Insights from the article:
- There might be a lot of deterrents to Facebook Advertising for small businesses. Costs and difficulty may be among the top reasons;
- Facebook Ads is something that you – a business owner – can do by yourself. All you need to learn are the basics of Facebook Ads and you’re good to go;
- The best way to learn Facebook Ads is to use Facebook’s Business Manager.
As a small business owner or employee, what are your most common questions about running Facebook Advertising? For sure you might have asked yourself how much do you need to invest in ads to increase your sales. You might have even asked if this is something that you can do all by yourself.
And the truest, most honest answer is – yes, Facebook advertising is something that you can do on your own. If you’re not yet comfortable getting someone else to create advertising campaigns for your small business, or you want to explore your way through the different advertising platforms, then this is the best starter guide that you need to read.
Getting Started with Facebook Advertising
The best way to start advertising via Facebook is to start properly, and this requires setting up your Business Manager account. Business Manager is a Facebook tool that helps you organize and manage your business. It essentially helps you set-up your business infrastructure inside Facebook, allowing you to accept employees with customized employee access levels, so your employees won’t accidentally edit your Facebook page or business information.
Visit business.facebook.com to get to this landing page.
The reason we’re setting up a Business Manager is to give you access to tons of Facebook Business Manager tools, and one of these tools is the Ads Manager. Ads Manager allows you to take more in-depth control of your advertising, and to manage multiple, simultaneous campaigns all at once.
Because Facebook also owns Instagram, Ads Manager allows you to place ads via the same platform.
To start the process of creating your Business Manager account, click on the “Create Account” button from the top right portion and simply follow the process. Make sure you’re using a legit Facebook account to eliminate the problems of having to verify your identity. I’ve had scuffles with trying to create Business Manager profiles using proxy accounts and I’ve had a lot of accounts blocked because I can’t prove my identity through the proxy accounts. If you’re doing this, let’s just do it right.
From your newly-minted Business Manager account, you can access your Ads Manager. Or, alternatively, you can visit business.facebook.com/adsmanager.
Boosting vs. Running Facebook Advertising – a Visualization
We glanced on the topic of boosting your posts vs. running ads via Ads Manager. If you have a bit more capital to invest on Facebook Ads and would just like to simply boost a post to get more attention from more people, then it’s okay for you to boost your post.
Visit my previous blog about digital marketing for small businesses this 2021 to get a quick idea about boosting posts. Boosting posts offer a baseline set of options to customize the target market you want to show your ads to, your ad content and buttons, and your placements in Facebook and Instagram.
What’s good with using Ads Manager is it allows you to multiply and duplicate your ads without worrying too much about how to manage all of them. With the dashboard, it lets you see an overall view of your ads’ performance. You can also set different forms of objectives, such as link clicks, post engagements, page followers, leads, and more, depending on your objectives and goals for running ads.
How to Set-up Your Own Ad Account
When you visit the Business Manager home page after signing in, you will see all your available ad accounts and pages associated with your Business Manager. Because you’re starting a new account, you will not have ad accounts associated in your Business Manager. You will need to create ad accounts first before you’re able to use Ads Manager to set up your ad campaigns.
- Step 1: Click on the Gear icon at the bottom left side of your dashboard
- Step 2: You will see the Business Settings page. From the left sidebar options, click on Ad Accounts
- Step 3: You will have an bright blue button labelled “Add” and a dropdown icon. Click that, and select the “Create a New Ad Account” option
- Step 4: Follow the ensuing steps to create your new ad account
After creating your ad account, you’ll be able to set-up your own ad campaigns in Facebook and Instagram. Have fun exploring and using this very powerful tool!
Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier
For a more extensive list of FREE resources on digital marketing for your small business, check out this article.
On a personal note, I am considering starting a masterclass group for select professionals. If you wish to learn more, contact me and I can set this up for you. Check out our Digital Marketing Services page to learn more about what we do.
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