Have you ever wondered why your Facebook ads don’t perform as expected? It was well thought out, had enough funds behind it and it still wasn’t a success? One reason for that could have been the choice of the campaign objective. You see, creating effective Facebook ads involve picking the right objective. It is the first among numerous choices you have to make (for your Facebook ad, not in life) that can hugely impact your campaign performance. Yes, it can be a bit tricky. But lucky for you, this blog post is there to help!
Facebook provides you with nine objectives to choose from:
As you can see, the objectives seem pretty self-explanatory. I mean “Boost your posts” will obviously boost your post (duh!). And the helpful dialogue boxes that appear do explain a bit about the outcome that you can generate. However, the key question is, is that what you need? Will the outcome of boosting your posts really be a wise one for your business? Knowing that can make all the difference to your ad campaign! And that is what we are here to discuss, the whole nine yards.
Option # 1 – Boost your posts
Let us suppose that you are in the hospitality business and are managing a chain of hotels. Your primary need would then be not just generate awareness for your brand, but provide frequent reminders to your audience. Therefore, you have to increase the number of times people see your post. “Boost your posts” objective now makes sense for you! Your audience is constantly reminded of you and is more prone to think of you while considering booking a hotel. A classic example of this can be seen with the Deltin Group of Hotels. They put up a simple post with excellent images that showcased the kind of rooms they have. That post did not talk about a special package or a weekend getaway. It was a straightforward post that showed what the Deltin group of hotels had to offer. It was used to generate awareness. Which it did. In spades! That post got more than 200 shares and even a higher number of likes!!
The biggest advantage with boosting a post is that there is no word limit. This means that you get a lot more space to sell your brand than with a regular ad. So if you have opened up a new resort or hotel, all you have to do is create a post with attractive pictures and write an introductory note. Then boost this post so that a lot more people can see it and you are done!
However, this is not the only use case. Remember how companies encourage you to check-in on Facebook when you visit them? Well, how do you think they do that? Why, by boosting their posts of course! By repeatedly announcing the benefits of checking in with them, they gently nudge you into visiting them and checking in, and in the process build visibility for themselves.
Quick tip: Remember to use high quality images and great visuals for this post. You want to make a great impression and woo your audience into visiting you!
Option #2 – Promote your page
Let’s face it, a lead who has seen your post will hesitate to invest in you unless you turn out to be credible. Credibility in the Facebook world means more relevant likes. This is where promote your page objective comes in: to primarily generate more likes so that you can build the trust factor.
Having said that, let me remind you that the eventual goal of running Facebook ads is to capture more leads. Not likes. Therefore, if you are short on budget, this might not be a good option for you. Say that you run normal lead capture ads, people would like your page through that as well, right? You get both leads and likes with the same post! So, promoting your page would be a good option for new businesses getting started on Facebook to get relevant likes, through a list of select targeted audience. Check out this blog post: https://www.leadsquared.com/how-to-use-Facebook-ads-for-better-lead-generation/ for more information on audience targeting.
Quick tip: Target your audience wisely, otherwise you will end up with Likes that are not relevant for your business. This will of course reduce the trust factor!
Option # 3 – Send people to your website
Let us consider another scenario: You have hit a milestone in your business (perhaps you won the best hotels or resorts award or you have the best reviews on third party sites) and you immediately post it one your website. The purpose of this exercise would be to ensure the people who visit the site know your achievements. But how would people know about this unless they visit your website? So you carry out an ad campaign through Facebook and the objective for this campaign would be to send people to your website.
In a nutshell, the objective “send people to your website” is used to generate more traffic so that your audience can come to know the changes you put up on site! They could come and check out your new blog post or see what accreditation you have or just browse around to get to know you better.
Quick tip: Ensure that your website is easy to load and navigate so that you don’t lose out on traffic that way. Even better, if you have lead capture points there – for instance I promote this webinar post, and if there is a webinar subscription box there, I will be able to capture this traffic as leads as well.
Option # 4 – Increase conversions on your website
Inbound lead generation happens with website conversions! So the objective “getting more conversions” is the most useful option for all marketers. Want more enrollments for a new course you are offering? Pick this objective. Need to promote an offer on your new tour package? This is what you need. Looking to encourage more patrons to visit your spa? Choose this one. Those who see the ad would not only visit your website, but they would be more inclined towards filling up a form to avail the offer. Discounts for them; Conversions for you. Savvy?
