You see them blend seamlessly with organic content shared by your friends and the groups you follow. More often than not, they’re targeted specifically to you and your interests – sometimes, even when you’re searching right in that moment. Some find it creepy, others find it helpful – after all, they’ve put what you needed right in front of you, cutting down the time you needed to spend searching for it. With the immense revenue generating opportunities available on Facebook, there’s no wonder you’re asking – how can I create a killer Facebook ad for my business? Here are some tips to get you started.

The value of Facebook Ads

Successful Facebook ads come down to their level of ROI (return on investment). Despite a steady drop in users, Facebook is showing no sign of slowing down. While users left and time spent on the site diminished in 2017, Facebook ad revenue actually increased by a whopping 49% – a growth Forbes advises won’t change any time soon. With Facebook and Google securing a fifth of the world’s global ad revenue between them, saying that getting in on the Facebook ad market is important is an understatement.

Budget carefully

The powerful revenue generation of Facebook ads can excite the best of us, but before starting any advertising on Facebook or elsewhere, it’s important to cement a budget in order to not overspend or lose important revenue because you under budgeted.

Know your goal

All ads can be condensed down to three purposes – growing awareness, growing engagement, and driving sales. Which one do you wish to target in your Facebook ad? Don’t get too eager, trying for more than one at a time is likely going to see you muddling your message and losing your audience’s attention. Sticking to just one message will likely see higher click through rates, and greater overall engagement.

If what you’re selling or offering requires more deliberation and information before a customer decides to buy, growing engagement and awareness through offering more information may be your best bet. If you’re offering a great deal and already know your target audience, driving sales may be right for you.

Know your audience

For better and for worse, no current social media platform knows as much about its audience as Facebook. Marketers leverage this in order to tailor their ads to their ideal audience. Today, an ideal audience is incredibly specific, down to location, previous purchase history, age, gender, hobbies and much more. If you’re not tailoring your ads after your ideal audience, chances are your competitors are.

If you’re not sure who your target audience is it’s important to do some auditing. Review who your existing customers are, as well as your current social media followers. You can also do some split ad tests with different audiences to figure out which ones are engaging more.

Perfect the details

In a world of click-through-fear and hokey Facebook posts, your average social media user is savvier, and more sceptical of what’s in front of them. If it doesn’t look right, they simply won’t click it, meaning your CTR (click through rate) will plummet. Don’t let your Facebook ad get jumbled in with the other ‘untrustworthies’ on Facebook by making sure everything is spot on.

What does that look like? Make sure your spelling, syntax, and phrasing is immaculate. Avoid your Facebook ads being compromised by a confusing call to action (CTA). Ensure someone with strong photo editing and graphic design abilities puts the ad together, and that the ad leads to the appropriate landing page.

Apart from impeccable presentation, you also want your ad to give just enough information to excite your audience, inform their click, but still keep them curious for more.

…Speaking of landing pages

You don’t want to advertise the party of the year only to have people rush through the doors to an empty room and a tepid bowl of party punch. The same goes for your ad. Make sure that you give your landing page and website just as much attention as you do your ad. Not only should it look great – but it should be what the audience expects it to be (i.e. what you advertised), and then some, to really drive the sale home. If you don’t, you’ll simply throw money out the window, because potential customers will exit your page before making a purchase.

Stay relevant

The Facebook feed is a competitive place. People tend to scroll through it quickly, and no matter how polished, targeted and enticing your ad may be – it may be bypassed if you don’t catch their attention. A great way to grab their attention as they scroll past is through the use of either video, relevant topics, and more such as trending memes and other newsworthy stories. By piggybacking on topics and popular content that’s already on your target audience’s mind you’re more likely to stop them in their tracks. Just be careful you’re not attempting to profit off tragic news. Not only is it bad form, it’s also bad for your business’ reputation, and likely your ROI.

Learn, tweak, and try again

So your first Facebook ad didn’t go as well as you wanted. Or, perhaps you completely hit it out of the park. Either way, learning from past successes and failures is key to putting out consistently high-performing Facebook ads. Today Facebook itself, and a score of other resources combined give you the insight you need into your ads’ performance. So learn what your metrics mean and use them to craft stronger ads in the future.

Consult the experts

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Don’t feel bad. The world of Facebook marketing (and advertising in general) is competitive, fast moving, and often confusing to most people – which is why social media advertising is a full time job in itself. While many algorithmic and advertising tools are freely available to the public, they are hard to learn, and extremely hard to master. Whether you’re unsure who your target audience is, you don’t know whether Facebook is for you, or you don’t have the knowhow to polish your ads before sending them off to people’s feeds, know that there are experts available to help you drive business and secure ROI.