Lead Generation Using A Facebook Ad Promoting An Event

Lead Generation Using A Facebook Ad Promoting An Event

This post is to show how to create a Facebook Ad for lead generation. There are many different ways of ways to advertise on Facebook. The purpose of this tutorial is to get you started by showing you how to post an ad which leads to an event. If you do not want to create an event, you can direct the ad to a campaign.

Overview

Facebook has over 1 Billion users, and more than 50% of them log in daily. Advertising on Facebook cost money, however case studies have shown that the return on investment can be significant. You can use Facebook’s demographic information to target ads to niche groups. Anyone can create a Facebook ad, whether it’s for a Facebook Page, Event, App, other destination on Facebook, or your own website.

Types of Facebook Ads

• Traditional
• Sponsored Stories
• Promotional Post
• FB Offer
• FB Event

The actual creation of any of these are similar for all 5. For this tutorial, I will use an event as an example.

What is the difference between Ads and sponsored stories?

1. Ads

A business creates an ad and pays Facebook to deliver it to the people who are most likely to find it useful.

2. Sponsored Stories

A sponsored story is different from an ad because it’s a story you can already see about activity from people you’re connected to, pages you like or apps you use. A business pays to sponsor these regular stories to increase the chances that you’ll notice it. The one advantage to a sponsored story is they appear

A few points to consider:

• All ads are eligible to appear on the right side of most pages and in search results. Ads may show in any position with up to six other ads. The position of your ad is determined by whether your budget was competitive compared to other people running ads to target the same audience as you.

• Your ads and sponsored stories are also eligible to show up in News Feed on both desktop and mobile.

• If you want your ad to be shown in News Feed, you need to create a page because everything in News Feed needs to come from something on Facebook. In this case, I’m using an event, so it can be posted in the News Feed.

• You can also promote your posts by to increase the chance you will reach a larger number of people when they interact with your post. People trust recommendations from their friends, so you get the benefit of an extended audience because they are more likely to be interested in your business when they see that a friend has liked, commented on or shared your post.

Step 1

Create Your Squeeze Page

This capture page is directed to a sandwhich page which leads to a sales page. When someone clicks on the ad, they are taken to the squeeae page which goes to this page to watch a free video. In this case, the free video is a presentation from Matt Lloyd discussing the concept of top tier programs. This video was taped at the Home Business Summit in Long Beach, California, June 2013.

Step 2

Create an Image

Create an image for your event. I’m promoting My Tip Tier Business so here is the image I’m using. It needs to be 300 x 300 pixels.

Step 3

Create The Event

Go to your Facebook Profile page to create an event. You can also create an Event on your Fan (business) page if you have one.

Fill out the name, details, where, when, and privacy. In the details section, describe the event and have your squeeze page URL posted near the top of the description. Use the same concept as“above the fold” for a squeeze page. The first step to creating an event is creating your squeeze page because you need the URL for the event description. When you create your squeeze page, you will have a link. You can use that link in your event description, but ideally the link needs to be tracked so you know clicks came from your Facebook Event. The link I’m using is a tracking link.

After you have completed the name, details, where and when, it’s time to invite friends. This part can be a tedious job, especially if you have a lot of invites. One thing that will help if you plan a lot of events, is to organize your friends into groups. You can separate business and personal friends by grouping them. When you invite friends, you can either manually check them off one by one or use a tool to select them. If your friends are divided into groups, it makes the job much easier.

If you find adding friends to invite is tedious, you can add an extension in Chrome called Facebook Select All. Firefox has the same add on.

Install either one depending upon your browser. When you open the invite friends window, there is a Select All green check icon that will be on the far right bottom of your browser. In most operating systems it will be located in generally the same place. Click on the Select All icon and this is the result:

After selecting your invites and saving, it creates your event page. Click the Add Event Photo to add the image you created in step 2. Your event page gives you several options. Page events takes you to your calendar. You can share, edit, and change your settings.

