Why should you use Facebook video ads?
People have a growing appetite for creating, posting and interacting with video online, especially on mobile. Facebook has quadrupled it’s video views over the last year, to 4 billion video views every single day. Marketers are shifting their budgets from TV to mobile video and it’s easy to see why. If you want to drive Facebook users to your website, Facebook video ads are worth a look.
Outline your objectives.
The obvious, but absolutely necessary, first step to a marketing plan is to outline your objectives. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no idea of your destination? No. Well the same concept applies to your marketing. You can’t write a marketing plan unless you know what you are trying to accomplish. Spending time identifying the right objectives and creating a measurement framework to measure progress is crucial to any successful marketing campaign.
In your Facebook video ad campaign, are you trying to increase visibility or drive conversions? By identifying the response you want from your campaign, you will be able to recognise what your video should include and how you are going to distribute it – marketing channels are key to success so you need to know that Facebook is where your prospects are.
What’s your destination?
By choosing which metrics you want to track and what goals you’re trying to reach before you start creating your video, you’re more likely to get your desired results. So choose your key performance indicators and plan accordingly.
Conversion KPIs
- Clicks
- King of the performance oriented indicators. The Click Through Rate (CTR).
- Revenue
Engagement KPIs
- Engagement (Share, likes, comments)
- Audience Retention (How much of your video the viewer watch)
- Relevance Score (How relevant your video is to your audience)
Most importantly – how will you measure the impact on your bottom line?
Choose your target audience.
With more than 1 billion users with a Facebook account, it’s absolutely critical for the success of your campaign to target only those who are potentially interested in your product or service. Narrowing your target group will give you less overall views, but because you’re reaching only the people who are relevant, your CTR is likely to be higher. Luckily, Facebook offers a wide range of targeting options that will help you find the right niche!
Demographic targeting.
The first set of options to refine your audience is pretty straight forward: Basic demographic information.
Location: From country, towns right down to post code, both big brands and local shops can target their potential customers.
Age: Do you want to appeal to teenagers, young families, or retired people? You have the flexibility to choose any age range, with any interests.
Gender: Target specific genders. Now that Facebook offers over 50 gender options, this may be more useful for some businesses.
Facebook recently improved these options giving you much more granularity over who will see your ads. Clicking on the “More Demographics” button will offer you a wide range of options for every need.
Interest targeting.
Interests are one of the best Facebook ads targeting options as it allows you to target people specifically interested in a subject related to your business. For example, you could target people interested in your competitors or your broader market segment, or even magazines and blogs covering your market. You could also think out of the box and target those that are interested in products that mean they probably have a need for yours. For example, people interested in horses, may have a need for saddles, and those who are like a Baby product page may well be interested in things to do with young children for instance. You can be creative with that one!
Interests: Precise Interest Targeting lets you target your audience based on their profile information. This includes their likes and interests, apps they use, Pages they’ve Liked, and more (you can even target your competitors’ fans!). Start typing an interest and a list of options will appear. You can also click “browse” to see some broad categories suggested by Facebook.
Behaviours: Unlike Precise Interests, behaviours allow you to target people by purchase history, intent, and more. This data is gathered by Facebook analysing many factors and also using external data sets.
Plan your video creative.
The success of your video ad will largely be determined by the time and effort you put into properly planning the creative of your video. A good, solid plan for your video will increase the chances of it being successful. Here are a few questions you should know the answer to before you pick up the camera or commission a production company.
- What ideas, themes or topics do you want to communicate?
- What will your key takeaway be?
- What message do you want to convey to your audience?
- What is your CTA? What action will your viewer take? For example, “Sign up here for our Brilliant Marketing Ideas For Boring Businesses“.
Set up your Facebook video campaign.
Once you’ve created your video, it’s time to set up your Facebook video ad campaign. Setting up a video ad on Facebook is a relatively straight-forward process. Facebook does a good job of walking you through the process of setting up the campaign through either the Ad Manager or the Power Editor. Here’s the basic steps you need to set up your campaign.
- Start creating an ad and choose “Video Views” as your objective. You could choose to “Boost Post” as well, but choosing “Video Views” will give you a lower cost per view.
- Choose your audience. You have a wealth of targeting options at your disposal. You can also re-target previous website visitors or use any of the Custom Audiences you might already have, like your email list or app users. You can also target the fans of your Facebook page.
- Set budget and pricing. Choose how much you want to spend, over what time, and what you want to optimise your ad for.
- Upload your video. Be sure to choose your video thumbnail carefully – it does affect your views.
- Edit your ad copy. Add the text copy and your CTA. Choose where you want your ad to be served, on web or mobile or both. Remember – mobile traffic is growing rapidly for most businesses. Check your Google Analytics for insight as to how your traffic is split.
Evaluate and experiment.
Conversion KPIs
How many conversions did you get from your video campaign? Did people who clicked through to your website bounce quickly, or did they convert on your content? Did re-targeted visitors convert at a later stage? Why? How can you reduce your bounce rate?
Engagement KPIs
Did people who saw your video engage with it? How many shares, likes, and comments did you get? How many of those were from organic sharing?
After you’ve evaluated your video campaign’s performance, it is time to do it again! Think about what went well and what you could improve. Experiment with the advanced targeting options Facebook offers!
If you’re not yet experimenting with video marketing as part of your content marketing mix in general, it’s time to start. And if you’re using Facebook as part of your social media initiatives, you should definitely be including video as part of your content mix.
If you need help with any of aspect of Facebook advertising or digital marketing in general, let our friendly experts help you! Contact us here
