Facebook Advertising has gained popularity, no thanks to the Facebook policy makers. The overbearing and complicated ads system is littered with rules and political correctness, along with tons of seemingly meaningless regulations. Some of these really have merit. Some don’t. But, the bottom line is Facebook is still worth using for advertising because it works. I’m not positive it works well enough to pay what they inevitably charge, but it’s not all that bad.

Facebook has a very ambiguous method of determining what to charge, fraught with a network of tunnels to navigate. For instance, trying to get an ad approved is sometimes easy and sometimes tough. It depends on….well….nobody knows. Recently, I tried to post several ads for over a week, only to learn that they didn’t like the picture. It may or may not have portrayed politically evil competition where one side won over the other. What? One wins and the other doesn’t. Blasphemy!

It’s true that social platforms are all liberal in nature, and it’s also true that they are bias against good old fashioned hard work, sales pitches, and winning over anyone else. Unless, it’s them winning billions over any other social platform. It’s blatantly hypocritical, but it is what it is and we must deal with it.

Ok, that was my soap box. Now, on to constructive information.

With Facebook, you need to decide on the type of ad. Do you want your Facebook advertising to yield leads, drive traffic to your website or page, encourage views of  your video, or what? Think carefully and determine exactly what your purpose truly is. I think it’s easy, once you really think about what you want to achieve. Are you in sales? Then you want leads. Are you a blogger or YouTuber, then you want to drive traffic. Are you trying to use a video to sell your product and provide a call to action? Then, perhaps a video view campaign is what you want.

Now, I hope you’re taking notes.

You’ll need a way to capture and drip on your leads, if that’s what you chose to do. You can use Mail Chimp, or any number of other services to do that.

Zapier is worth a look. It ties a myriad of services together, allowing you to communicate your Facebook leads to your CRM, etc. It automates literally thousands of things and ties them together beautifully. Definitely check them out when you get time. It’s truly genius.

So, your ad needs an image. The image is everything! It should grab attention and portray your campaign without a word, if possible. Studies show that ads with pictures that do not have any words on them do better. So Facebook advertising doesn’t want images with tons of words on it. They consider that to be clutter and will shut it off if they catch it.

Make sure to read their very strict policy on things you can’t say. Think, George Orwell’s 1984, if you know what that reference means. It’s all a PC world now, and I don’t mean Personal Computer. Political Correctness has gone hog wild! Oh, I’m sorry. That was derogatory towards hogs. Oh wait, I can’t call them hogs. I have to call them artiodactyl mammals of the Suidae family. Of course I’m kidding, but it has gotten a bit out of control. Anyway, be careful you aren’t offending anyone if you can help it. Facebook advertising policies will be followed to the letter, if not erring on the strict side of any judgement calls. So, be aware of what you’re doing.

A friend of mine, who is definitely a nationally recognized guru of all things web marketing, says to just develop 10 ads with a variety of imaging. Set them each to $5 a day and let things run for a while.

Keep in mind that you’re paying per impression. But, soon enough, you’ll see analytics that will tell you which ads are working and which ones to cut. Don’t touch anything once you place the ad. If you do, it will go back into review and possibly get rejected for no reason whatsoever.

Once you determine which ads are working, let them run. You’ll see your costs get more and more efficient, as Facebook learns the best way to promote it. Keep it on automatic. Don’t think you know better than their algorithms.  You don’t.

Now you can slowly raise the budget per day. From $5 to $10, etc. but only go up a little per week. If you say you’ll spend $100 per day right off the bat, they’ll certainly take your money. But you won’t get as much from it as you would going slower. This should be a long-term strategy for you. Take your time and learn from it each week. Look at the numbers and it will begin to paint a picture for you. Try some new ads and see if they outperform old ones. And have fun with it.

One last bit of advice. Don’t place too many filters on your ads. If you only want to advertise to 18 to 24 year old people in Denver, you’ll pay out the nose and won’t get many. I mean it could be a few hundred bucks per lead. Instead, open up the net. To everyone, everywhere, if possible. Then, you’ll keep your cost per lead down. The bigger the net, the lower the cost. Remember, you pay a premium for specializing. Another friend of mine says to advertise EVERYWHERE to EVERYONE. He pays pennies compared to others who load up the filters, don’t get results, waste a ton of money, and end up quitting because it didn’t work.

So, is Facebook advertising worth the hassle? Yes, I believe it is. But, to the Facebook people I’d like to say that, “It doesn’t need to be as big of a hassle as you make it”. There, now I’m done. See my article about Twitter here.