Campaigns

Guide to Creating a Successful Digital Advertising Campaign

SN:D Agency · April 17, 2020 ·

Are you looking to create a killer digital advertising campaign for your business? Now is the time. As long as we are stuck in our homes, the focus must be on digital. Gone is the heyday of print advertising, i.e. billboards, flyers, banners. While you have a captive and engaged audience at home and online, now is the time to hook them into your brand through digital advertising.

Now, there is more to creating a digital advertising campaign for your business than just posting about the latest product or service. In order to capture your business’s market and gain customer loyalty, it starts with creating a solid advertising strategy. The best digital ads come from a thorough campaign strategy with a clear marketing goal, defined communications objectives, and an in-depth foundation to guide your understanding of the proposition you are making. Once you create a solid digital advertising strategy using our guide, you can deliver an amazing advertising campaign for your business. We have everything you need below.

Determine the Purpose of Your Digital Advertising Campaign

Before starting to create your campaign, the first step is to come to an understanding of the purpose for making it. It sounds like a no-brainer, but in order to create a thorough campaign with a solid strategy, your business must hone in on one or two specific purposes to drive your campaign. The way we do it is by beginning with a brand problem, and the expected change we hope to see.

You may be thinking “There is no problem, we just want to grow the business online.” But every change you are hoping for starts with a problem of some kind. Remember: the problem doesn’t have to be a crisis. Try to express your purpose in terms of the problem you want to solve for your business, and what you hope to see. This will be one of the primary gauges you will use to measure the outcome of your campaign, so really think about what it is you want to see happen as a result of these ads.

Here are some examples of problems and expected changes:

Sales are low. We hope to re-engage our customer base.
Sales are low. We hope to draw in a new customer base.
We have a strong customer base of people over 50 years of age, but don’t see very much brand recognition among Millennials. We hope to diversify our reach.
Our competition is outselling us. We need to reinvigorate our customers.
We have a new product that few people know about. We need to get the word out.

You might find that once you determine a more precise definition of the problem, it will help you to better understand the results you are seeking for your brand.

Define the Objective of Your Digital Advertising Campaign

Now that you know the business goals of the campaign, you can begin strategizing about what objective you are seeking among your business’s consumers. A problem many businesses run into is solely considering the desired outcome for the company. However, the key to making a great digital advertising campaign is getting into the mind of your consumer and figuring out what their goals are. It’s subtle, but imperative.

Addressing the Customers’ Needs in Your Digital Advertising Campaign

We talk often about how every product or service is a solution to a problem. What problem does the brand, product or service you are advertising solve for your consumer? What need is it filling for them? If you’re not sure, an agency like SN Digital can help your business research your customers and determine their needs. Very often, it is something that they are missing and unaware of. Through your advertising campaign, you are offering to fill a place in their lives that they didn’t even know they needed.

Here are some more examples of different types of products and services, and the problems they could solve:

Over-the-counter pain relief pills: This medicine will relieve your headache
Natural pet food: This food is healthy for your dog, unlike regular processed dog food which can lead to health problems.
An internet service provider: The speed of this internet will save you time that you’re currently wasting waiting for things to load.
An online movie and TV show streaming platform: Don’t pay for hundreds of dollars for channels you don’t even watch. This will give you the movies and shows you love, and save you money.
Senior care services: You’re struggling as the sole caregiver of your aging parents. We can help with their health needs so you can spend that time enjoying their company instead.

Determine the Communications Objectives of Your Digital Advertising Campaign

Once you understand the problem your brand is addressing for your consumers, you can now determine your communications objectives.

Communications objectives are not the same as business objectives or marketing objectives. As we discussed earlier, marketing and business objectives have to do with the business and its sales goals. Those are important, but they are only one side of the strategy. When it comes to creating a great advertising campaign, the focus must be reaching your consumers on their level. Communication objectives vary widely from business to business. That’s why at SN Digital, we have a team of experts with experience in creating effective communications objectives for each digital ad campaign we run.

What do you want your business’s advertising campaign message to say to your current or potential customer? What do you hope to persuade them of, or what truth do you want to illuminate for them?

