Targeted Facebook Ads: How To

Want to create a paid ad on Facebook to target your intended audience? Because Facebook owns Instagram, ads can reach prospective students on both platforms at the same time. Here are the steps: 
 
Step 1. Create an account and/or campaign
Go to the Facebook Ads Manager and simply create an account or campaign. By creating a campaign, you’ll be led through the process.
 
Step 2. Choose the objective
What is your goal with this campaign? Is it increased brand awareness, driving traffic to the “apply” link on your website, or driving conversions? When you’re advertising on any platform, you’ll want to know your goal or objective. 
 
Here’s the complete list of Facebook campaign objectives available:

• Brand awareness
• Local awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• Engagement
• App installs
• Video views
• Lead generation
• Conversions
• Product catalog sales
• Store traffic
• Messages

Step 3. Budget planning
When planning your budget, you need to ask “To generate $X in revenue with Facebook ads, what budget do we need?” Say you want to use Facebook ads for lead generation, targeting a $10,000 monthly revenue. If the margin on your product is around $1,000, you need 10 sales per month derived from Facebook ads. Establishing a revenue goal for your campaign informs the ad planning process and helps you more accurately report the ROI or the return on ad spend (ROAS).
 
Step 4. Choose the audience 
Who are you trying to target? You can target “likes” or interests on Facebook, behaviors or demographics, and create very specific audiences to target with your campaign. As you build your audience, Facebook will display your estimated daily reach, and using its meter, will inform you if your audience is too big, too small, or if it’s just right. 

 
Step 5. Choose the ad 
Ads can be a single image or a video, or they can be in a carousel, meaning a collage of different images or videos that rotate. You can choose exactly where your ad should be shown — for example, on a desktop or mobile newsfeed, an Instagram feed, or on Messenger — there are many choices for where your ad can appear. Furthermore, you can send traffic back to your application page, an article, or a specific link you would like the students to visit.
 
Step 6: Write the message
Two things are most important to an effective ad: the ad’s creative concept and the ad title. A Facebook user is only going to like, click, or share an ad if it grabs their attention, and the title and creative are the first things a user notices.

Create three or more different versions of an ad in a document or spreadsheet before jumping into Facebook. You can test the ad by varying the title, and using three different images that are relevant to your copy. Try one title that poses a question, one that is very clear about the ad’s purpose, and one that is in line with the image attached to it. Then, see which ad gains the most responses.
 
Step 7: Choose the CTA
You could even test a call to action (CTA) button such as “learn more” or “apply now.” You can do a lot of specific targeting. Be aware that Facebook advertising uses a cost-per-click model, so that each time a student clicks on your ad, you will pay. However, the number of users on the platform allows you incredible reach in getting your content out to your prospective students. 
 
Step 8: Analyze and optimize stats
Keep track of reach, impressions, clicks, and other types of engagement to evaluate performance. As you learn which ads and segments perform best, you can continue to tweak and modify your campaigns for even greater success.