If I promote my website on Facebook, I need an image for the ad. The first place to look for an image is your website.
armand morin
NOTE: In order to follow and make sense of this article, you will need to be logged into Facebook and have your “Ad Manager” open so you can follow along.
A good way to start is to log into your Facebook account and scroll through the ads you see to get an idea of what other people are doing. You’ll see various types of ads, text ads, video ads, image ads etc. You’ll find that a lot of the ads contain an image. That’s what I am going to do in this article.
As you scroll through the ads right click on the ones you like and open them in a new tab. That way you can easily refer to them for ideas as you are working on creating your ad. Something to pay attention to is how much text appears in the ad.
“It’s finally here, after months of working on it, it’s ready for the public. My brand new Complete Seminar—https://CompleteSeminar.com”
When I put in the URL it instantly pulls the image, logo, title and description that we created above. (I used the same “Complete Seminar” when we create that earlier.)
I like putting my URL in the post, as I did up above.
Now I can continue with the text…
“We have some amazing speakers, incredible networking and information that will revolutionize your business. We’re bringing back what seminars need to be. Don’t miss this! For a limited time get 50% off. Click to watch the video.”
https://CompleteSeminar.com
NOTE: I included the URL again at the end.
That’s it—short and sweet.
This is what this example looks like…
I then copy the text and click the “Publish” button. Sometimes when you go to post something, it just doesn’t post. That’s why I copied the text…if it doesn’t post, I can just refresh the page, I already have my text copied so that I can repaste it and then click “Publish” again. This is something that is a great hint to remember for when you are publishing ads.
Now I go back to my regular, personal Facebook page and share it from my individual page.
A lot of people like to post a whole book on Facebook….I don’t. No one is going to read long posts. People don’t come to Facebook to read all of that. I like to do a short and sweet post and then send them to my website.
Let me make something clear. On my Business page I can “Boost” the post. I do NOT want to do this. Here’s why. Once I “Boost” it, I lose complete control of it.
Facebook now takes control of the ad and does what they want with it. Facebook wants you to click “Boost” because it gives them control over your ad. You want to take care of everything yourself.
Now that I have the ad and it’s on my timeline, I can now
advertise it. To do this, I need to go to my business page and
start a campaign.
From the “Campaign” page click “Create.” The first thing I want to do here is choose an objective. (Do NOT name it yet). Click the drop down menu for “Campaign Objective” and choose “Post Engagement.” You do this because you want to start by advertising the post that you have on your page.
If you don’t see the fields I’m talking about here, you may have to look at the top of your page and find a button that says “Switch To Quick Creation” (or something similar)
Now, I am ready to give the campaign a name. I go to the “Campaign Name” box and, for this example, I’ll name it “Complete Post Engagement.” I copy it and paste this name in two more places on this page “Ad Set Name” and “Ad Name.” You should now have the name, “Complete Post Engagement” (for this example) in three separate places on this page.
Once you have this, click “Save To Draft.” A window will pop out, but you can just close it.
Once you close that pop out, you should see a page that has a “Complete Post Engagement” link. Click on this link and it will take you to the next tab which is “Ad Sets.” In the upper right hand corner you should see a button that says, “Expand/Collapse Side Pane.”
Click this and a window will pop out again. This window will allow you to edit the targeting of this ad. Click the “editing” pencil (upper left of that window).
The first thing you’ll edit is budget. I suggest putting $10 for a budget. I always recommend starting with a low $5 or $10 daily budget. Leave everything else alone and scroll down the page to “Custom Audiences.” For this example, I am going to skip it and go to “Locations.”
Locations lets you choose who you want to target and where you want to target. For this example, I’m going to leave it set at “United States.” I usually set the lower age range to somewhere between 22-24 years old. For this example, I’m leaving the upper age at 65, but you should set it at whatever fits your product.
Pay close attention to this next step: “Detailed Targeting”. In this case I will choose my name, Armand Morin, as one of the targeting factors. If you are a known name in your field, put your name here for this first ad.
If you’re not, you could add names of other marketers or known people in your field which would then target their followers. But in this first ad, I’ll just use my own name. I’ll come back and add other names for future ads.