Let’s think back to when we addressed the purpose of the campaign, and use those examples to create business objectives vs. communications objectives:

Business objective: Sales are low. We hope to re-engage our customer base.
Communications objective: Remind consumers that Product X has higher nutrients AND better flavor than competing products.
Business objective: Sales are low. We hope to draw in a new customer base.
Communications objective: Inspire new consumers to find out why people who use Product Y report having Z% better health in the following months.
Business objective: We have a strong customer base of people over 50, but don’t see very much brand recognition among Millennials. We hope to diversify our reach.
Communications objective: Excite consumers about the versatility and variety of purposes for using Product A.
Business objective: Our competition is outselling us. We need to reinvigorate our customers.
Communications objective: Inform consumers about the superior performance of Service B.
Business objective: We have a new product that few people know about. We need to get the word out.
Communications objective: Instill in consumers the benefits of using the new Product C.

Determine the Target Audience for Your Digital Advertising Campaign

Once you know your campaign’s communications objectives, you can begin determining who it is that you are targeting to. Some people argue that determining your target audience should come first. And in some cases, this could be a more effective approach to take. However, if you already have some idea of who your customers or potential customers are, we suggest doing it in this order. This is because we often need to clarify the communication objectives in order to guide our understanding of who our target audience is. It can be difficult to determine your brand’s audience if you aren’t entirely sure what your business is trying to say.

So who is your advertising campaign intended for? It’s not everyone. A mistake businesses sometimes make is trying to market the campaign to too many people. At SN Digital, when we find the target audience for our clients’ digital advertising campaigns, we focus on reaching one primary audience. Often, we find a secondary market segment materializes organically in the process, but begin with the focus on just one. In our experience, this leads to significantly better results.

Define the Market for Your Digital Advertising Campaign

A great place to start with determining your target audience is defining what the current market around your product or service is. There are a few key demographics and psychographics to pay attention to, which can be collected in a variety of metrics platforms.

Age: This doesn’t need to be an exact number. Determining an age range is important as you can use this information to understand the consumers’ values from a generational perspective.
Stage of Life: The stage of life someone is in can vary, even within the same age group. Are they new parents? Recent college grads? Empty nesters? Determine what important milestones are taking place in the consumer’s life.
Location: This doesn’t necessarily mean what part of the world the consumer lives in (although that could be a factor if its a large, national corporation). This is more about the type of location. Do they live in the city (younger population)? The suburbs (wealthier, older families)? Their location says a lot about a person’s lifestyle and buying patterns.
Income and spending: Speaking of buying patterns, how much disposable income does your consumer base have? More importantly, what do they spend their disposable income on? This is important in determining how to market your product to meet the consumers’ needs.
Values: What is important to this audience? Do they like owning nice things? Do they value eco-friendly products over fancy brand names? Knowing what is important to them can help guide the angle of your campaign.

If you are thorough, you will end with a description that goes something like this: The consumer is a 30-something mom living in the city who makes between $50-$70K and values health and wellbeing. She participates in yoga classes, shops at the co-op, and loves being outdoors.

This is the kind of detailed consumer analysis that SN Digital Agency conducts for our clients. We have years of experience getting to know the minds of the consumers so that the digital advertising campaign can definitively address their needs. If you are stuck in this area, we can help by building a definitive market for your campaign and showing you how to address these consumers.

Find the Opportunity for Your Digital Advertising Campaign

Now that you have some basic data about your consumers, you can begin the creative process of getting to know them. This where you will find the opportunity for your brand.

The process will take some research on your part. Use the above demographic and psychographic determinations to better understand your audience, and get to know them as consumers and as people.

Some questions to ask to learn about your audience:

What are their needs and desires?
What are the needs and desires of the consumer you defined? [i.e. Male, recent college graduate who lives with roommates, working an entry-level position.] What are they missing?
What are their current attitudes about the brand?
Do they know this product or service exists? If so, how do they feel about it? What could make it more exciting to them? If they don’t know about it, what are their attitudes about similar products, and what might motivate them to use your product?
Where can they be reached?
In other words, what digital platforms do these consumers use? This can be determined with some basic market research, which an experienced digital marketing agency like SN Digital can help you with. We have tools to figure out where your consumers are, when they’re online, and what they’re doing when they’re there. Too often, businesses assume their digital advertising campaign should be blasted on every channel. This leads to a waste of resources that could be better allocated by targeting a niche market.
For example, if you’re marketing to a 50-year-old, it would be a waste to put ads on Snapchat or TikTok. Know your audience!