Quick tip: The website pixel you generate should be pasted on the page that appears after the form is filled. Only this can capture true conversions.
Option # 5 – Get installs of your app
The ultimate objective for “Get installs of your app” objective, is lead generation. Imagine yourself having a language coaching center that helps students improve their vocabulary. How do you identify them though? I mean, students don’t generally announce “looking to strengthen vocabulary” in their interests or in their profile.
Well, this is where you get smart. You come up with an app that quizzes people on their language skills. That section of the population who are looking to improve their vocabulary will download it and be captured as leads. You can go on to make your promotions to them!
Once people click on the “Install Now” button, they will be directed to the app store page. Before the take the final step, they will of course check out the app thoroughly. Therefore, it is essential that the App store page is optimized (ASO): the app description, the average rating, the icon, the screenshots, page alignment, the works. Otherwise inspite of the effective Facebook ad, people who visit the store will simply not download it. We don’t want that now, do we?!
(Source: Thank you https://www.apptentive.com/blog/5-pillars-of-a-successful-facebook-app-install-ad-campaign/ for your informative post!)
Quick tip: Remember the more tech savvy part of the population install your app. They are your portals to the technologically handicapped section. Eg. A kid who downloads this app might show it to his elder brother and get him interested.
Option # 6 – Increase engagement in your app
Ever heard of one time wonders? For a particular period of time your new app is what everyone is talking about. It is the new shizz in town, till suddenly it is not. For people are no longer interested. To keep them with you dear reader, you should keep them engaged. Take for instance E-commerce companies like Flipkart. They keep announcing app only offers that ensures that people don’t get tired of it.
Increasing engagement through your app is also an amazing way to get repeat customers. Consider the same spa example as above. A customer who got a service from you is using the app less and less. You promote a special discount through the app for him and encourage him to try you out again – Lead to customer conversion ahoy!
Quick tip: You can use this as part of your lead nurturing strategy, but again, only if you have the budget for it!
Option # 7 – Raise attendance at your event
Increase attendance for your event is obviously to encourage participation at your event and cannot be considered an ideal lead generation strategy. I will tell you why. Suppose you have orchestrated a play and have created it as an event on Facebook page. You will promote this event to gain as much visibility as possible. The event page can be used for carrying out discussions about it, can show you who else is attending it and even allow you to invite friends (with a single click!). All in all, good publicity. However, to buy tickets for the said event, the visitors will have to go click on a separate link where the tickets are sold, which might again redirect them to another site. This means more steps to register for the event, resulting in drop offs with every added click. So lesser leads captured. Get it? You will use this objective to gain more engagement and visibility for your event.
Quick tip: Use this only increase visibility for your event not as a primary lead generation strategy
Option # 8 – Get people to claim your offer
Who doesn’t like free stuff, or at least things on discount? That is precisely the rationale that marketers use when they entice their audience to spend with them by introducing an offer. Assuming you are one of those smart marketers in e commerce who is looking to woo customers with great deals, the objective of your ad campaign would of course be to promote my offer. You paste the website from where you can redeem the offer, punch in an offer code and give a limit (if required) for the number of people who can redeem the offer. You can also specify a time line for this and you are all set to publish! Sit back and watch your audience clicking away at your offer and visiting your website to avail the discount.
Quick tip: This could be a great method to get new and repeat customers!
Option # 9 – Get video views
Remember what I said about page likes? About how it increases your credibility in the eyes of a skeptical lead? Well, another way to do that is to upload a client testimonial or video footage of your customers appreciating your services. It will help in improving your brand image and making a human connect. You can also add a Call to Action button under the video to encourage immediate sign ups. This means, by getting more video views, you target improving the credibility of your brand, getting better reach and more sign-ups, all in one go!
Quick tip: This objective is for people who have the budget for a good video or for travel businesses that can crowd source people’s experiences into a video.
There you go! A complete break-down of the various objectives so that you can create effective Facebook Ads. Try them out and let us know how they work for you.