Now, let’s scroll down to “Edit Placements.” I will choose “Only Desktop Devices.” Your market may be different and, who knows, in the future I may change this recommendation, but for now I am sticking with only desktop devices.
Under “Platforms,” for this first ad, I’m gong to uncheck everything except “Feeds.”
Scroll down to “Optimization & Delivery.” Leave it set to “Post Engagement,” and do NOT check “bid cap.”
I’m going to scroll up to the top. I decided I want to change my “ad set name” to be more descriptive. This will make it easier as I track my ads. I’m going to use my own abbreviations that make sense to me.
You need to use whatever will make sense to you as you track multiple ads in the same campaign. So I’ll change the name to “Complete-PE-Fans-Desktop” and then click “close arrow” (top left of pop out screen). This title tells me everything I need to know in order to identify this individual ad.
- Complete – It’s for my complete seminar
- PE – It’s a Post Engagement ad
- Fans – It targets my fans
- Desktop – it will only show for people who are on
- Facebook using desktop computers
See how simple that is. As I track my individual ads, I will be able to see exactly what ad this is, who it targeted, and how it targeted them. This code works for me. Use codes that make sense for you. Just keep it simple.
That window closed which leaves me back on the “Campaigns” page.
I click on my ad link under “Ad Name.” A new pop out window appears, and I can now actually create the ad.
I select the Facebook page I want to target. I select the post that I just made (it should appear on the right side of the window). That’s about it for this page. You can just close this pop out window.
Now, look in the upper right hand corner of the page that remains showing, and you should see a “Review and Publish” button. Click it. A pop up will appear. Click “Publish” on the pop up. Your ad is now on its way to Facebook for review.
One question I’m often asked is, “how long does it take Facebook to review and post an ad”? The answer is that it depends. I usually get my ads posted within a few minutes. The more ads you post, the faster the review process goes.
As you may recall, I called this campaign, “Complete-Post Engagement”. I can have multiple “Ad Sets” within this campaign each targeting different markets. I have a targeting strategy that I use when I post an ad. Every single time I run an ad I run five different “Ad Sets” targeting…
- Fans
- Page
- Friends of Friends (FOF)
- List
- Any existing audiences
Contents
“Fans”…
Once the first ad set is run it’s very easy to do the remaining four. I just go to the existing “Fans” ad and click “Duplicate.” A popup called, “Duplicate Ad Set Into:” appears. I click the “Existing Campaign” radio button and then click the “Duplicate” button on the popup.
“Page”…
We then change the “Ad Set” name from “Complete-PE-Fans- Desktop” to “Complete-PE-Page-Desktop.” I then scroll down to “Detailed Targeting” where I had my name, “Armand Morin” and remove it. Then go down a little further to “Connections.”
In the dropdown menu, “Add A Connection Type” I choose, “People Who Like Your Page.” The next box lets you select the page you wish to target. I can now close and Publish it.
Now my “Page” ad set is posted. It uses the same ad, logo etc. as I used in the first ad set. You should see both the “Fans” and the “People Who Like Your Page” ad sets listed.
“Friends of Friends” (FOF)…
I go back and duplicate the ad into the existing campaign again. But this time I change the “Ad Set Name” to, “Complete- PE-FOF” (Friends of Friends). Once again, I scroll down to “Connections” “Facebook Pages” dropdown and choose,“Friends of people who like your page.”
I then put the name of my page in the box and click “Publish”. This now targets the friends of the people who have already liked my page.
“List”…
I do something different here. I go to the top left of my “Ad Sets” Page (I should already be on this page) and click “Ads Manager” and then “All Tools”. Then click on, “Audiences” (in the page that comes up).
I then click, “Create Audience” and then “Custom Audience,” then “Customer File.” This is where you will upload your list. If you Have “MailChimp,” you can import the addresses from it. If not, you can choose, “Add customers from your own file or copy and paste data.”
This enables you to upload a CSV file of all your emails. You need to export all your existing emails, as a CSV file and save it. Then upload that list here. It will scan your email list and try to match up people from your list with people who are on Facebook. This could take a couple of hours.
