Using Facebook Ads for Business Growth: A Full Guide

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Making more profit, engaging current customers as well as getting more customers are the top goals of every business or organization. 

And a great way to achieve all of these is by driving traffic to your landing page or website, thereby getting more people to know of your offer and the services you render.

The use of Facebook ads to reach more people can positively impact your business as it allows you to reach a wide range of people. 

Facebook ads for business growth works and you’ll see results. According to www.statista.com, 28 million people use Facebook in Nigeria, accounting for 12.7% of the population.

 And, an average Nigerian spends up to 4 hours on social media daily. That’s a pool of people if you use it wisely. 

When you target the right audience by running Facebook ads, your customer base will increase and your sales will ultimately multiply. 

Targeting the right audience matters a lot. This explicit guide contains what Facebook ads are,  how to run Facebook ads, the cost, and how beneficial it can be to your business.

What are Facebook Ads?

In case you are not familiar with the concept yet, Facebook ads are advertisements that appear on the Facebook website and mobile application. 

Businesses and organizations can pay to have their content (such as text, images, and videos) displayed to a targeted audience on the platform.

These ads can be used to promote products or services, increase brand awareness, or drive website traffic. 

Users can interact with the ads by clicking on them, which can lead to the advertiser’s website or a designated landing page.

Facebook ads are an effective marketing tool for businesses when done correctly, as they allow businesses to reach a large and targeted audience on the platform. 

Facebook’s advertising platform offers a wide range of targeting options, such as demographic, location, interests, and behavior, which can help businesses to reach the right people with their ads. 

However, the effectiveness of Facebook ads can vary depending on several factors, including the quality of the ad content, the targeting options chosen, and the overall advertising strategy.

 A well-designed ad campaign with clear objectives, targeting the right audience, and good creativity can be very effective for a business.

In this article, we would be taking a deep dive into how to use Facebook ads effectively to grow your business in Nigeria. 

Before we delve in properly, you should know that there are two types of Facebook ads. One is the free ad and we have the paid one.

Free Facebook Ad: An example of this is the simple post you make on your wall/page. Facebook tells you to boost your post in most cases by showing you a button that reads “Boost post”.

Selecting this boost post is different from properly running a paid ad. 

When you create a free ad, you can’t choose your audience by yourself, Facebook does that for you, which might not necessarily fit into your ad purpose. This limits the results you’ll get. 

Paid Facebook Ad: This is the kind of ad you pay for. You get to choose who to see your ad according to the purpose of your ad. 

Why do you need Facebook ads for business growth? How will it affect your business positively? Come with me as I highlight them below.

Benefits of Facebook ads

1. It increases your conversion rate

Compelling ads keep your audience engaged. When they can relate to your ad sets, your offer won’t be difficult to consider. 

 However, you have to consistently create these ads that keep them engaged and interested in your brand. 

You need to keep being in their faces, to keep being in their minds. 

When they keep your brand registered, your conversion rates would be high.

2. It helps you target the right audience

Even if you have the greatest offer or you have an important piece of information to pass across, if the right people are not seeing it, your efforts might come to nought.

For instance, if you sell make-up products, your target audience would most likely be women of age 19-50. 

This is an estimation, you have to conduct proper market research to discover people who need your products and will buy from you.

Facebook ads help you narrow down your campaign to people that are interested in your brand and what you sell. 

There are options for selecting your audience based on their gender, demographics, language, etc. 

3. It is cost effective

Facebook has made it possible for every brand to be able to run ads because it is quite affordable. This is another amazing benefit of Facebook advertising.

 You don’t need to spend a lot of money to run ads on Facebook. You get to reach a wide range of people and save money at the same time. 

4. It increases brand visibility

You want to reach a wide audience because it’s good for business. Then you have to run ads on Facebook.

It has about 2.9 billion users monthly and some of them are interested in your products.

Facebook helps you reach them when you target your audience properly. Increasing your visibility doesn’t have to end on the platform.

If people can relate, thereby engage in your ads, this might give you a follow or like on your other social media platforms.

5. The ads come in different formats

You’re not limited to a particular type of format on the platform.  It allows you to look into different types of advertising. 

For each campaign, there are different formats available. They include;  

Carousel ads: these kinds of ads include different images you can scroll through. 

Image ads: simple image ads

Video ads:  their lengths can be varied.

Slideshows:  short videos with sound and motion. 

