Making Pay-Per-Click Payoff – Part 2

By Hector Cisneros

Image courtesy Pixabay

Last week I showed you how to make search engine pay-per-click payoff.  This week let’s look at social net PPC campaigns.  Unlike search engine PPC which is keyword-based, social PPC is a little more complicated but way less costly than typical search engine advertising.  Below are some tips to give you the edge on Facebook PPC ads.

Facebook ads aren’t the pig-in-a-rut variety you’re used to on search engines.

On search engines, you simply select your keywords, connect them to your ads and run the ads until your account is tapped.  Facebook advertising doesn’t work that way.  Instead of relying on keywords, Facebook ads are audience-based.  That means you can target a different audience for each product or service you wish to sell.  Then you can show this audience a text or video ad designed to appeal to their wants, likes, and needs.  You can even include a call-to-action button to help motivate your audience to take the next step. 

Do you know who buys from you?

If you can’t define your ideal customers, you’ll be hopelessly lost if you want to advertise on Facebook.  That’s because FB ads start with vital statistics, including location, gender, age, languages, interests, behaviors and more. 

While a Facebook text ad looks a lot like those of typical search engine ads, sporting a headline and text grabber, FB ads also allow you to include a call-to-action button.  Facebook also allows you to choose an image or video to display with your ad.  Facebook also allows you to display your ad in a number of different areas on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and FB Audience Network.  You can even opt to show your FB ads to people who like and know members of your target audience.

Image courtesy Pixabay

On Facebook, quality counts.  While search engines routinely provide top placement to those who bid the highest, that’s not how Facebook PPC works.  What’s known as Quality Score is the secret sauce to being seen on Facebook.  Quality Score is rated by relevancy and clickthrough rate.  Everything from the keywords in your ad and on your page are scored from 1-10 to determine how relevant your ad is to your content.  The higher the score, the more visibility and the less cost-per-lick you’ll pay for advertising on Facebook.

Your ads are tied at the hip to your Facebook page.

It’s been proven that consumers only want to do business with brands they know, trust and like.  This means you need to take the time to show your customers who y
ou are, what your company is all about and why they should do business with you.  Since your FB page is going to play a big part in how your audience sees you, it’s important that you take the time to do all of the following:

      1.      Optimize your FB cover photo – Since this is the first thing your audience sees, it’s important that it makes an impact.

      2.      Show and Tell Time – Take the time to part the curtain to let your audience get to know you, your business, and your philosophy.  This makes you real to them, which is the first step in having them get to know you.  (Hint: Videos are a great way to up the ante with this step.)

      3.      Provide content that serves your audience.  Contrary to popular opinion, if you want to get your audience to like you, don’t sell, tell.  Find out what it is that your audience wants to see and serve it up to them.  If all your audience sees is content that extolls your company’s virtues, they’ll get bored in a hurry and go elsewhere. 

      4.      Testimonials are a great way to get your audience to trust you. – Don’t forget to provide your audience with feedback from other customers just like them.

There’s more than one kind of Facebook ad.

Facebook advertisers have two flavors from which to choose: Regular or Dynamic Ads. 

Dynamic Ads are more targeted than regular Facebook Ads.  That’s because unlike ordinary FB ads, Dynamic Ads are designed to change their targeting based on the actions of the user.  If a user clicks on a regular FB ad that takes them to your website or app but fails to make a purchase, that’s pretty much all she wrote.  However, if you opt for a Dynamic Ad, that same user will then be shown your content on their newsfeed.  Even if the user fails to click back to your page, he or she will be shown additional info to help plant the seed in their mind.  A dynamic ad can also be set to display other content, such as images, blogs, customer reviews, etc.

How far will your budget go on Facebook PPC?  A lot farther than it will in a typical search engine PPC campaign.  Instead of paying dollars per click, on Facebook you can generate clicks for pennies on the dollar.  However, generating clicks doesn’t necessarily mean generating results, especially if you’re looking to sell something on Facebook.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that Facebook PPC is designed to allow you to run a test campaign, or several test campaigns simultaneously for less than $100.  The reporting on Facebook is far more detailed than that on a comparable search engine.  This lets you fine tune your campaign to generate the best results with the least aggravation.  Once you hone your ads, you can always boost the gain to cast a net over the specific segment of that 2 billion+ Facebook audience that’s most likely to do business with you.

Hector Cisneros is a partner, COO and Social Media Director for WSquared Media Group based in Jacksonville, FL. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube. He is also the co-host of Blog Talk Radio’s “Working the Web to Win,” where he and Carl Weiss make Working the Web to Win simple for every business. Hector is a syndicated writer for EzineOnline and is an active Blogger, (including ghost writing). He is a published author of two books, 60 Seconds to Success (on sale at Amazon and B&N) and Internet Marketing for the 21st Century, which you can get free by clicking on the link at WorkingTheWebToWin.com.