Now go back to your “Ads Manager” and “Ad Sets.” Create a new Ad set. In this example, I am calling it “Complete-PE-Email List”. I make sure my budget is set where I want it. Remember, I chose $10 for this example.
I now scroll down to “CustomAudiences,” choose “Custom Audience,” and then choose my email list. I now scroll down and choose the countries I want to target. I now click “Publish.”
That just leaves the “Any Existing Audiences” Ad Set. Up to this point I’ve just been targeting people I already have. Now I’m going to go outside that circle.
“Any Existing Audiences”…
Before I duplicate, I need to create what Facebook calls a “Look Alike Audience. To do this I once again click “Ads Manage” (Upper left of screen) Then “All Tools” and “Audiences.” If I have previously created audiences, I will find them listed here.
In your case you may just find the list you created in the last step. You’re going to choose that list and create a new audience. From the “Create Audience” drop down choose “Lookalike Audience.” In the popup, you choose your list as the “Source.”
You then choose the country or countries you wish to target. Then you need to choose “Audience Size”. In this example, I’ll choose “1” (from the bar) and, in this case that gives us 2.2 million people.
This means that Facebook is going to automatically create a list of up to 2.2 million people they feel somehow resembles my list. I suggest that you always choose “1” because that will give you a lookalike audience that most closely resembles your audience. Thus, it’s much more targeted.
Click “Create Audience.” This may take some time.
I now go back to “Ads Manager” and duplicate the Ad Set to create the “Any Existing Audiences” Ad Set. I do this just as I did with the previous three Ad Sets. I’ll name this Ad Set, Complete-PE-Other Audiences.” I scroll down to “Custom Audiences” and choose my “Lookalike audience.”
If you have more, lookalike audiences than the one you just created you can, if you wish, choose all of them. Then click “Publish.”
What I just did is create a basic ad and a Campaign with five different Ad sets.
I have targeted existing customers plus a huge “lookalike” customer list. The mistake most people make is to concentrate on brand new customers. While that’s not a bad thing, they neglect to target their existing customers and that is a huge mistake. In this example I went after my existing customers plus new customers.
You should now see the new image, new description and new title appear in Debugger. Now you can go back to Facebook, refresh and post the URL, you will see the image, title and description we just set up.
This was the first type of ad I wanted to show you.
Now let’s write a basic ad. For this example I’ll do an ad for my “Complete Seminar”.
I start by going to my Facebook business page and click on “Posts” (Left hand side of page) I go to the box that says “Write Something” and I type…
“It’s finally here, after months of working on it, it’s ready for the public. My brand new Complete Seminar—https://CompleteSeminar.com”
When I put in the URL it instantly pulls the image, logo, title and description that we created above. (I used the same “Complete Seminar” when we create that earlier.)
I like putting my URL in the post, as I did up above.
Now I can continue with the text…
“We have some amazing speakers, incredible networking and information that will revolutionize your business. We’re bringing back what seminars need to be. Don’t miss this! For a limited time get 50% off. Click to watch the video.”
https://CompleteSeminar.com
NOTE: I included the URL again at the end.
That’s it—short and sweet.
This is what this example looks like…
I then copy the text and click the “Publish” button. Sometimes when you go to post something, it just doesn’t post. That’s why I copied the text…if it doesn’t post, I can just refresh the page, I already have my text copied so that I can repaste it and then click “Publish” again. This is something that is a great hint to remember for when you are publishing ads.
Now I go back to my regular, personal Facebook page and share it from my individual page.
A lot of people like to post a whole book on Facebook….I don’t. No one is going to read long posts. People don’t come to Facebook to read all of that. I like to do a short and sweet post and then send them to my website.
Let me make something clear. On my Business page I can “Boost” the post. I do NOT want to do this. Here’s why. Once I “Boost” it, I lose complete control of it.
Facebook now takes control of the ad and does what they want with it. Facebook wants you to click “Boost” because it gives them control over your ad. You want to take care of everything yourself.
Now that I have the ad and it’s on my timeline, I can now
advertise it. To do this, I need to go to my business page and
start a campaign.