These different formats are a reflection of what your brand represents. You have to be creative while creating ads and choose the right format that would rightly convey your message. 

6. It is result oriented

It used to be difficult to measure ads but Facebook easily monitors your ads and their performance.

You get to know how your money is being spent and if it’s yielding the results you want. 

The tool called Insight on the platform analyzes how well your ads are doing such as engagement and the number of people your ads have gotten to. 

7. Offers ads for particular goals

Before creating your ad, you need to identify your goals to get the correct results. 

Facebook allows you to carry out campaigns according to your set goals.

Goals such as increasing engagement, driving traffic to your website or landing page, or generating leads.

This is where Facebook ads manager comes in, it ensures that you achieve  your objectives,  which might include: 

Brand awareness: making people know your brand and what you sell.

Lead generation: collecting information based on your audience’s interests.

Conversion: attracting your audience to make a purchase.

8. Easy to set up

Facebook has made it possible to set up ads on its platform. It’s a seamless process that doesn’t need technical know-how. 

The procedures are clear and straightforward and anyone can use them to their advantage.

9. You can re-sell to your audience

Through cookie tracking, you get to re-sell to people that interacted with your brand previously. 

When you run effective Facebook ads and your audience is quite acquainted with your business, it’d be easy to introduce them to other products.

Read also: How to get followers on Facebook as a Nigerian business. 

Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads manager is an ad management tool used to create, edit, and analyze paid Facebook campaigns.

With the Ads manager which is available to both IOS and Android, you can monitor your ad anywhere you are. 

You’ll have access to create and edit ads, as well as track performance and manage your budget.

How to Open a Facebook Ads manager account

1. Create a Facebook business page. 
2. Open your Facebook business manager account. Under accounts, click on Ads account.
3. Click on create a new Ad account.
4. Name your account, set a time zone, and choose your currency.
5. Add the payment method you’ll pay for the ads with.

Read also: How to download Facebook video on your mobile phone.

Facebook Ads Library

Facebook ads library is a large database that contains information about ads that run currently across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other Facebook platforms. 

Now, we’ve gotten to the most interesting part. You know why you should run Facebook ads now, and how it can make your business grow easily. 

How do you run these ads? What goes into them? I’m about to let you in on that secret, come with me.

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Difference between a campaign, Ad set, and an Ad

Campaign: highest category where you set your ad goals or objectives.

Ad-sets: decision on the type of audience you will target and the amount to spend.

Ad: the creative elements of your campaign such as videos, images, links, etc.

Sponsor your business on Insight.ng for a wider reach of your target audience.

How to Run Facebook Ads

The first thing you need to do in knowing how to run Facebook Ads is to set up a Facebook business page.

Your business page is a representation of your brand and it should entail what you do, thereby increasing awareness.

It should include your cover photo, business logo(which should be eye-catching), and contact information which is supposed to include your phone number.

It should also include your Instagram handle and website if you have them.

It’s your official profile, you have to make sure it is well-detailed and attractive at the same time.

These are the steps to follow: 

 1. Register your Facebook page

 To be able to create a business page, you have to have a personal Facebook account.

So log into your account, and you’ll see a “create” button on the right-hand side of the toolbar. 

The next step is selecting the page from the menu. After you click create, select the page, which is the first option. 

Then, choose the page category. Here, there are two options to choose from.

You’ll have to choose between “a business or brand” or “community or public figure”. Go ahead, and choose a business or brand. 

After completion of the above steps, the following is the information you need to provide on your page: 

 Name of your page:  The name of your business/ brand should be provided here. I strongly advise using the same name you use on the other social media platforms to avoid confusion.

For instance, if the name of your business is Kiki fashion.ng, this is what you should provide. 

Description: Now, it’s time to describe your business. This is where you talk about what your business is about. 

For example, Kiks fashion.ng can have a description that says  “we are a small business that specializes in bringing your way fashion at affordable rates”. It might be as simple as that.

You want to be careful here as you must try as much as possible to input what describes your brand. 

Category:  This stands for your area of specialization/niche. Could be Technology, Arts, Fashion, Science, etc. For example, Kiks fashion.ng is in the fashion category.

Profile and cover photo: Your Facebook business page needs a profile and cover photo like you’ll do to your page. You can take a good photo of your working environment and use it as a cover photo. 

Your profile picture should be your business logo to give your page that professional look.  

