The following is a strategy for how I tend to execute on Facebook and Instagram ads during my promotion. The goal is simple,: to attract visitors from Facebook and Instagram to register for the give away and to purchase art from the promotion.
Map it out.
When it comes to Facebook Advertising, you can make your strategy EXTREMELY dynamic and detailed, but it’s best to begin by keeping it simple and straightforward.
A few things to keep in mind:
TARGETING is responsible for 90% of your success. Find the Right audiences first
Campaign Objectives for the Giveaway is: Website Conversions
Make sure to always have your Pixel setup
The #1 metric to track is “Cost per Conversion
Ad Copy
If you didn’t know already, “copy” is there term used for the text that accompanies your posts.
I don’t have a specific formula for ad copy but I do have some suggestions. These posts are not story posts, just like on your sales page and in your emails, you want to get to the point quickly and you want the link to what ever you sharing, be it to your sales page or your giveaway, to be inside the first four or five lines of text.
“Who says your 🎁 have to fit under the Christmas Tree? (👀HD)
These four posters will never be available again after this month.
🥶Ice Cave With A View 🔥Tree of Fire
🌅Hanauma Sunrise ❤️Lana
www.jasonmatias.com/100-posters”
What makes a good ad visual
Show the product, not the artwork. By that I mean, show what the people will be winning and/or buying. Showing a digital image of your art (be it a photograph or a painting) is not the same thing as showing the artwork as a product. The product makes it real.
Also, identify with your customers and speak to their needs.
Pro Tip: I did not print these posters to take this photograph. I held a piece of blank foam core then added the digital image of the post on top if it. What was the cost of making this ad image? $0.
Promote/boost what works. When you begin posting about your giveaway, try a few different captions and styles. The one that gets the most attention is the one that you should begin paid advertising with.
For each visual you create you will create 3 versions of it.
Horizontal for facebook
Horizontal 4:5 ratio for instagram
vertical 4:5 ratio for Instagram & Facebook
If you include copy on your images do not allow more than 20% of your image to be covered in Text. You can us Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool.
Video
Create videos that are no longer than 60s
The first 10 seconds of your video are extremely important. Do something in this brief moment that captures the attention of the view and holds it long enough to deliver the bulk of your message
Create multiple versions of each video.
Horizontal and vertical for facebook.
vertical version for instagram.
15 second version stories on both instagram and facebook
Video is more effective than photos to capture attention. The first 3 seconds and the first 10 seconds are key to capturing attention long enough to express the reason for the video and to hook the audience. Plan your first three seconds with high-energy or a strong visual aide to capture attention. You can go to the video tab on www.facebook.com/jasonmatiasphotography to watch any of these videos and emulate/improve on their delivery.
Pro Tip: If you’re doing your giveaway during Christmas, include wrapped presents in your content and gift giving in your context.
Pro Tip #2: Have subtitles hard coded into all of your videos. Not everyone can watch your content with sound on. However, closed captioning disappears when you open a video on facebook and youtube. If you hardcode your subtitles into your video, then they won’t go away when you open the video up. I recommend making your captions black letters a white backdrop. The reverse is difficult to read. I use rev.com to get captions written for my videos.
Putting it all together
Hopefully you have watched my two videos on setting up your facebook pixel and creating custom audiences. The video below will walk you though setting up the marketing of your post on Facebook and Instagram.
Understanding how your ad is performing
Now that you’ve begun spending your money on ads you need to pay close attention to them. Speaking (writing) frankly, you’ll know which ads are performing well and which are performing poorly. In case you aren’t sure, FB has some metrics that can help you understand your ads’ performance.
The chief tool for understanding your ad performance is CTR or Click Through Rate. This is the percentage of people who have viewed your ad that have clicked on the link included with it. The average CTR on Facebook across all industries is 0.90%, which is a pretty low bar. Here you can see some of my click through rates and you can make inferences on them when compared to other metrics, such as reach. More on that in a moment.
The second most useful tool for understanding ad performance is Cost per Result. This measures how much you’re spending on each of the measurable results. As you can see, the first ad had people clicking on a land page and it cost me $0.42 per click. The second had people going to my Messenger. Only one person actually sent me a message, so the cost of that message was $19.48! That might seem like a lot, and it truly was an ineffective ad, but if that messages landed me a new client at $500 then it’s totally worth it. It didn’t, just being honest.
Use these two metrics to objectively gauge whether your ad is making the impact you want. What do you do if it’s not? - Make adjustments. Tweak the language or “copy” that goes with your post to more clearly state your intention. Try another visual or make a video to attract more interaction and follow through.
You have to test.
You have to test.
You have to test.
What does that mean? That means you have to create your ads then to commit to a healthy ad spend to discover if they work or not? You should spend at least $10/day for three or more days to gauge how your ads are developing.
Facebook and Instagram Live should be an integral part of your giveaway. Why?
Because it gives your audience an opportunity to get to know who they are buying artwork from.
It give you an opportunity to share the story of each of the artworks. (You can pick a few or a single piece to explain/share at a time.)
It gives people an opportunity to ask you questions.
It increases the visibility of you page
When ever you go LIVE, Facebook TELLS everyone, giving you an opportunity to show up in people’s news feed when you otherwise would not have.
Tips for Live Calls
Have an agenda. Don’t go on and wing it- you want to be able to steer the conversation
Have a great story to share
Use a messenger bot to get people to sign up for your broadcast lists.
Come prepared with talking points
Allow a few minutes in the beginning of the video for people to show up. Use this time to thank future viewers for watching the replay.
Put a hook in the beginning of the video to incentivize people to interact with you and stay until the end.
Have questions for the audience that are easy to answer. Their engagement will increase the views.
Don’t be afraid to leave the chat.
Have a great visual space behind you so that the video is less visually boring.
Do you live calls at different times so that more people can be live with you.