The 3 Components of Facebook Ad Creation

There are more than 1 billion people on Facebook and thanks to it’s robust targeting options, Facebook is the best platform for brands to reach their customers directly.

“Facebook matters or should matter to brands because it is a great way to reach new customers,” Stephen Kerner, Manager of Retail Search at CPC Strategy said.

“People are engaged on Facebook so if brands can find an effective way to engage with their target audience, Facebook could be a powerful channel for them.”

In the following blog post, we will outline the 3 components every Facebook ad needs to effectively run. This is also known as the “Campaign Structure”.

It’s important to note that each component of the campaign structure plays a different role in the overall success of an ad.

The Facebook Campaign Structure:

1. Campaign
2. Ad set
3. Ad

1. Campaign

The campaign is the first step in the Facebook ad creation process. This is also referred to as the “foundation of your ad”. This is where an advertiser will decided whether they want their ad to participate in the ad “Auction” or the “Reach & Frequency” (which we will explain in more detail below).

This is also where you will select an advertising objective.

Checklist:

• Choose an objective

 

2. Ad Set

An ad set informs the ad how to run. At the ad set level, advertisers will create an audience for their ad using Facebook’s targeting options. Audience segmentation can be defined by things like location, gender, age and more.

This is also where you create a budget, set a schedule for your ad, and choose the ad placements. Keep in mind that a campaign can include multiple ad sets, each with different targeting, scheduling and budgeting options selected.

Checklist:

• Build your Audience
• Placement
• Set your budget and schedule

 

3. Ad

The last phase of an ad is the creative. This is what customers or audiences will see. At the ad level, advertisers choose the ad’s creative, which may include things like images, videos, text and a call-to-action button. Keep in mind that you can have multiple ads within a single ad set.

Checklist:

• Upload an image, or multiple images or a video
• Fill in the details of your ad such as the text and header

 

Facebook Campaign Objectives

Facebook campaign objects are essentially how you would like to promote your ad across Facebook’s platform.

Facebook campaign objectives can include:

• Boost your posts – Boosted posts appear higher in News Feed and on Instagram, so there’s a better chance your audience will see them.You can boost most posts you create on your Page, including status updates, photos, videos and offers. Keep in mind that boosted posts must follow Facebook’s Advertising Policies.

 

• Promote your Page – Promoting your Page is a way to create ads that will show in the News Feed, on the right side of Facebook and on Instagram. When you create a promoted Page ad, you can target your ad to people based on their location, interests, age and gender.

 

• Reach people near your business – With local awareness ads, businesses can quickly and easily find new customers by showing ads to groups of people who are near that business’s neighborhood. Local awareness ads are built to be more cost effective than traditional advertising channels like newspaper while offering more precise targeting and greater reach. They’re the best way for local businesses to reach people near them, and the best way for people who use Facebook to discover more useful things in their area.

 

• Increase brand awareness – Brand Awareness uses a combination of real-time proxy metrics, including both the reach and relative attention the users give to the campaign, to maximize ad recall lift.

 

• Send people to your website – Create ads that encourage people to visit your business website.

 

• Raise attendance at your event – Create ads that promote your events.

 

• Collect leads for your business – Create ads that collect info from people, including sign-ups for newsletters.

 

• Increase conversions on your website – Add a pixel to your website to track conversions such as checkouts, registrations, leads, key page views, or customers adding items to a cart. You can optimize your ad delivery and ad spend for conversions, by combining the pixel with the bidding option “Optimize for website conversions”.

 

• Get people to claim your offer – Create ads with a coupon, discount or other special deals.

 

• Promote a product catalog – Product ads offer businesses a number of ways to highlight different products on Facebook. Marketers can upload their product catalog and create campaigns targeting certain products to specific audiences, or let Facebook automatically deliver the most relevant products to people using Facebook Dynamic Ads.

What is “Auction” vs. “Reach & Frequency”?

Auction

Rather than showing every ad to every user across the social platform, Facebook utilizes an ad auction that helps to create “value for both the intended audience and the advertisers”. The Auction allows Facebook users the opportunity to see ads that they are most likely to find intriguing, relatable and useful. In turn, retailers can reach audiences that are likely to be engaged with their brand or product.

All ads are evaluated by Facebook and assigned a “total value” that competes in the auction based on bid, ad quality, relevancy and the overall likelihood that a person shown your ad will lead to the desired outcome (ex: increase page likes). The ad with the highest “total value” wins the auction.

“Auction is the most common choice. Reach and Frequency doesn’t make a lot of sense generally speaking for retailers, but it can be good for brand awareness – especially if you want to reach as many people as possible,” Sarah Rogers, Senior Social Strategist at CPC Strategy said.

Reach & Frequency:

According to Facebook, “reach and frequency” buying enables advertisers to predictably buy unique reach on Facebook and Instagram, while giving them the tools to control frequency throughout their campaign.

This buying option enables advertisers to predictably reach a specific number of people in their target audience and control message frequency for the Facebook ad campaigns, similar to the way they might buy traditional TV ads. Reach and frequency buying works across ad types and devices to ensure you’re reaching the right people at scale.

In simple terms, the reach and frequency setting is a campaign structure that can optimize an advertiser’s cost and delivery (if set up properly). Depending on your advertising objective, Facebook will optimize to meet the objective of that campaign.

Want to learn more about how to optimize your Facebook advertising strategy for your business?

Check out our guide: “The Facebook Performance Marketing Guide for Retail Brands”

This guide explains how Facebook can apply to a retail brand’s unique business objectives, from prospecting into new audiences to turning one-time buyers into repeat purchasers.