From the “Campaign” page click “Create.” The first thing I want to do here is choose an objective. (Do NOT name it yet). Click the drop down menu for “Campaign Objective” and choose “Post Engagement.” You do this because you want to start by advertising the post that you have on your page.
If you don’t see the fields I’m talking about here, you may have to look at the top of your page and find a button that says “Switch To Quick Creation” (or something similar)
Now, I am ready to give the campaign a name. I go to the “Campaign Name” box and, for this example, I’ll name it “Complete Post Engagement.” I copy it and paste this name in two more places on this page “Ad Set Name” and “Ad Name.” You should now have the name, “Complete Post Engagement” (for this example) in three separate places on this page.
Once you have this, click “Save To Draft.” A window will pop out, but you can just close it.
Once you close that pop out, you should see a page that has a “Complete Post Engagement” link. Click on this link and it will take you to the next tab which is “Ad Sets.” In the upper right hand corner you should see a button that says, “Expand/Collapse Side Pane.”
Click this and a window will pop out again. This window will allow you to edit the targeting of this ad. Click the “editing” pencil (upper left of that window).
The first thing you’ll edit is budget. I suggest putting $10 for a budget. I always recommend starting with a low $5 or $10 daily budget. Leave everything else alone and scroll down the page to “Custom Audiences.” For this example, I am going to skip it and go to “Locations.”
Locations lets you choose who you want to target and where you want to target. For this example, I’m going to leave it set at “United States.” I usually set the lower age range to somewhere between 22-24 years old. For this example, I’m leaving the upper age at 65, but you should set it at whatever fits your product.
Pay close attention to this next step: “Detailed Targeting”. In this case I will choose my name, Armand Morin, as one of the targeting factors. If you are a known name in your field, put your name here for this first ad.
If you’re not, you could add names of other marketers or known people in your field which would then target their followers. But in this first ad, I’ll just use my own name. I’ll come back and add other names for future ads.
Now, let’s scroll down to “Edit Placements.” I will choose “Only Desktop Devices.” Your market may be different and, who knows, in the future I may change this recommendation, but for now I am sticking with only desktop devices.
Under “Platforms,” for this first ad, I’m gong to uncheck everything except “Feeds.”
Scroll down to “Optimization & Delivery.” Leave it set to “Post Engagement,” and do NOT check “bid cap.”
I’m going to scroll up to the top. I decided I want to change my “ad set name” to be more descriptive. This will make it easier as I track my ads. I’m going to use my own abbreviations that make sense to me.
You need to use whatever will make sense to you as you track multiple ads in the same campaign. So I’ll change the name to “Complete-PE-Fans-Desktop” and then click “close arrow” (top left of pop out screen). This title tells me everything I need to know in order to identify this individual ad.
- Complete – It’s for my complete seminar
- PE – It’s a Post Engagement ad
- Fans – It targets my fans
- Desktop – it will only show for people who are on
- Facebook using desktop computers
See how simple that is. As I track my individual ads, I will be able to see exactly what ad this is, who it targeted, and how it targeted them. This code works for me. Use codes that make sense for you. Just keep it simple.
That window closed which leaves me back on the “Campaigns” page.
I click on my ad link under “Ad Name.” A new pop out window appears, and I can now actually create the ad.
I select the Facebook page I want to target. I select the post that I just made (it should appear on the right side of the window). That’s about it for this page. You can just close this pop out window.
Now, look in the upper right hand corner of the page that remains showing, and you should see a “Review and Publish” button. Click it. A pop up will appear. Click “Publish” on the pop up. Your ad is now on its way to Facebook for review.
One question I’m often asked is, “how long does it take Facebook to review and post an ad”? The answer is that it depends. I usually get my ads posted within a few minutes. The more ads you post, the faster the review process goes.
As you may recall, I called this campaign, “Complete-Post Engagement”. I can have multiple “Ad Sets” within this campaign each targeting different markets. I have a targeting strategy that I use when I post an ad. Every single time I run an ad I run five different “Ad Sets” targeting…
- Fans
- Page
- Friends of Friends (FOF)
- List
- Any existing audiences
“Fans”…
Once the first ad set is run it’s very easy to do the remaining four. I just go to the existing “Fans” ad and click “Duplicate.” A popup called, “Duplicate Ad Set Into:” appears. I click the “Existing Campaign” radio button and then click the “Duplicate” button on the popup.