Create Your Digital Advertising Campaign

At this point, you know you know your business problem and expected change, your customer needs and your communications objectives, and your target market. When you have acquired and feel confident in all of this information, you can create your digital advertising campaign.

Determine the Message of Your Digital Advertising Campaign

Always start with the message before making the campaign’s creatives (the artwork, design and materials), as this will drive your entire digital advertising campaign.

After getting to know your campaign’s target audience, you probably have plenty of ideas for how your brand can benefit them, and why they should buy your product or service. That’s great, and you can use some of these in your copy. But in order to make a great digital advertising campaign, your business must create one Single-Minded Proposition, also known as an SMP. This is your short, one-sentence or one-phrase pitch for why your consumer’s life will be improved by your business’s product or service. It should be short and simple, with the focus on a single key factor. This will be the basis for your campaign tagline, and the idea that every ad in the campaign is built upon.

Here are some examples of great SMP’s that became taglines for the brand’s campaign:

M&Ms: The Milk Chocolate Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand.
Diamond Producers Association: Real is Rare. Real is a Diamond.
Expedia: Travel the World Better.
Folgers: Tolerate Mornings.

As you can see, many SMP’s use just a handful of words to drive home one main selling point. Had they tried to include all of their benefits in the SMP, they wouldn’t have the same effect.

Create the Ads for Your Digital Advertising Campaign

If you’re still struggling with the SMP, then writing the copy will be difficult as well. If you aren’t getting the results you want, you may want to consider hiring a copywriter or marketing team like SN Digital Agency, who offers a team of expert copywriters with experience writing clever and compelling copy for businesses.

However, if you feel good about your writing skills, try your hand at writing your own copy for the campaign. Write the body text and headlines for each creative, and use compelling images or graphics. This is a creative process and will take some time brainstorming. Depending on how your business intends to place the ads, these might all look similar, just targeted to different locations, or you might decide to have several unique headlines and copy for each. But every ad should be centered around the single driving message.

As you now realize, creating a digital advertising campaign is more than just coming up with a clever headline or paying for reach. It is about knowing your audience, defining your communication objectives, and implementing your ads in the most effective way based on a thorough understanding of your marketing goal. This will allow your business to communicate to your audience in a way that is most persuasive and compelling. Making a successful digital advertising campaign takes practice, but try out this method for yourself and you will notice the huge difference it makes in achieving your business’s marketing goals.

Or, if you’re still daunted by the idea of digital advertising, let us take it off your hands for you! Contact us today – we are a full-scale social media agency which specializes in digital and social media advertising, and we would love to share our expertise with you.

Best Social Media Campaigns of 2019

SN:D Agency · January 15, 2020 ·

What makes a good social media campaign? If you aren’t aware of the industry lingo, an advertising campaign is a collection of ads, often across a variety of mediums, that revolve around a singular message intended to promote the brand. There are several ways to determine the success of an ad campaign, but typically it is measured by how much buzz it produces, how positively the message is received by the intended market, and whether it generates brand awareness and sales.

In this blog post, we are going to wrap up the year by sharing the most successful social media campaigns of 2019. For each campaign, we will share about the strategies that were implemented, and what made them successful. If you’re looking for inspiration to create an ad campaign for your brand or business, read on to see how these brands killed it this year and how you can use some of their strategies for your own brand in 2020.

Best Social Media Campaigns: Gillette – “The Best Men Can Be”

Gillette released a video spot in early 2019, which showed men in a variety of scenarios standing up against toxic masculinity. They used a strategy that is often implemented by big name brands, in which they made themselves relevant by entering the conversation of the current cultural issues. We’ve seen this tactic used hundreds of times, both successfully (think the “Like a Girl” campaign by Always) and unsuccessfully (think the Kendall Jenner/Pepsi commercial). So what makes this one so effective?

Check out the video here:

In this case, Gillette is responding directly to the growing #MeToo movement, a huge point of controversy and conversation in the social media realm, and offering their endorsement. Many argue it was a risky move for a male-targeted product. But was it? Let’s look at the results.

Gillette’s Twitter feed was flooded with responses, with 1.4 million mentions within the first week alone. The feedback was both positive and negative. It got flak from a portion of its audience, primarily those of the single, middle-aged male demographic who accused the ad of being offensive, degrading to men, and marginalizing of the people who make up its primary consumer base.

