Facebook Advertising 1: Design Your Ad
The first step in designing your ad is to choose the destination—basically, the specific web page or Facebook page where users will end up after they click the ad or sponsored story. The destination is commonly referred to as a landing page. The first option is to use an external URL, which means any web page that is not part of Facebook. In the Design Your Ad facebook Advertising of the ad creation interface (Figure 3-1), choose External URL from the Destination drop-down menu and type the destination URL in the URL field.
Figure 3-1: Facebook advertising interface, ad creation
If you are a group, event, app, or page administrator, you have the option to link directly to Facebook assets you control. Any eligible to be advertised will appear in the drop-down menu after you select the “I want to advertise something I have on Facebook” option from the Destination drop-down menu. Choosing to promote a page or event gives advertisers options to include interactive features, such as Like buttons for pages and RSVPs for events.
In addition to using Facebook Ads, you can sponsor stories about your brand that have bubbled up (surfaced) organically in the Facebook news feed (a result of users interacting with them). Sponsored stories are not the same as ads, and they’re awesome; including them in your FB campaign amplifies your target audience’s actions in a natural and inherently viral way. Stories that can be surfaced include: page likes, page posts, page post likes, check-ins, app shares, apps used and games played, and domain stories.
The next step is to compose a catchy 25-character headline and some body copy (you can use up to 135 characters). Complete the ad creation process by uploading an image for your ad, in GIF, JPEG, or PNG format. Choose an image that is clearly visible when it is small because the maximum dimensions for FB ad images are 110 × 80 pixels. Facebook will reduce the size of larger images, but unless they are proportionally correct, they may be skewed in ways you might not like. My advice is to upload the image at the correct size so there are no surprises. We’ll discuss the entire ad creation process in greater detail later, in Chapter 7.
The Suggest An Ad button* is available for an external URL and provides automated ad creation. If available, the destination page’s HTML title tag becomes the headline and the meta description is used as the body copy. Unless the external web page owner has designated an image for FB to use (meta property=”og:image”), you can toggle through images posted on the destination page. Most of the time, automated ad creation is practically useless unless the external destination URL is to a page that is set up very well.
The Select Existing Creative feature is a more recent alternative that can save quite a bit of time. Choosing this option opens a pop-up window that lists every ad in the entire account. Select an ad that would make a great starting point and click Submit. All the original ad’s creative elements, including headline, body copy, and the image, will automatically populate the same attributes for the ad you’re currently composing. What’s cool is that you can reach into any campaign in the account you’re working on, including those deleted, as a starting point to mine completed ads to clone.
Facebook Advertising 2: Facebook’s Powerful Targeting
The next step after designing your ad is to define social segments that specify which Facebook users will see it. The capabilities are awesome, a revolutionary game-changer. In Chapters 5 and 6, we’ll dig deeply into targeting strategies and how to research segments. Let’s start by getting our hands dirty with detailing the form and functionality of this incredibly robust UI. The targeting interface is shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2: Facebook ad interface, targeting
Estimated Reach
Each of the three main facebook Advertisings is made up of multiple parameters, appearing top to bottom within each facebook Advertising. This chapter provides a comprehensive guide to the mechanics of the second facebook Advertising in Facebook’s ad-building user interface: Targeting.
One of the coolest things about the UI is the Estimated Reach box, a gray rectangle that hovers to the right of the Targeting facebook Advertising. Scroll up on the page and the Estimated Reach box stays anchored to the top of the targeting facebook Advertising. Scroll down deeper into the targeting facebook Advertising’s parameters and the box floats down the page, always in line of sight while targeting. Reach in Facebook Ads means how many users fit selected targeting criteria. Figure 3-3 depicts that the only targeting parameter invoked, by default, is all users age 18 and up in the United States—all 155, 771,580 of them as of this writing. The total keeps going up and up.
Figure 3-3: Facebook Ads UI with default targeting parameters
Note: Remember, although Facebook provides estimated reach for paid ad-targeting purposes, savvy community managers research Facebook’s proportional user demographics for the following reasons:
To define communities in which to participate
To gain a better understanding regarding relative sizes of said communities
To study competitors’ followers
To finding new market segments
To uncover social segments that might translate to other channels such as Twitter, YouTube, and search
The UI’s Estimated Reach box, tallying user-count predictions in real time, is an incredible demographic research tool unto itself. Arguably, this UI changed the marketing world forever because it spells out which users on Facebook are interested in what. Fluctuations—even from minute to minute or browser refresh to refresh—are to be expected, especially as combinations of parameters become more complex. Also, the Web UI can be a bit flaky, which is reasonable for technology such as this, served in a web browser. If Estimated Reach stops updating, just refresh the entire browser window. Most of the time, your work to that point will be lost, so take a screen capture of your progress so you can quickly type in any targeting ideas you’ve lost. Another option when the UI stops updating is to click, “Review Ad,” head to the next screen, and then click, “Edit Ad” to return to the previous screen. You should not lose any work.