“Page”…
We then change the “Ad Set” name from “Complete-PE-Fans- Desktop” to “Complete-PE-Page-Desktop.” I then scroll down to “Detailed Targeting” where I had my name, “Armand Morin” and remove it. Then go down a little further to “Connections.”
In the dropdown menu, “Add A Connection Type” I choose, “People Who Like Your Page.” The next box lets you select the page you wish to target. I can now close and Publish it.
Now my “Page” ad set is posted. It uses the same ad, logo etc. as I used in the first ad set. You should see both the “Fans” and the “People Who Like Your Page” ad sets listed.
“Friends of Friends” (FOF)…
I go back and duplicate the ad into the existing campaign again. But this time I change the “Ad Set Name” to, “Complete- PE-FOF” (Friends of Friends). Once again, I scroll down to “Connections” “Facebook Pages” dropdown and choose,“Friends of people who like your page.”
I then put the name of my page in the box and click “Publish”. This now targets the friends of the people who have already liked my page.
“List”…
I do something different here. I go to the top left of my “Ad Sets” Page (I should already be on this page) and click “Ads Manager” and then “All Tools”. Then click on, “Audiences” (in the page that comes up).
I then click, “Create Audience” and then “Custom Audience,” then “Customer File.” This is where you will upload your list. If you Have “MailChimp,” you can import the addresses from it. If not, you can choose, “Add customers from your own file or copy and paste data.”
This enables you to upload a CSV file of all your emails. You need to export all your existing emails, as a CSV file and save it. Then upload that list here. It will scan your email list and try to match up people from your list with people who are on Facebook. This could take a couple of hours.
Now go back to your “Ads Manager” and “Ad Sets.” Create a new Ad set. In this example, I am calling it “Complete-PE-Email List”. I make sure my budget is set where I want it. Remember, I chose $10 for this example.
I now scroll down to “CustomAudiences,” choose “Custom Audience,” and then choose my email list. I now scroll down and choose the countries I want to target. I now click “Publish.”
That just leaves the “Any Existing Audiences” Ad Set. Up to this point I’ve just been targeting people I already have. Now I’m going to go outside that circle.
“Any Existing Audiences”…
Before I duplicate, I need to create what Facebook calls a “Look Alike Audience. To do this I once again click “Ads Manage” (Upper left of screen) Then “All Tools” and “Audiences.” If I have previously created audiences, I will find them listed here.
In your case you may just find the list you created in the last step. You’re going to choose that list and create a new audience. From the “Create Audience” drop down choose “Lookalike Audience.” In the popup, you choose your list as the “Source.”
You then choose the country or countries you wish to target. Then you need to choose “Audience Size”. In this example, I’ll choose “1” (from the bar) and, in this case that gives us 2.2 million people.
This means that Facebook is going to automatically create a list of up to 2.2 million people they feel somehow resembles my list. I suggest that you always choose “1” because that will give you a lookalike audience that most closely resembles your audience. Thus, it’s much more targeted.
Click “Create Audience.” This may take some time.
I now go back to “Ads Manager” and duplicate the Ad Set to create the “Any Existing Audiences” Ad Set. I do this just as I did with the previous three Ad Sets. I’ll name this Ad Set, Complete-PE-Other Audiences.” I scroll down to “Custom Audiences” and choose my “Lookalike audience.”
If you have more, lookalike audiences than the one you just created you can, if you wish, choose all of them. Then click “Publish.”
What I just did is create a basic ad and a Campaign with five different Ad sets.
I have targeted existing customers plus a huge “lookalike” customer list. The mistake most people make is to concentrate on brand new customers. While that’s not a bad thing, they neglect to target their existing customers and that is a huge mistake. In this example I went after my existing customers plus new customers.
Here, as an example, is an image I saved because it has some features I like, minimal text, big image in the background etc..
If I promote my website on Facebook, I need an image for the ad. The first place to look for an image is your website. Once I log into my account, to create the ad, and then enter in the entire URL for my website. Facebook will scan my website pulling images off the page to use in the ad.