However, it received a mainly positive reaction from women and younger men. While many consumers were off-put, research shows women are often the ones who actually buy the grooming products in the household, making this ad extremely effective for that portion of their target audience.

Gillette reported later on that they felt the campaign was successful in achieving their marketing goal. According to the CEO, it was a part of a larger effort to connect with younger consumers and become their trusted brand for grooming. They plan to continue advocating for the values that are important to the younger generation, and gradually take on young adults as their primary consumer base. So although their sales did not budge after this campaign, they were satisfied with the results. This ad was highly effective in increasing brand awareness and brand loyalty among their target audience.

Best Social Media Campaigns: Moon Pie – “#MoonPieToTheMoon2024”

July of 2019 marked 50 years since NASA’s Apollo 11 moon landing. To celebrate this huge anniversary, NASA launched a campaign using the hashtag #Apollo50th, posting historical content across social media and digital platforms. The campaign was received well by the public, and out of the millions of responses, 93% were positive.

Shortly afterwards, Vice President Mike Pence met with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong’s family, and made a speech promoting the trip to the moon coming up in the next 5 years. This publicity led to another hashtag going viral: #Moon2024, which trended on social media for months. Following this, dozens of brands jumped on the opportunity, launching their own social media campaigns related to the upcoming moon trip.

The most successful of these was a campaign created by Moon Pie, a brand of snack cakes of the same name, who took their own spin on the event. They launched #MoonPieToTheMoon2024, a campaign invoking humor, to petition for NASA to take this delicious snack along for the trip. The campaign received overwhelming support, with several Influencers posting their support for NASA bringing a Moon Pie to the moon.

See the video below:

.@NASA let’s put a MoonPie on the dang moon pic.twitter.com/qOjejhaPvZ

— MoonPie (@MoonPie) July 3, 2019

The objective here was to raise brand awareness among their Gen. Z target audience, and the effort was highly successful. This was a great way for the brand to humorously insert themselves in a hot topic of conversation to grow their own brand salience. They capitalized on current events and grew their support.

Well done, Moon Pie!

Best Social Media Campaigns: Dove – “Project #ShowUs”

Dove, a long-time advocate for female empowerment, launched a social media campaign called “Project #ShowUs” across social media platforms. The company partnered with the largest international stock photo distributor, Getty Images, as well as Girlgaze – a collective of female-identifying and non-binary photographers, to create a large photo library of women and non-binary individuals to combat beauty standards and stereotypes.

If you’ve ever used stock images for marketing or blogging (or really anything) before, then you know that the featured models, especially those of women, are almost exclusively white and are always conventionally attractive. The mission of this campaign was to change that.

The initiative was undeniably successful. They got the exact results they had petitioned for: a large database of stock photos on Getty Images representing a diverse, inclusive, and authentic depiction of female beauty. Furthermore, the women and non-binary people depicted in the images were able to choose their own search descriptions and tags for their pictures, effectively allowing them to define their own beauty.

Check out the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0fj2cDtvis&feature=emb_logo

According to Dove’s Global Vice President Sophie Galvani, the marketing goal was “to create a global movement, redefining how women are represented and setting a new standard for the authentic and diverse representation of women across the world.”

This campaign was effective in creating a tangible way for advertisers and media professionals to promote more inclusivity. Dove received thousands of user-generated photos from women around the world, indicating their success in connecting with their target consumer base and raising brand loyalty.

Best Social Media Campaigns: Adidas – “She Breaks Barriers”

It’s not new information that women are not featured in sports media to the same extent that men are. The media promotes men’s sports, while women’s sports repeatedly and consistently fall under the radar. In fact, did you know that only 4% of sports media covered in the U.S. is dedicated to women’s teams? According to Adidas, that’s why this campaign is so important.

Check out the video here:

The initiative began from a social media post, where Adidas asked athletes to use the hashtag #CreatorsUnite and share about the challenges and barriers that they face. Using these responses, they developed the She Breaks Barriers campaign, with one unifying goal: To provide access, remove stereotypes, and address inequality for female athletes at all levels and ages.

The campaign advocates for equal media representation for women. To help jumpstart this initiative, Adidas teamed up with Intersport and Twitter to livestream women’s high school sports on the social media platform for the first time ever.

