20 Facebook ad tips for the holiday season

 
 

With the holidays approaching, gift gifting is about to increase, significantly, and so are advertising costs on social networks. Social sharing can have big sales impact, especially on Facebook.
In fact, if last year’s is any indication, within a couple of weeks, costs for Facebook ads are about to rise 20%-40% versus the rest of the year on the primary spending metric – CPC (Cost Per Click).
How do you make Facebook ads work harder when costs are higher.
Here are 20 Facebook ad tips for the holiday season.

1. BE CLEAR ABOUT CONVERSION GOALS: Conversion means getting people to take the action you want. Do you want Facebook users to buy something on your site? More Likes on your Facebook page — knowing that Facebook fans tend to be valuable customers in the long run?  Enter a sweepstakes or contest? RSVP to a Facebook event?
2. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: Use Facebook’s robust targeting options to focus on specific groups. The more specific your advertising segment, the more clicks your ad will get. The better the Click Through Rate, the more you save on Cost Per Click (CPC).
3. OPT FOR “PRECISE INTEREST OPTIONS“: Get connected with people who share specific interests analogous to your brand.
4. GET HIGHER CONVERSIONS TO SAVE ON CPC WITH HYPER-TARGETING: Start with a core, solid fan base first and engage them to get better ad conversions…without breaking the bank!
5. CREATE “CUSTOM AUDIENCES”: With the addition of the “custom audiences” feature, advertisers are reporting higher conversion rates.  An auto company saw a 24x return using custom audiences in combination with Offers).
6. REACH MORE FANS THROUGH THE NEWS FEED: 60 percent of all users are visiting Facebook on their mobile phones and tablets. Facebook mobile ads earn up to 2.5X more than desktop-only ads according to a study from SocialCode 
7. HAVE FANS SHARING WITH “LIKE” ADS” “Like Ads” work just how they sound. Viewers can “Like” you ad at the bottom. They do well when they appear in the right-hand column in addition to the News Feed.
8. GET MORE EYEBALL FROM YOUR AUDIENCE WITH PROMOTED POSTS: Promoted Posts work best with one audience: yours. Your fans already know you, trust you, and want to engage with you. Target Fans first becaue Promoted Post can  a lot like spam, especially the sponsored story that is created with it. If your Promoted Post is reported as spam, it’ll be running a lot less.
9. MAKE COPY “SUCCINCT, FRIENDLY AND CONVERSATIONAL”: This is what Facebook recommends too. You have a headline of 25 character and body copy of 90 characters to do it.
10. CREATE HOLIDAY URGENCY: Put holiday clues in your copy and let people know whatever you’re offering has a limited time to take action
11. FOCUS ON KEYWORDS: Make use of the related words as close as possible. It will give you an edge against your competitors and rivals.
12. PUT IMPORTANT CONTEXT IN YOUR IMAGE OR VIDEO: You get one shot and one image or video to make a first impression. Put important copy in your image or video so you don’t waste it. Facebook has standards so don’t make the copy take up more than 20% of the image space.
13. PUT HOLIDAY IMAGERY IN YOUR AD: Why not create added relevance with images of the holiday that can boost relevance and time to act?
14. TEST MULTIPLE ADS: Even the smallest change can have a a impact on the click-through rate for your ad, so it’s best to create multiple versions and test. Facebook makes this process easy: Once an ad has been created, you have the option to “Create a Similar Ad” and simply swap in a new picture or text.
15. UPDATE YOUR WALL. NOT JUST YOUR ADS: Your ads are only as good as your Wall. If you spend a $100 on ads, but the last update on their fan page was a month ago, that’s not a smart spending strategy.
16. KNOW YOUR BIDDING OPTIONS: A CPC strategy is all about getting the biggest bang for the buck. With the Advanced Pricing feature in the Campaign and Budget window, you can then use the CPC (cost per click) model, as well as set your own bids for the CPM model.
17. KNOW THE BEST TIME TO RUN YOUR ADS: Make sure your updates are going out during peak hours – the time zone of your fans (for promoted & sponsored posts); he time zone of the demographic you are targeting (for display ads & sponsored posts)
18. RUN YOUR ADS FOR THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF TIME: Continually assess the ROI (Return on Investment) of your ad so that you can remove or revise it before it starts to really cost you. Watch your CTR and when it starts to dip, it is time to change your ad up
19. DRIVE PEOPLE TO AN OPTIMIZED LANDING PAGE OR DESTINATION: Make sure the ad directly leads to your website page that tells the potential customer what to do next.You will be throwing your money in a trash can if you do not have a converting landing page to direct the targeted Facebook traffic.
20. HAVE ONE CLEAR CALL TO ACTION: A comprehensible call to action must be established in the Facebook advertisement itself and also on the landing website page.

We want your business to be successful this holiday season and share some practical advice on how it can be.
Were these holiday tips on Facebook ads helpful? Will you be using any of them?