If it finds a good one you can use it, but it may not be able to find one that you wish to use. If that’s the case, you could use a stock photo that they have or you could go out a find a photo of your own.
Here’s a little sidebar…you should make sure any website you are going to promote has a good image to use on Facebook. Here’s an easy way you can do it if you are utilizing WordPress for your website. Just log into WordPress where you have your account, and attach a featured image to the front page. Also, go to the “Yoast SEO” plugin, and you will see where it asks for a Facebook image. Find a really good image that you want to use, and upload it here. You will see that they also have a place to upload a Twitter image.
Facebook has a rule that says you cannot have text in more than 20% of the ad.
Here’s an example, using an image that I previously used for a Facebook ad. The size I used in this example is 1200 x 628 pixels. You will note that I have overlayed a grid over the image using image editing software. The grid has five columns horizontally and five columns vertically.
The grid helps me to easily lay out the ad and ensure that the text portion doesn’t use up in more than 20% of the ad. As you can see, each row is 20% of the entire ad, so I just have to make sure my text stays within one row. You can now change color, size, text etc. and always stay within Facebook’s 20% rule.
While I didn’t do it for this example, I would make sure that my logo was in the image. If you have words in your logo, they will be counted as text. In that case, you may need to shrink down or make some changes to your logo to fit within the 20% rule.
Your text does not need to be all together in one spot. The logo can be in one area and the rest of the text in another. I just put it all in one row as an example. Just remember, using this grid, your text cannot use up more than five boxes of the grid.
Once you are satisfied, save it where you can easily find it and upload it to the Facebook image option in Yoast SEO. Oh, and make sure you get rid of the grid before you upload it! While in Yoast, add a Facebook title and Facebook description where Yoast asks for it. While in there do it for Twitter also.
Then go back to the main page and add the title you used above into the SEO title box. Add the description from above into the Meta Description box.
You can now go to Facebook and pull up your URL to ensure your new image is coming up. If you had a previous image it may still be coming up. Here is how you force Facebook to display the new image in place of the old one.
- Go to Google and type in, “clear Facebook cache”
- This will take you to the “Facebook Debugger”, click on it
- Paste your URL into the debugger and click “Debug”
- Click “scrape again”
- Then click “Debug Again”
You should now see the new image, new description and new title appear in Debugger. Now you can go back to Facebook, refresh and post the URL, you will see the image, title and description we just set up.
This was the first type of ad I wanted to show you.
Now let’s write a basic ad. For this example I’ll do an ad for my “Complete Seminar”.
I start by going to my Facebook business page and click on “Posts” (Left hand side of page) I go to the box that says “Write Something” and I type…
“It’s finally here, after months of working on it, it’s ready for the public. My brand new Complete Seminar—https://CompleteSeminar.com”
When I put in the URL it instantly pulls the image, logo, title and description that we created above. (I used the same “Complete Seminar” when we create that earlier.)
I like putting my URL in the post, as I did up above.
Now I can continue with the text…
“We have some amazing speakers, incredible networking and information that will revolutionize your business. We’re bringing back what seminars need to be. Don’t miss this! For a limited time get 50% off. Click to watch the video.”
https://CompleteSeminar.com
NOTE: I included the URL again at the end.
That’s it—short and sweet.
This is what this example looks like…
I then copy the text and click the “Publish” button. Sometimes when you go to post something, it just doesn’t post. That’s why I copied the text…if it doesn’t post, I can just refresh the page, I already have my text copied so that I can repaste it and then click “Publish” again. This is something that is a great hint to remember for when you are publishing ads.
Now I go back to my regular, personal Facebook page and share it from my individual page.
A lot of people like to post a whole book on Facebook….I don’t. No one is going to read long posts. People don’t come to Facebook to read all of that. I like to do a short and sweet post and then send them to my website.
Let me make something clear. On my Business page I can “Boost” the post. I do NOT want to do this. Here’s why. Once I “Boost” it, I lose complete control of it.
Facebook now takes control of the ad and does what they want with it. Facebook wants you to click “Boost” because it gives them control over your ad. You want to take care of everything yourself.
