Facebook can be a fantastic way to run ads for your clients, but it can also be a little intimidating if you’re unfamiliar with the platform’s Business Manager tool—or even if you have only ever run Facebook ads for yourself. When running any Facebook ad, you need to know the ins and outs of the brand and the product being advertised. It might be easy to determine your advertising goals when running your own ads, but running ads for your clients takes careful research and organization. Read on to find out how to run Facebook ads for clients.
Facebook Business Manager
The easiest way to make sure you and your client are on the same page is by using Facebook’s Business Manager tool. Your client should be the one primarily in charge of their ads and ad budget, so make sure they set up their own Business Manager account, too. Business Manager also comes with features that regulate the ad posting process, scheduling ads for certain days and times of the week. Once you determine which days and times are optimal to post for your client’s intended audience, you can schedule posts without worrying about asking your client to be online at a specific time each day. Your next steps in determining how to run Facebook ads for clients: Research, Set Goals, and Decide on Ad Content.
Research, Budget, and Set Goals
While Facebook ads are easy to automate, they do require some initial research. Start by thinking about your client’s Target audience. While your client likely knows their audience best, remind them that a narrower target audience is always a better starting point. While your client might believe that their product is “for everyone,” the wording, colors, and symbols in an ad need to be specified based on the intended audience’s age, gender, geographical location, and lifestyle.
If you want to truly understand your client, communication is key. Make sure you and your client establish efficient methods and modes of communication. Discuss your client’s target audience, budget, and how often your client expects reports on ad performance. Your client should specify what they would like to see in their reports, but some ideas include reach, impressions, and frequency. Inform your client if they don’t know what these terms mean—or create a report template that does—so they can feel in the know about how their ads are performing.
Report to Your Client
In determining your client’s advertising goals, you want to make sure to quantify as much as possible. Ask your client how much revenue they’re expecting from a particular campaign or how many new followers, clients, or buyers they want to gain. Once you land on a number, like 1000 new followers, it’s easy to track how close your client is to that goal. You can measure exactly how many impressions and clicks your client is receiving versus a more vague goal like “I want to gain new followers” or “I want to broaden my audience.” You can showcase your client’s growth in charts and graphs to determine what is working and what is not.
Types of Facebook Ads
In deciding how to run Facebook ads for clients, keep in mind that Facebook is a social media platform. When your intended audience is scrolling on social media, it’s easy for them to scroll away from ads that don’t interest them or to ignore them entirely. The average consumer attention span is about eight seconds, meaning you don’t want to encourage your client to post ads with long blocks of text. Of course, your client will have their own ad creatives, but remind them that ads with images, video, and interactive features are best.
Polls
Facebook itself has plenty of ad types to choose from, but images, videos, and polls are great to start out. Polls offer an interactive feature and tend to be an easy way to generate reach. You can ensure that your client’s audience is actually interacting with a poll. Polls can also feel more engaging to an audience, asking questions that allow them to offer their opinion or feedback rather than just passively observing.
Images
Image ads on Facebook often come in the form of memes or other humorous, relatable content. If your client chooses to incorporate humor in an ad in order to engage their audience, make sure they research the slang and keywords that are relevant to their audience. Additionally, encourage your client to determine their business keywords. When your client’s intended audience searches for a product or service on a search engine, you want to make sure that your client has enough keywords to compete for their attention.
Videos
If your client chooses to use video ads, they can film actual footage to post on Facebook—or they can make use of animation and GIFs. Videos are a great advertising option because many of them autoplay on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. If your client sees your ad move while scrolling, they may pause to continue watching.
A quick tip for video ads: Unlike TV ads, volume isn’t necessary on Facebook. Many people keep their volume silenced while scrolling on Facebook and Instagram, especially if they’re in public. If your client chooses to use video ads, make sure they don’t rely solely on volume or music to get their point across. Incorporating words or other visual elements can be a great alternative to a voiceover.
Communication is key when deciding how to run Facebook ads for clients. Your clients are coming to you for your guidance and expertise, so make sure you have these tips handy when helping them with campaigns and ad analytics.
