How to Create Your First Facebook Ad Campaign Using Ads Manager?

One of the best ways to reach potential customers online is through a Facebook ad campaign. Facebook remains one of the most powerful platforms for businesses, with a user base of over 2.9 billion active users monthly. If you are New to Facebook ads, then you are at the right place since this guide is perfect for beginners!

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To some, that might sound a little bit intimidating since Facebook Ads Manager is packed with many options and features. But don’t stress! In this guide, we will be breaking things down for you and show you how to set up your ad goals, who your target audience is, etc. Your journey is supposed to be easy and crystal clear.

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In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of setting up your first Facebook ad campaign using Ads Manager. Whether your goal is to increase traffic, generate leads, or boost brand awareness, this step-by-step guide will help you get started.

Why Use Facebook Ads?

Before we get into the nuts and bolts, let’s take a look at a few reasons to use Facebook Ads:

• Specific Targeting: You are able to target users specifically based on their demographic attributes, interests, behaviors, and others on Facebook.
• Budgeting: You can set low budgets at first and increase them gradually once you start getting results.
• Ad Options: It can be image ads, carousel ads, video ads, and any other ad format.
• Performance insights: Ads Manager gives you brand performance data on how your adverts are performing, which makes it possible to improve the campaign performance as time goes by.

Understanding Facebook Ad Types

Understanding the several types of advertisements on Facebook can truly boost your advertising attempts:

•  Image Ads: These are more or less boring but they contain very large pictures that attract attention within less time.
• Video Ads: These help provide an interesting and unique way to communicate the brand or show off the brand's products to the audience.
• Carousel Ads: As the name implies, this type of advertisement effectively highlights several products while the users spend a few moments flicking through a series of pictures or video clips.
• Collection Ads: These ads are for online selling, where users can view items right within Facebook.

Do not forget that every option has its advantages. Hence, select what works best for you!

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Facebook Ad Campaign

Here are two critical steps you’ll want to take before you launch your first campaign:

To kick off your journey with Facebook Ads Manager, the first step is to establish a Business Manager account. This account allows you to control your company pages, advertisements, and other assets related to them in one place.

1. Open your Business Manager account

• Go to the Business Manager Site
• Push the “Create Account” button.
• Specify the business name, the name you gave, and the email that serves you well.
• Select the primary Facebook page of the business you are managing.

This account is important to set up as it makes the process of advertising easier and grants access to important tools if any.

2. Get familiar with Facebook Ads Manager

Once your Business Manager account is set up, take some time to get comfortable with Facebook Ads Manager by:

• Create ad campaigns and ad set
• Set up your target audiences
• Manage your ad budget
• analyze campaign performance.

Now that you’ve spent some time setting up Facebook Ads Manager and familiarizing yourself with its features, it’s time to dive in and create your first campaign.

Step 1: Choose your buying type and ad objective

The first step in creating Facebook ads is to choose your buying type and ad objective. Start by choosing your buying type; the default option is Auction, but you also have the Reach and Frequency option available to you.

• Auction (default): Your ads will compete in a bidding process to appear in front of your audience.
• Reach and Frequency – This ensures that your ad airs a certain number of times to the target audience.

After everything is in place, determine what your ad objective is. - the one thing you want to accomplish in your campaign. Consider your goals: Do you wish to generate more awareness about your brand or motivate customers to buy your products? It is easier to know what objective category to focus on for your ad, depending on the expected outcomes.

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Step 2: Fix your budget

The next step in your Facebook Ads Manager setup should include determining a budget. It is essential to comprehend the amount you will pay for ads before you even push the START button. Facebook allows you to choose between two forms of budgets:

• Daily Budget: Here, you control the amount that will be spent each day. When that amount is spent for the day in question, that campaign will be on hold until the next day.
• Lifetime Budget: There is no amount of spending you are prepared to exceed on this campaign, regardless of how long it takes to run.

If you want to manage it effectively, you may use both budgeting alternatives. The lifetime budget assists in putting a ceiling on the total spending, whereas the daily budget restricts the pace at which you can deplete the total budget. You should also consider potential fluctuations in ad performance and adjust accordingly.

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Step 4: Your Target Audience

Utilizing the Facebook Ads Manager comes with the great advantage of not only choosing the audience but also using the age, location, interests, and behavior of the audience for the production of the campaigns, making use of the Facebook targeting tools. Uploading customer lists or creating Lookalike Audiences is useful for advertising in a more efficient way.

Consider who your clients are. You will need to obtain leads, though, and by targeting these leads according to the characteristics of one of your existing customers, you will be able to reach your targets efficiently.

Step 5: Choose Ad Placements

Knowing where you can place your ads is essential in effectively utilizing the Facebook Ads Manager. Ads Manager will display multiple ad placement options, enabling you to target your audience on its heterogeneous grounds. Make Facebook place your ads all over their platforms automatically, or you can choose different ad placements manually, such as Facebook, Instagram, messenger, etc.

Two main options available are:

• Automatic Placements: Facebook will place your ads across its platforms for you, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.
• Custom: You're able to showcase your ad in different places manually (like Facebook newsfeeds, Instagram stories, and Messenger inboxes).

Step 6: Create Your Ad

The content of your ad is crucial for attracting clicks and engaging your audience. Develop compelling material that entices people to interact with your ad. Design your ad by selecting the format (image, video, or carousel). Write a compelling copy and include a clear call to action (CTA) to encourage engagement.

Step 7: Review and Launch

Make sure to review your audience, budget, and ad content prior to launching your campaign, and then click “Confirmed” to submit your ad. Facebook will review it before it goes live. This review process usually takes less than 24 hours, but in some cases, it may take longer.

Normally, this review process is completed within 24 hours, but there are instances when it takes longer.

Setting Up Facebook Pixel

This makes it possible to average many leads from potential clients by incorporating the Facebook Pixel into your site. This activity tracking tool can help you monitor every action taken by a user on your site, such as the purchases made and the pages viewed, which further aids in understanding the behavior of users on the site. It’s easy to install – you need to copy and paste a small code into a website source or through a tag management system such as Google Tag Manager.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Facebook Ads

1. Skipping A/B Testing

Test various ad elements such as images, headlines, and overcalls to play the resulting insights.

2. Ignoring Performance Metrics

Improve analytics of your ads regularly. A failure to do this leads to missed chances for optimization.

3. Targeting Too Broadly

Broad targeting wastes ad spend. Narrow your audience based on specific demographics and interests for better results.

4. Setting Unrealistic Budgets

Start with a budget that matches your goals. Avoid spreading funds too thin across campaigns.

5. Failing to Update Ads

Audience preferences change. Regularly refresh your targeting and ad content to stay relevant.

Final Thoughts

It can be somewhat intimidating to start your first Facebook Ad campaign, but that soon becomes a trivial issue once you understand the steps and are familiar with some of the features inside the platform. How do you run a successful competition? Start small, and don't lose your profit; everything that is not profitable must be adjusted. As long as you have a solid outline to begin with, use Facebook features to ensure that you hit the appropriate audience and budget.