Now that I have the ad and it’s on my timeline, I can now
advertise it. To do this, I need to go to my business page and
start a campaign.
From the “Campaign” page click “Create.” The first thing I want to do here is choose an objective. (Do NOT name it yet). Click the drop down menu for “Campaign Objective” and choose “Post Engagement.” You do this because you want to start by advertising the post that you have on your page.
If you don’t see the fields I’m talking about here, you may have to look at the top of your page and find a button that says “Switch To Quick Creation” (or something similar)
Now, I am ready to give the campaign a name. I go to the “Campaign Name” box and, for this example, I’ll name it “Complete Post Engagement.” I copy it and paste this name in two more places on this page “Ad Set Name” and “Ad Name.” You should now have the name, “Complete Post Engagement” (for this example) in three separate places on this page.
Once you have this, click “Save To Draft.” A window will pop out, but you can just close it.
Once you close that pop out, you should see a page that has a “Complete Post Engagement” link. Click on this link and it will take you to the next tab which is “Ad Sets.” In the upper right hand corner you should see a button that says, “Expand/Collapse Side Pane.”
Click this and a window will pop out again. This window will allow you to edit the targeting of this ad. Click the “editing” pencil (upper left of that window).
The first thing you’ll edit is budget. I suggest putting $10 for a budget. I always recommend starting with a low $5 or $10 daily budget. Leave everything else alone and scroll down the page to “Custom Audiences.” For this example, I am going to skip it and go to “Locations.”
Locations lets you choose who you want to target and where you want to target. For this example, I’m going to leave it set at “United States.” I usually set the lower age range to somewhere between 22-24 years old. For this example, I’m leaving the upper age at 65, but you should set it at whatever fits your product.
Pay close attention to this next step: “Detailed Targeting”. In this case I will choose my name, Armand Morin, as one of the targeting factors. If you are a known name in your field, put your name here for this first ad.
If you’re not, you could add names of other marketers or known people in your field which would then target their followers. But in this first ad, I’ll just use my own name. I’ll come back and add other names for future ads.
Now, let’s scroll down to “Edit Placements.” I will choose “Only Desktop Devices.” Your market may be different and, who knows, in the future I may change this recommendation, but for now I am sticking with only desktop devices.
Under “Platforms,” for this first ad, I’m gong to uncheck everything except “Feeds.”
Scroll down to “Optimization & Delivery.” Leave it set to “Post Engagement,” and do NOT check “bid cap.”
I’m going to scroll up to the top. I decided I want to change my “ad set name” to be more descriptive. This will make it easier as I track my ads. I’m going to use my own abbreviations that make sense to me.
You need to use whatever will make sense to you as you track multiple ads in the same campaign. So I’ll change the name to “Complete-PE-Fans-Desktop” and then click “close arrow” (top left of pop out screen). This title tells me everything I need to know in order to identify this individual ad.
- Complete – It’s for my complete seminar
- PE – It’s a Post Engagement ad
- Fans – It targets my fans
- Desktop – it will only show for people who are on
- Facebook using desktop computers
See how simple that is. As I track my individual ads, I will be able to see exactly what ad this is, who it targeted, and how it targeted them. This code works for me. Use codes that make sense for you. Just keep it simple.
That window closed which leaves me back on the “Campaigns” page.
I click on my ad link under “Ad Name.” A new pop out window appears, and I can now actually create the ad.
I select the Facebook page I want to target. I select the post that I just made (it should appear on the right side of the window). That’s about it for this page. You can just close this pop out window.
Now, look in the upper right hand corner of the page that remains showing, and you should see a “Review and Publish” button. Click it. A pop up will appear. Click “Publish” on the pop up. Your ad is now on its way to Facebook for review.
One question I’m often asked is, “how long does it take Facebook to review and post an ad”? The answer is that it depends. I usually get my ads posted within a few minutes. The more ads you post, the faster the review process goes.
