If you went into a restaurant and ordered a steak, you’d expect a steak to arrive, wouldn’t you?
So, if you ordered macaroni cheese, you’d not expect to be brought a fillet steak, right? And when the macaroni cheese you ordered arrives, you’d not go off telling all and sundry that the restaurant was rubbish and to avoid them because they didn’t bring you the meal you wanted?
Would you?
Yet, here’s the thing, this is happening every single day – with facebook advertising!
Business owners pay to boost posts (an ad type that has delivered what you paid for when you get likes and comments on your post), yet expect leads and sales.
And when those leads and sales don’t arrive, they go around telling other business owners that Facebook ads don’t work and are a waste of money!
The ONLY time you actually ask Facebook to get you leads and sales – is when you optimise your ads for conversions!
If you boost a post, you’re paying for engagement – likes and comments.
If you want conversions, BUY conversions – not engagement!
To buy conversions, choose the “Conversions” campaign objective when you set up your ad
Firstly, let me explain what I mean by optimising your ads for conversions.
When you set up your ad/boost your post, you select the audience that you want to see your ad. You might choose ‘people who like your page’, or ‘people interested in [keyword].
Facebook shows your ad to as many random people who fit this criteria, as your budget permits.
However, when you choose to optimise your ad for conversions, Facebook is essentially letting you make use of the colossal amount of data it holds on everyone.
So, for a conversion optimised ad, Facebook will use the behaviour data they hold on each of us, to prioritise showing your ad to the people who fit your criteria, who are MOST LIKELY TO CONVERT for the objective you set.
E.g. if you want people to opt in to download your lead magnet, Facebook will prioritise showing your ad to the people within the criteria you set, who are most likely to opt in.
It’s clever stuff!
How to optimise your Facebook ads for conversions
In order to optimise your ads for conversion, the very first thing you’ll need is a way of knowing how many people converted…
… a separate thank you page.
You tell Facebook that you want them to show your ad to the people who fit your criteria (e.g. they like your page, or are interested in [keyword]) who are most likely to visit the thank you page – and count the number of people who do visit the thank you page.
E.g:
ABC Ltd want to track how many people opted in for their free eBook as a result of their Facebook adverts.
They send people to the URL, abcltd.com/free-ebook to opt in for their free eBook (lead magnet), by entering their details into an opt-in form.
On submitting their details, immediately they are redirected to a separate, thank you page, /ebook-ty.
Now, they need to tell Facebook to count how many people converted as a lead (saw the page /ebook-ty) from their ads.
Now you’ve got your separate thank you page, and you’ve set up your opt in form to redirect to the separate thank you page on submission, next you need to set up a custom conversion in Facebook, so they can optimise your ad:
How to set up Custom Conversions in Facebook Ads Manager
Go to Facebook Ads Manager > Hamburger Button (3 horizontal lines, top left) > Custom Conversions.
Click Create Custom Conversion.
Select ‘URL Equals’ in the drop down menu, and enter the URL for your thank you page (e.g. /ebook-ty).
Choose your conversion category (lead/purchase etc. In the ABC Ltd example above, you’d use ‘lead’)
Click next.
Choose a name.
Click create.
Then, when you go to set up your next advertising campaign, open Ads Manager or Power Editor and choose the campaign objective, ‘Website Conversions’.
You’ll be prompted to select the Custom Conversion you just created, and then you can set up your ad as usual.
Veronica Pullen
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