When you upload an image for your event, it will be the thumbnail image that will show when you promote the event.

The event page after adding the header image.

The event is completed and you now have a link you can promote to Facebook, but it can also be promoted on Twitter, Google+, Facebook groups or any appropriate platform. The value of creating an ongoing event is having this promotional link. If you are hosting a live webinar, your event can be the webinar. If you record it, you can promote the replay afterwards.

Set up your Facebook ad.

Facebook ads are created in the Facebook ad manager. There are different ways to get to the ad management center. The easiest way is to start at your profile page. Click on settings to take you to the Advertise on Facebook page.

The whole process of creating your ad is on one page. There are directions as you progress through each step.

Over all steps:

Step 1

You will create the ad which is directed to either a post, url, event, or offer. You post what you want your ad to say and download an image.

Step 2

Targeting-You have a multitude of choices for targeting. For this tutorial, I will show you an example. For your first ad, stick with the basics.

Step 3

Budget-Start with $5.00/day for your first ad until you learn how they work.

Step 4

Review and Place Order-After you place your order, Facebook will either approve or disapprove. They will email you your ad status.

Let’s Get Started!

When you get to the ad management center select what type of ad you plan to advertise. Each type of ad will have slightly different selections, so these instructions work with all types.

Some of the instructions are self explanatory and you need to use common sense, but if you are a beginner, here are some tips that are helpful.

I wanted to increase attendance for this event. An event can be a live webinar, hangout, or whatever platform you choose. In this case, the event is a recorded webinar. The ad directs the person who clicks on the ad to the capture page, which directs them to free access of the video.

Select what you want to do:

Fill out headline, text, and upload your image. Stay with less than 20% text. Use an image that will grab attention. Funny faces, animals, and people work well. Sometimes you may want to be more congruent with your image, but stay away from using images that imply “money making” or “MLM” activities.

The images you choose will determine if people will see your ad. You may notice some ads have colored borders around the image. That is acceptable if you want to increase attention.

This graphic shows you some tips on targeting. When you start targeting the audience numbers will be very large. As you submit more criteria, the numbers will reduce to a reasonable number. Explore this page on your own to get a feel of how the numbers work.

These are suggested settings for this particular ad. It is in the marketing niche and you may use the for your first ad. However, with practice and implementing you will adjust your ad to your needs. The possibilities are endless!

When you run your ad or sponsored story on Facebook, you will only be charged for the number of impressions (CPM) or clicks it receives.

Review and Submit. I chose to use the sponsored story. It doesn’t effect my budget and will give more exposure.

When you are happy with your ad, place the order and you are done. Your ad will start if it is approved. Statistics will be posted in your ad management center to track clicks and performance if it is approved.

Approved!

Performance of your ad, split testing, comparisons, and tracking are all advanced skills you will develop with practice.There are many eBooks and tutorials about Facebook marketing. If you decide this is one method you would like to use. It takes trial and error to learn what works best.

This will get you started. Place your first ad, keep your budget low and learn before committing to a large budget. You do not have to create an event. You can it, and start directly with a traditional ad. I prefer using an event because it creates my promotional URL and it is set up ongoing until I decide to stop it. If you do not take the time to learn the tricks and tips, you could lose a lot of unnecessary money.

Facebook also has a full tutorial if you have questions: FaceBook

Once you get comfortable using the traditional ad, the next step is to focus getting your Facebook ads into the News Feed (specifically Page Post ads, Page Like ads and Sponsored Stories).

I want to give you a heads up if you are thinking about Facebook advertising to generate leads. The number of users accessing Facebook on mobile devices has skyrocketed in the past year – and 60 percent of all users are visiting Facebook on their phones and tablets. This is something you need to consider because when users access Facebook via mobile, there is no right-hand column – which means you can’t afford not to focus at least some of your advertising on News Feed placements.

It is an advanced strategy and you have to use the Power Editor. It’s different and a little more complicated which will be covered in a different tutorial.

Good luck on your first Facebook Ad.