According to Adidas, the objective of their campaign is to give women in sports more visibility in the media so that young girls would not only stay in sports, but believe that they belong in them just as much as boys do. They were effective in getting women’s sports to be showcased on Twitter, and they received thousands of mentions with a 96% positive reaction. Famous athletes such as Hima Das gave them shoutouts, and the YouTube video became one of the most mentioned on social media.

Way to go, Adidas!

Best Social Media Campaigns: Nike – “Dream Crazier”

That’s right, we saved the best for last. Nike’s “Dream Crazier” campaign took the world by storm in early 2019.

Gender stereotypes in sports have been a problem for, well, as long as sports have existed. Our society frequently idolizes male athletes for being strong, competitive, and determined. On the other hand, when women are “too” competitive, loud, or passionate about their sport, they are often portrayed as “crazy” or “overly emotional” by the media. This is the basis for Nike’s campaign. Female athletes are not given the media credibility that they deserve.

Watch the video spot here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whpJ19RJ4JY

Narrated by Serena Williams, the ad addresses double standards for women in sports and speaks out against sexist stereotypes. Rather than allowing it to belittle them, it suggests that women embrace the stereotype of being “crazy,” to reject the trope by receiving it as a synonym for being motivated and passionate.

Some of the dialogue reads:

“When we show emotion, we’re called ‘dramatic’ . . . When we stand for something, we’re ‘unhinged’. . . And if we get angry, we’re ‘hysterical,’ ‘irrational,’ or ‘just being crazy’ . . . So if they want to call you crazy, fine. . . Show them what crazy can do.”

This monologue is played on top of a series of clips of females in sports performing incredible athletic feats. The production of the ad was immaculate. As a result, it was incredibly effective in reaching its intended audience and generating conversation. The video received 11 million views on YouTube, over 20 million on Instagram, and over 32 million on Twitter. After launching the campaign, the stock price of Nike grew by a third, and the spot received $43 million worth of media exposure. Celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres even made their own versions of the ad, widening the reach of its audience even further.

It is hard to measure whether this ad will prove effective in transforming the narrative around female athletes, but it was certainly a great start in encouraging young women and girls to stay in sports and to not shy away from their own inner determination and strength. The campaign lays a great foundation for a revolutionary shift in our cultural perspective and the eradication of these gender stereotypes.

Best Social Media Campaigns: Common Themes

So what can you take from all of this to help guide your own advertising strategy? One common theme among all the campaigns is that they used a multi-platform distribution strategy. When you have a great ad or campaign, it is important to post it across all of your platforms, not just one. These brands all shared their campaigns on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube. This is imperative because it ensures maximum reach for all of their audiences.

Furthermore, each campaign was built upon a relevant cultural context that evoked powerful feelings in their audience. Not only did they all address current societal issues, they each added something unique and meaningful to the cultural conversation, either with humor, imagery or insight. When creating your campaigns, make sure you are staying aware of the current social issues, whether you use them directly in your campaign or not. Know the culture or sub-culture to which your ad is directed. Often we find that cultural context can be used advantageously to connect with our desired audience.

All of the campaigns here leveraged the power of strong social media influencers and themes to generate buzz. Gillette used the #MeToo movement to propel its message, Moon Pie utilized the re-popularization of NASA, Adidas included the famous and sometimes criticized Serena Williams, and so on. That being said, most of us don’t have a lineup of A-List celebrities at our disposal. But even small, local influencers can greatly enhance the power of a campaign. Research some influencers in your market and reach out to them. These people are usually more than happy to work with brands to further their own values and brand messaging.

Finally, the campaigns all had a strong single-minded proposition. Adidas and Nike, for example, didn’t vaguely address gender inequality in sports; instead, they each had a very specific issue with a clear objective in mind (Adidas addressed lack of female representation, while Nike highlighted sexist gender stereotypes). It is very important that your mission is clear. This doesn’t mean you need to directly state your marketing goal word-for-word (Nike never said in their ad “sexist stereotypes are bad”; instead they showed it with imagery). It means that you should know what exactly your goal is, so that every aspect of your campaign aligns with the singular purpose.

Remember that you may not appeal to everyone. In fact, like Gillette, you may offend people with your proposition, and that’s okay. Copyblogger said it best when they wrote: “You need the courage to alienate the wrong people in order to resonate with the right people . . . The fact is, if no one hates you, you’re doing something wrong.”

