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How Facebook Ads Work

Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
Greetings,

I created a new facebook ad for a novelette I plan on selling in a month or so. The purpose of this ad it to:

1) Double the amount of fans I have.
2) Get my novelette in the hands of real people.
3) Create a sizable email database for upcoming novels and stories.
4) Ask those who have read the novelette to write a review on any of the online booksellers.

As there has been a show of interest in how facebook ads work, I've captured a few screenshots to share with you.

The first step of creating a facebook ad is to have a facebook page. Facebook pages are different from personal profiles in that they represent a company or idea. You'll notice a difference between what you can do with a Page as compared to a Profile.

To get around that, simply like your own page from your profile and assign yourself as a manager. This gives you the benefit of "liking" other pages, and the ability to switch from page to profile with one login. A person can be a manager for multiple pages. The sole difference with logging in as a profile and logging in as a page is the ability to create ads under the page login.

Ok, so you have your page and want to start getting your name out. You should create an ad, right? No. Get people from your profile page who share the same interests as you to "like" your page. Now you have a base audience.

Before you go to the next step and create an ad, consider how much money you want to spend. Facebook doesn't charge you for the budgeted amount up front. They'll withdraw from your account every so often (I think it's once a week). Keep that in consideration.

Now it's time to open an ad campaign. Here is the first screenshot

Country+Filter.jpg


The first few filters deal with age and gender demographics. You can have your ad displayed to certain age ranges and/or one gender. I don't see the point of this, so I leave them open. The only exception is that I put a base age of 13 years. I don't write for kids.

After that, you'll see a country filter. I typically select United States, Canada, Australia and the UK. The driving motive is to select countries that share the same language I write in.
 
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Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
Next comes interests. You can type any keyword and facebook will display matching results in real time. The point of using this filter is to have your ad appeal to fans who have similar interests in your subject matter or writing style. As you can see, the number of people this ad will cater to has decreased (you can see that number in the top right corner).

Interests+Filter.jpg


Another option is to select from the preset interests below. They are very general, so I tend to stay away from them.
 

Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
The final step is to set your budget and duration of the ad. There are advance optimization options that help you dictate how you pay for the specified exposure you're seeking.

Optimization+Options.jpg


There are three options:

Optimized for clicks: Although this is the second option, I want to address this first. Here, you are telling facebook you are more concerned about clicks. The price per click is higher than the price per impressions. You will get more quality interaction, but less eyes on your ad. Under this option, you have two suboptions. One allows for manually setting a price per click and the other automatically finds the cheapest price. I tend to favor this option. Price per clicks are surprisingly cheap (see my posts in the thread Does advertising on a Facebook increase your sales enough to make it worthwhile?

Optimized for impressions: You're telling facebook you want eyes on your ad. You're paying for bulk placement of ads and facebook charges you per 1,000 impressions (how many times your ad has been placed in someone's browser). You are never sure how effective you ad is, you are just planting a seed in the subconscious (as I understand, the eyes see everything and stores it in the subconscious. Whether or not you register what the eyes see is up to you conscious).

Your bid is optimized to increase engagement with your post: This is a hybrid of both. I've never used this option, so I can't speak of the results.
 
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Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
Now, you're done. Facebook doesn't approve your ads immediately, but the span of time is negligible. I submitted my ad at 7:37 PM and got approved at 7:42 PM.

If you guys have any questions, let me know. I'll try my best to answer them.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Ankari,

Thanks for doing this. Unfortunately, you happened to choose an issue where I'm just starting my research and I have a TON of questions.

You'll notice a difference between what you can do with a Page as compared to a Profile.

Could you go into more detail here? I'd find it useful.

To get around that, simply like your own page from your profile and assign yourself as a manager. This gives you the benefit of "liking" other pages, and the ability to switch from page to profile with one login. A person can be a manager for multiple pages. The sole difference with logging in as a profile and logging in as a page is the ability to create ads under the page login.

How intricately linked will my profile (I'm assuming you mean my personal profile page that I use to connect with friends or do you mean a separate profile as an author?) and my author page be? Will people who like my page see posts my friends make to my profile? Will my profile updates appear on my page?

Also, how does "liking" work in this setup? I'd prefer to keep my personal profile and my page as far apart as possible. I'd prefer to "like" other authors from my page instead of from my profile. Is this possible?

Get people from your profile page who share the same interests as you to "like" your page. Now you have a base audience.

I'm assuming you mean that I should message all my FB friends and ask them to "like" my page. Any tips/thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Brian
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Optimized for clicks: Although this is the second option, I want to address this first. Here, you are telling facebook you are more concerned about clicks. The price per click is higher than the price per impressions. You will get more quality interaction, but less eyes on your ad. Under this option, you have two suboptions. One allows for manually setting a price per click and the other automatically finds the cheapest price. I tend to favor this option. Price per clicks are surprisingly cheap (see my posts in the thread Does advertising on a Facebook increase your sales enough to make it worthwhile?

Optimized for impressions: You're telling facebook you want eyes on your ad. You're paying for bulk placement of ads and facebook charges you per 1,000 impressions (how many times your ad has been placed in someone's browser). You are never sure how effective you ad is, you are just planting a seed in the subconscious (as I understand, the eyes see everything and stores it in the subconscious. Whether or not you register what the eyes see is up to you conscious).

Your bid is optimized to increase engagement with your post: This is a hybrid of both. I've never used this option, so I can't speak of the results.

If you've targeted your audience sufficiently, my thinking would be to start with impressions for maybe the first two runs, using just the logo as the image they see, and then switch to one of the other options with fuller content. I'd probably want to go for quality likes instead of quantity, and that looks the third one to me, engagement with your post.
 
How intricately linked will my profile (I'm assuming you mean my personal profile page that I use to connect with friends or do you mean a separate profile as an author?) and my author page be? Will people who like my page see posts my friends make to my profile? Will my profile updates appear on my page?

Also, how does "liking" work in this setup? I'd prefer to keep my personal profile and my page as far apart as possible. I'd prefer to "like" other authors from my page instead of from my profile. Is this possible?

Brian

Nothing from your personal profile is auto-imported to the professional page. When you have a page you have a "use Facebook as..." option. When you are on your personal profile and liking things, all of that is added to your personal profile. When you are on your page and liking things, it's added to your Facebook page. Now, if you like your own page, your updates will show up in your News Stream and you can comment on it and like that from your profile and your personal profile will show up in the comments and such.

Similarly, it is complicated when you are on Facebook mobile and a little more glitchy in the sense of keeping track of where you are.
 
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