can choose that when advertising and then you go from no relation to an existing relation. And that increases the CTR.

Make you one similar target group based on e-mail addresses of customers, you increase the relevance of the message even more. With the Facebook pixel you can specifically select the people who already visited your site but did not convert as a target group (retargeting). The closer the relationship, the higher the CTR.

Tip 3: Images

A boss. But what is often given too little time in the limited time, you notice that as a marketer when you get a picture with more than 20 percent text (yes that is nowadays allowed by Facebook, but your relevance goes down considerably and therefore your costs up). Use images that attract attention and have stopping power. Generally you can stick to:

• People would rather look at people than at objects;
• Close ups work better. Consider whether the advertisement should also be viewed mobile (answer is yes);
• Women like to see women, children and animals;
• People's gaze on images is unconsciously followed, does the person look into the advertisement or look out? People who look at you stand out more (hi!);
• Watch out with stock photos. You see it immediately and it looks fake. People like to see personal photos where people with personality are. Consider, for example, the Hema campaigns;
• Address people with similar people, young people with young people, 20+ people with 20+ people. Only the 65+ would rather be addressed with 50+;
• Handsome people are usually more credible, unless it appears 'too', then it can actually be counterproductive;
• Unless your company is really known, using your logo will add little for conversion (but for building your brand awareness and ultimately ensuring a better conversion).

Tip 4: Optimize with AB testing

If you read this, you already want to invest time and effort in improving the effects of your Facebook marketing. So start with AB testing: you make two similar advertisements and you change one thing. After a while you start comparing the results. Which advertisement resulted in a higher CTR? Which in the end higher conversion? The longer the ads run, the more certainty you have which ad works better. Therefore you need a continuous Facebook budget to continuously optimize. With a campaign you do one or two AB tests to test what works for the target group and then you accelerate.

Keep experimenting. Rotate images, try other titles, shorter or longer texts or a dominant color. Currently, as standard functionality, Facebook AB testing is gradually being rolled out, but you can now easily copy a campaign, ad set and ad and adjust one thing. The most important thing is that you prevent the same target group from seeing two different advertisements, and that the target groups do not overlap. You do that by playing with the display by time, days, age, etc. So: you make ad A and ad B, and target groups A and B. Then you show target group A first ad A and then B, ditto for target group B .