Still daunted by the idea of advertising on social media? Let us take it off your hands and do it for you! Contact us today – we are a full-scale social media agency which specializes in social media advertising, and we would love to share our expertise with you.

Tips for Running a Successful Facebook Ads Campaign

Abby Sorensen · January 14, 2019 ·

If your business has been advertising on Facebook, then you know that Facebook advertising has complexities that can make it intimidating, but take heart! It can be made simpler by running an effective Facebook ads campaign. Though challenging, setting up a well-structured Facebook ads campaign can pay off by helping you reach your campaign goals and also for ongoing tracking and identification for metrics.

Structuring a Facebook ads campaign for success includes determining your campaign objective, determining your target audience, creating an ad plan, setting up your campaign, ad sets, and ads on Facebook, and looking at your ads’ metrics to determine which ads are helping you reach your goals. If you want to get the most out of advertising on Facebook but don’t quite know how to run a successful Facebook ads campaign, this post is for you.

What is a Facebook Ads Campaign?

When a business advertises on Facebook, the business sets up an ad campaign in their Facebook Ads Manager account. Ad campaigns contain ad sets, and within the ad sets are the ads themselves. In order to place an ad in Facebook Ads Manager, you must have all 3 elements.

To break it down:

Campaigns are made up of multiple ad sets which all have the same objective.
Ad sets are a group of ads which have the same objective but can have a different schedule, budget and target audience.
Ads are simply the individual advertised posts including visuals and creative.

All the ads within each Facebook ad campaign will have the same objective, but you will have the ability to change the audience, budget, dates, image, and creative in the ad sets within each individual campaign. Each campaign must have its own objective, but don’t worry, you can set up multiple Facebook ad campaigns to help you reach your Facebook advertising goals. For example, if you had a goal of gaining followers and increasing website traffic, you would need to to set up two different campaigns, a traffic campaign and a like ad campaign, in your Facebook Ads Manager. After you set up the two campaigns with similar names so they are easy to identify, you would be able to set your ad sets and ads for each campaign.

A properly structured Facebook Ad campaign organizes your ads and makes it easier for you to measure results and test different audiences and or creative to help you determine which ads work best for reaching your campaign goals. Additionally, well-organized ad campaigns allow you to look back later and easily identify which ads performed well in the past and may help you strategize which types of ads to run in future campaigns.

How to Run a Facebook Ads Campaign

1. Facebook Ads Campaign: Determine What Your Business Needs

Your Facebook Ads Campaign Objective

The first thing you need to determine when setting up a Facebook ad campaign is your advertising objective or goal. Creating a plan of action including identifying your campaign goals will help you run a successful Facebook ad campaign. You know your business best – what is it your business needs? Does it need traffic to its website? Are you looking for social media engagement? Maybe you want to raise local awareness for your brand. Figure out what your objective is before you begin planning your ads.

Your Facebook Ads Campaign Audience

Before you begin to actually build your Facebook ad campaign in Ads Manager, you will also need to determine what audience you are trying to reach with your ads. Again, you know your business best, and you will probably know who best to target based on age, gender, and location. You can also target people who are interested in a certain product, activity, etc. For instance, if you run a pet food company, you’ll want to include interests such a dogs or cats into your targeting. You can also retarget by setting a custom audience made up of people who have in some way interacted with your business, maybe on your website or app.

If you don’t know which audience is best to target, you can test multiple audiences! This can be hugely beneficial in meeting your advertising goals. Test the same ad on different audiences and check back to see how each ad performed. This will clue you in on which audience is best to target for a specific objective the next time around.

While you can always adjust or change your audience throughout your campaign once you review how an ad performs, it is important to have a sense of the audience or audiences you want to target prior to setting up your Facebook ads campaign.

2. Create an Ad Plan for Your Facebook Ads Campaign

When setting up a Facebook advertising campaign in Facebook Ads Manager, it is crucial to create a precise, detailed plan of action for your ads. It is not enough to have a general idea in your head outlining what you want to get out of your ads or approximately how much money you are going to spend. Get your plan down on paper and be consistent to see results and monitor your Facebook ads!

Creating a mapped out plan on paper before you begin to build your campaign on Facebook will help keep everything clear and organized. It will also help you to catch any errors that may occur when you set up the campaign in Facebook Ads Manager. For best results, set up a consistent Facebook Ad naming system for your business and use it within the ad plan and when setting up your campaign in Ads Manager!

