It’s an understood fact that Facebook ads are exceptional for small business promotion because they allow you to target the audience segment you want to reach. However, the significant feature that makes these ads stand out for small to midsized companies is the choice of Facebook ad campaign objectives.
Since Facebook ads require you to create a campaign objective from the get-go, they inadvertently force you to think about your ad’s purpose. Having a clear objective saves you from wasting your money on ads with no distinct or measurable goals.
Let’s explore the social media marketing funnel to help you align your Facebook ad objectives with different stages of the funnel:
Four Stages of the Marketing Funnel
Cold – Stage 1
In this introductory stage, you introduce prospective customers to your brand. You target individuals who are not familiar with your brand, business, services, products, etc. They might not be currently shopping for your services, but they fall within your target demographic. Your aim is to make a memorable first impression and influence prospective customers to consider your business.
Consideration – Stage 2
The next stage targets prospective customers who are actively researching your brand, services, or products but are not necessarily prepared to purchase from you yet. It’s where your role comes into the picture; you have to work on engaging with them. Promote free offers and discounts, drive their clicks to your website or a form.
Hot – Stage 3
This stage of the marketing funnel targets prospective customers who are prepared to buy from your business right away. It gives you the room to become more aggressive with conversion. You can add specific CTAs to your Facebook ads to entice more prospective buyers and drive conversions.
Customers – Stage 4
Even though some brands might not need to continue marketing to their established consumers, many small to medium-sized businesses can generate a great ROI on ads that attract a customer to return to their website and make another purchase.
Now, let’s explore FB ad objectives and the funnel stages they align with!
Facebook Ad Objectives
Brand Awareness
Funnel Stage: Cold
Brand awareness essentially means boosting people’s awareness of your brand or business. It can help you spread the word about your business, market your brand pre-launch, or share updates. Brand awareness works for brands with a sufficient budget or for new locations and products.
Reach
Funnel Stage: Cold
Reach allows you to reach as many individuals in your target audience as possible. Facebook ad campaigns with a reach objective are similar to brand awareness ones. For instance, these campaigns work wonderfully for advertising local festivals, events, or concerts.
Traffic
Funnel Stage: Cold & Consideration
Traffic objective helps you send individuals from Facebook to your chosen destination, such as your app, website’s landing page, blog post, etc. These ads work best when you want people to read your latest blog post, buy your recent product, buy your new book, or enter a contest on your website.
Engagement
Funnel Stage: Consideration
Engagement helps you reach individuals most likely to engage with your post. Engagement includes shares, likes, and comments but can also include discounts or offers claimed from your page. Having engagement as your objective works well for giveaway posts or other enticing offer posts.
Video Views
Funnel Stage: Cold & Consideration
Video views essentially involve sharing videos of your brand with individuals most likely to watch them. You will only have to pay for your target audience that views your ad. However, make sure it’s engaging and informative to ensure the desired response.
Lead Generation
Funnel Stage: Consideration, Hot & Customers
Lead generation involves collecting leads for your brand by creating ads that collect information from individuals interested in your products or offerings. It works well for small businesses as it’s a clear and measurable objective. Your objective is to generate leads to increase sales.
App Installs
Funnel Stage: Consideration & Hot
It involves sending people to the app store to download your app. This Facebook ad objective applies to businesses that offer an app for their services or products.
Messages
Funnel Stage: Consideration & Hot
Connecting with people on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct can work exceptionally well for small businesses if you put in the effort to respond to messages right away. You can connect with potential and existing customers to foster interest in your brand.
Conversions
Funnel Stage: Consideration, Hot & Customers
Conversions involve encouraging individuals to take precise actions on your brand’s website, such as downloading your app, registering to your newsletter, adding items to a cart, calling your business, buying something, etc.
Catalog Sales
Funnel Stage: Hot & Customers
Show products in your ads from your ecommerce store to drive sales. It’s the best approach for ecommerce businesses that want to generate online sales versus brick-and-mortar store sales.
Store Traffic
Funnel Stage: Consideration, Hot & Customers
Having store traffic as your Facebook ad campaign objective will help you promote your brick-and-mortar store locations to the locals. This type of ad campaign is related to geofencing, and it works wonders for some businesses but not others.
For instance, if you sell glass doors and have a glass door showroom, it’s unlikely that a person walking down the street will see your Facebook ad and will be encouraged to drop by and buy your glass door instantly. On the other hand, if you own a restaurant and are offering a free beverage or dessert with breakfast, lunch, or dinner, geofencing will surely work for your business.
Want Professional Help for Your Facebook Ad Campaigns?
Boulevard can help with Facebook marketing and setting your Facebook ad campaign objectives and social media marketing in general. Reach out to us today!