Read also: A complete Guide on Generating leads for small business owners in Nigeria. 

2. Create your ad account

The next step in how to run Facebook ads is creating your ad account. This holds information that pertains to your ads, ad sets, campaigns, billing information, and other crucial details.

 Your profile comes with an ad account but it isn’t ideal for running different campaigns. 

Various ad accounts can be created for ads of different goals. 

Inside your business manager, you can create as many ad accounts as you want.

To create your ad account, 

•  Log into your business manager account
• Go to “ad account”
• Select “add” and input your new account details
• Open the new account in the ads manager

3. Launch your ads

The ads manager is where your ad is launched. It is used to create, edit and analyze campaigns. Active ads and campaigns will be displayed in it.

The ads manager is important for information like the amount of money spent on an ad, the number of conversions generated, and other things. 

4. Create ads Campaign

You have launched your ad, the next step is to create an ad campaign. To do this, select “create” in your ads manager.  

After selecting “create” you will be asked to choose between “Create a new campaign” or “Use existing campaign”.

5. Choose your objective

Your objective is the main reason you’re running Facebook ads. What do you want from it? How do you want it to affect your business? 

What do you want your target audience to see or do when they see your ad while scrolling through their page?

You have to think about it well so you can get satisfying results. These are available  objectives to pick from:

Reach, traffic, engagement, lead generation, brand awareness, etc. 

After picking your objective, give your campaign a name and select continue.

Read also: How to go live on Facebook for a webinar or presentation. 

1. 6. Create ad set

The next line of action for how to run Facebook ads is to create your ad set.

The ad set contains things like dynamic creative, budget and schedule, location, gender, audience targeting, optimization, etc.

Audience targeting: allows you to choose the kind of people that will be interested in your brand and what you sell.

The audience you’ll target depends on your product. 

For example, if you own a graphic design business, your target audience should be small business owners, companies, etc and anybody you know will be interested in your business.

Dynamic creative: entails the use of images and texts. This feature allows you to test run your headline and the body of your ad copy. 

When you test out these things, it will guide you in running the next set of ads.

Budget and Schedule: you can set the exact amount of money you wish to spend on a campaign.

You get to choose if you want Facebook to deduct money daily or monthly. 

However, the higher the money you spend on your ad, the better the results. 

And the schedule allows you to set the start and end of the campaign.

Location: here, you pick the region you want to target. If you’re targeting Nigeria, you can still narrow it down to the exact location.

For instance, you can decide to restrict your ads to a particular city, maybe Lagos or you think Ibadan or Edo is where your audience is. 

Gender: this is where you choose if it’s either male or female that gets to see your Facebook ads. 

For example, if you sell human hair, obviously your audience would be women.

7. Create your ad

Now, you can create your ad. While I’ve highlighted the kind of ads you can create, it might be in the form of a video or flier.

Here, you’ll add your images, headline, and your website or landing page.

You want to make sure you write a good ad copy, one that would convert.

You see, Nigerians are busy people, they don’t care about you or what you sell. So it’s up to you to grab their attention and make them listen to you. You have to make them care.

Keep your ad short, simple, and engaging. You might want to hire professionals to write the body of your ad, headlines, and other things.

You also want to make sure to use high-quality images in passing across your message.  

Another thing is that you must focus on one thing so you don’t confuse your audience. 

Finally, your Facebook ad is ready to be published. However, you should review your ad multiple times so you don’t make costly mistakes. 

8. Analyze your ad performance

The last stage of how to run Facebook ads is to analyze your ad after some days, and if your ad is converting well, you can increase your budget, and more conversions will roll in.

Facebook Ads Cost

Facebook advertising cost in Nigeria depends on the goals of your business. This means the amount you spend on Facebook ads depends solely on you.

The minimum you can spend in Nigeria is $1 per day, that is #500 per day.

Facebook’s default setting for running ads is 7 days. That means with #3,500 you can run ads.

Conclusion

Running Facebook ads is good for your business. The platform hosts various kinds of people who want to buy what you sell.

I have shown you in this article that, with the right strategies to run ads, you can say bye to a low conversion rate.

Your business will grow in all your ways and you’ll get better results.

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About Author

Anuoluwapo Ojubanire

I'm Anu, a Microbiology student at Obafemi Awolowo University. A content writer, copywriter, and fashion enthusiast. Reading, traveling, meeting new people is what I love doing. I believe in self-development and purpose.

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