3. Set Up Your Facebook Ads Campaign

After you have your ad plan finalized, you can begin to build your Facebook ads campaign using Facebook Ads Manager! Simply go into your Facebook Ads Manager and click “create” to get started setting up your campaign! There are a number of steps to this process – but because you have already taken the time to create a detailed plan, it won’t be too hard to implement it.

Set Your Facebook Ads Campaign Objective

The first thing you must do is set the objective for your Facebook ads campaign in Facebook Ads Manager. Once you are in Ads Manager and you have clicked “create”, entering your campaign objective will be the first step. In your ad plan, you’ve already chosen an objective or two. Facebook provides many options for advertising objectives. Your job is to make sure you place the correct ads with the same objective in the same campaign. Don’t forget you can create multiple campaigns if you have multiple advertising objectives. This will help to keep them simple and separate, which will make it easier for you to check on how they have performed afterwards.

Set Up Your Facebook Ads Campaign Ad Set

The next level of your Facebook ads campaign is the ad set level. Select “Ad Set” in Ads Manager – Creation (it is beneath “Campaign” – where you just set your objective). The ad set level is where you will set the dates for your campaign. This is very straightforward – simply select the dates you would like the ads to run, which you have likely already determined on your handy-dandy ad plan!

At the ad set level of the campaign, you will also set an audience. Targeting is very important to advertising and it is important to be purposeful when setting your target audience. At this point, select the audience that you have determined when you created your ad plan.

Finally you will set the budget that you determined in your ad plan at the ad set level. Facebook makes it very easy to set your budget. We can’t tell you how much is the “right” amount to spend. Do what you can with the resources you have – and after your ads have run, you can look at the results to determine which ads you should be giving more of your budget, based on how well they perform.

Set Up Your Facebook Ads Campaign Ads

The last step in setting up your Facebook ads campaign in Facebook Ads Manager is setting up your Facebook ads. This is where you set the creative for your ads (the copy or text and image or video that makes up the ad – this is what will appear on your audience’s screen). Beneath “Ad Set” on the Facebook Ads Manager – Creation page, you can select “Ad” to set your ads.

Again, Facebook Ads Manager gives options. You can opt to include a single image or multiple images, video, slideshow, URL links, and call-to-action buttons. Depending on what objective you have set, there may be a limit on the type of ad you’ve created (for instance, the objective of video views only allows for ads containing videos).

After you have created the individual ad and double-checked it against your ad plan, you can go ahead and publish your ad using Facebook Ads Manager!

Facebook Ads Campaign: Monitor and Test Your Ads for Best Results!

Once your Facebook ad campaign is up and running it is extremely important to monitor your ads for best results. You can do so within Facebook Ads Manager. You can determine parameters for reviewing your ads’ performance based on your campaign goals. You can look at the cost per result, engagement, link clicks, impressions, and more.

You need to determine which metrics will help you monitor your campaign to lead to its success. For example, if your campaign objective is to drive traffic to your website, you probably want to look at the cost per link click and number of link clicks to determine which ads are performing best to help you reach your campaign goals. When you created your ad plan and set up your ad campaign, you set an objective, so check in on the performance of those ads against your specific campaign goals.

If your ads are not performing as strongly as you would like you may want to move some of your ad spend to the ads that are strong performers or move some ad spend to a different audience you would like to test. In order to run an effective Facebook ads campaign you will need to monitor and test different ads to achieve your campaign goal.

Keep in mind each campaign provides you with valuable data that you can reference when setting up your next ad campaign! This information can help you determine which ads to use again, which to change or do away with, and where you should be funneling your advertising budget.

Structuring your Facebook ads campaign can be intimidating, but it is an important component in helping you reach your Facebook advertising goals! Remember to be thoughtful when determining your target audience and campaign objective. Creating a detailed ad plan and following it when setting up your campaign, ad sets, and ads, and monitoring your ads’ metrics will help you reach your goals and take your business even further!

Done with your Facebook ads campaign but not sure how to name it? Read our in-depth post on naming Facebook ads campaigns here!

Does setting up and running an effective Facebook ad campaign seem like a lot to manage? It certainly does take strategy and some know-how! Contact us to help – we are a full-service social media agency which specializes in Facebook advertising.