As you may recall, I called this campaign, “Complete-Post Engagement”. I can have multiple “Ad Sets” within this campaign each targeting different markets. I have a targeting strategy that I use when I post an ad. Every single time I run an ad I run five different “Ad Sets” targeting…
- Fans
- Page
- Friends of Friends (FOF)
- List
- Any existing audiences
“Fans”…
Once the first ad set is run it’s very easy to do the remaining four. I just go to the existing “Fans” ad and click “Duplicate.” A popup called, “Duplicate Ad Set Into:” appears. I click the “Existing Campaign” radio button and then click the “Duplicate” button on the popup.
“Page”…
We then change the “Ad Set” name from “Complete-PE-Fans- Desktop” to “Complete-PE-Page-Desktop.” I then scroll down to “Detailed Targeting” where I had my name, “Armand Morin” and remove it. Then go down a little further to “Connections.”
In the dropdown menu, “Add A Connection Type” I choose, “People Who Like Your Page.” The next box lets you select the page you wish to target. I can now close and Publish it.
Now my “Page” ad set is posted. It uses the same ad, logo etc. as I used in the first ad set. You should see both the “Fans” and the “People Who Like Your Page” ad sets listed.
“Friends of Friends” (FOF)…
I go back and duplicate the ad into the existing campaign again. But this time I change the “Ad Set Name” to, “Complete- PE-FOF” (Friends of Friends). Once again, I scroll down to “Connections” “Facebook Pages” dropdown and choose,“Friends of people who like your page.”
I then put the name of my page in the box and click “Publish”. This now targets the friends of the people who have already liked my page.
“List”…
I do something different here. I go to the top left of my “Ad Sets” Page (I should already be on this page) and click “Ads Manager” and then “All Tools”. Then click on, “Audiences” (in the page that comes up).
I then click, “Create Audience” and then “Custom Audience,” then “Customer File.” This is where you will upload your list. If you Have “MailChimp,” you can import the addresses from it. If not, you can choose, “Add customers from your own file or copy and paste data.”
This enables you to upload a CSV file of all your emails. You need to export all your existing emails, as a CSV file and save it. Then upload that list here. It will scan your email list and try to match up people from your list with people who are on Facebook. This could take a couple of hours.
Now go back to your “Ads Manager” and “Ad Sets.” Create a new Ad set. In this example, I am calling it “Complete-PE-Email List”. I make sure my budget is set where I want it. Remember, I chose $10 for this example.
I now scroll down to “CustomAudiences,” choose “Custom Audience,” and then choose my email list. I now scroll down and choose the countries I want to target. I now click “Publish.”
That just leaves the “Any Existing Audiences” Ad Set. Up to this point I’ve just been targeting people I already have. Now I’m going to go outside that circle.
“Any Existing Audiences”…
Before I duplicate, I need to create what Facebook calls a “Look Alike Audience. To do this I once again click “Ads Manage” (Upper left of screen) Then “All Tools” and “Audiences.” If I have previously created audiences, I will find them listed here.
In your case you may just find the list you created in the last step. You’re going to choose that list and create a new audience. From the “Create Audience” drop down choose “Lookalike Audience.” In the popup, you choose your list as the “Source.”
You then choose the country or countries you wish to target. Then you need to choose “Audience Size”. In this example, I’ll choose “1” (from the bar) and, in this case that gives us 2.2 million people.
This means that Facebook is going to automatically create a list of up to 2.2 million people they feel somehow resembles my list. I suggest that you always choose “1” because that will give you a lookalike audience that most closely resembles your audience. Thus, it’s much more targeted.
Click “Create Audience.” This may take some time.
I now go back to “Ads Manager” and duplicate the Ad Set to create the “Any Existing Audiences” Ad Set. I do this just as I did with the previous three Ad Sets. I’ll name this Ad Set, Complete-PE-Other Audiences.” I scroll down to “Custom Audiences” and choose my “Lookalike audience.”
If you have more, lookalike audiences than the one you just created you can, if you wish, choose all of them. Then click “Publish.”
What I just did is create a basic ad and a Campaign with five different Ad sets.
I have targeted existing customers plus a huge “lookalike” customer list. The mistake most people make is to concentrate on brand new customers. While that’s not a bad thing, they neglect to target their existing customers and that is a huge mistake. In this example I went after my existing customers plus new customers.