How to Develop the Best Social Media Campaign

Nicole Harrison · September 17, 2014 ·

I am currently in my seventh year of working in the digital marketing/social media marketing space with small businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, artists, authors and more. I have advised and participated in social media efforts for a gubernatorial election, a large public school district, a silicone valley tech start up, nonprofits both large and small and many, many, many small businesses and individuals looking to leverage social media. And honestly, I can say without a doubt it has been awesome, exciting and exhilarating. I love my work. I have passion for what I do. I’ve found that this is a necessity.

Passion keeps you afloat

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that running a business requires passion. It is always best to love what you do in order to be excited enough to carry on when the going gets tough. Because the valleys sometimes outweigh the peaks as a small business owner, not having passion will sink you. This leads to one of the most important principles that I believe make successful, effective social media marketing efforts online. It’s having–you got it–passion. The social web (which is every part of the web that is covered with social – almost everywhere right?) is filled with passionate people: people who love what they are doing, their hobbies and their interests–whatever they may be. Yes, the social web is also full of people who are not in love with the things that fill their time, but I think those people are often looking to identify that passion I’m talking about, so they can share it with the world.

How do you develop the best social media campaign?

To tap your specific target audience, you first need to love your own work, your own cause, your own efforts and be fully invested in joining a community of people who will eventually be led to love what you do as well. Joining in, becoming part of their community and building a passion-filled presence will help lead them to you and your product, service or cause. This is the first building block to a successful social media marketing program. It is also often missed, as even passion-filled people who love their work and their job lose that when jumping online. For example, a common mistake is focusing entirely on the sale and getting the message out. Unfortunately, this does not lead to success on social. Social media is meant to be a dialogue, and this is often what organizations of all sizes miss.

What are you passionate about?

So I ask you–do you love your work or what you are working towards? Are you excited about it? Does it tap your own passions? Do you bring that to your social media channel(s) everyday? If not, stop and assess where you are and consider what you are doing, why you are doing it and if you are successful. Chances are, you need some adjustments on this first building block. If you have passion and it shows online, then you are ready to rock and roll towards the next steps of building your plan. If not, start soul-searching and figure it out, because the social web will want to hear about your passions as soon as you’re excited enough to share them. So tell me now. What’s your passion, and are you fulfilling it? What do you need to work on? Comment below and share your social links if you would like me to take a look. Let’s build it together! – Photo Credit – Niklas Wikström

Branding a Campaign: Do You Need a Company Hashtag?

Nicole Harrison · November 29, 2013 ·

When your business launches an exciting new campaign, it can be easy to start throwing out hashtags to promote your brand. Your first thought may be that your campaign tweets, Facebook posts, etc. all need to include a company hashtag (example: #SocialNicole). If you’re a small business, it can even feel really important that you include this explicit company hashtag with your promotions so users know who is behind the campaign. But let’s step back for a minute: do you need a company hashtag? How does a company hashtag really work to promote your campaign?

Do You Need a Company Hashtag?

Let’s check out a few key reasons having a company hashtag for your campaign is unnecessary:

1. It’s not descriptive of your campaign.

Though a company hashtag obviously describes your business, it doesn’t explicitly identify your campaign. Even though your end goal is always promoting your business, for these specific campaign promotions, your business is being intentional about sharing campaign information. The hashtags that you use should be campaign-specific so customers see the hashtag, associate the hashtag with the campaign, and then associate the campaign with your business.

2. You’re already automatically tagging yourself through the post.

Whether it’s on Twitter using your @ handle or on Facebook using your business page, by posting something about your new campaign, you’re already automatically branding it as your own. Instead of wasting precious characters typing out a hashtag of just your business name, use that space to include more campaign information or a hashtag that you’ve branded specifically for your campaign.

3. Owning your company hashtag isn’t impressive.

If you’re beginning your company hashtag with this campaign, chances are people are more interested in the campaign itself than in using your company hashtag. Put your efforts elsewhere. Instead of ensuring you get your name out there by promoting your company hashtag, focus on the importance of owning another hashtag. Word of your campaign (and by default, your company) will travel faster if you own a hashtag related to your campaign that is more accessible and versatile, rather than company-specific. Now we want to hear from YOU! Do you think a company hashtag is a good addition to a branding campaign? Share your comments below! Photo Credit