Targeting Attributes
Marketers finger Facebook users by choosing values on a grid of attributes in the Targeting facebook Advertising of the ad creation UI. Here is a text-tree outline of main sections and attributes. Make a copy of this text-tree to use as a worksheet for preproduction planning and other shredding sessions. We’ll go into each of them in detail, from a marketer’s perspective.
Location
Country (attribute)
State/province (attribute)
City (attribute)
Cities within __ miles radius (attribute)
Demographics
Age (attribute)
Sex (attribute)
Interests (main section) Defaults to, “Precise Interests,” Toggle to/from, “Broad Category Targeting”
Connections on Facebook (visible if destination is internal FB page)
Users who are connected to (attribute)
Users who are not already connected to (attribute)
Users whose friends are connected to (attribute)
Advanced Demographics (main section)
Birthday (attribute)
Sexual interest (attribute)
Relationship status (attribute)
Languages (attribute)
Education & Work (main section)
College grad (attribute)
College (attribute)
Major (attribute)
In college (attribute)
College (attribute)
Major (attribute)
Graduation years (attribute)
In high school (attribute)
Workplaces (attribute)
And Operator
The main targeting sections—Location, Demographics, Interests, Connections on Facebook, Advanced Demographics, and Education & Work—truly work in a matrix. This means that values selected between each of these sections have the and operator in between. In other words, selecting Country: Brazil, Age: 22, and Interest: Baking means the targeted users live in Brazil and are 22 years old and also are interested in baking.
Obviously, specifying additional targeting attributes with the and operator reduces estimated reach because the process filters down to users who display an exact combination of those attributes. It makes sense. Adding additional criteria using and focuses targeting because fewer Facebook users are addressed with greater specificity. There is no way to choose the and operator in the UI. These decisions are made by Facebook and established as hard presets. Here’s an example:
There are 141,221,000 people (Facebook users) who live in the United States and are age 18 or older.
There are 61,655,720 men who live in the United States and are age 18 or older. Note that estimated reach has been reduced because women are filtered out.
There are 565,020 men who live in the United States and are age 18 or older and like NASCAR. Again, estimated reach is reduced because now, users who are not interested in NASCAR have been filtered out.
Some attributes within main sections use the and operator. For instance, choosing College Grad by itself filters users down to college graduates. Major and College become available as options upon selecting In College or College Grad. Choosing College Grad, and then specifying College: Harvard and Major: Biochemistry aims ads only at Facebook users who’ve graduated from college and went to Harvard and majored in biochemistry.
Don’t let this freak you out. Just remember that estimated reach is reduced with every new targeting attribute separated by the and operator. As we review each targeting attribute later in this chapter, we’ll take note of which values are affected by preset and operators.
Or Operator
Some attributes within main sections have the or operator in between them. Adding targeting criteria connected by or increases targeting width. The Interests bucket is a great example. Within the Interests bucket, additional interests are concatenated with the or operator. Stipulating additional interests with the or operator in between increases estimated reach because we’re adding more users who fit targeting criteria. Again, this makes sense. Adding additional criteria using or can reduce targeting focus as more Facebook users are addressed, potentially with less specificity. There is no way to choose the or operator in the UI. These decisions are made by Facebook and established as hard presets. Check out this example:
There are 449,740 men who live in the United States, are age 18 or older, and like NASCAR.
There are 902,040 men who live in the United States, are age 18 or older, and like NASCAR or bowling. Estimated reach has increased because now, we’ve targeted users who like either NASCAR or bowling.
There are 2,465,440 men who live in the United States, are age 18 or older, and like NASCAR or bowling or cooking. Estimated reach has increased because now, we’ve targeted users who like NASCAR or bowling or cooking.
This concept is crucial. Just remember that estimated reach is increased with every new targeting attribute separated by the or operator. As we review each targeting attribute later in this chapter, again, we’ll point out which values are affected by preset or operators.
And and Or Together
The whole stew gets even more pungent when one realizes that the or-separated interests in the Interests bucket and within some other attributes work in an and relationship with the other major targeting sections.
There are 112,520 women who live in the United States and like opera.
There are 7,040 women who live in the United States and are interested in women and like opera. The estimated reach has been drastically reduced because the and operator is preset between the Demographics sections (where gender is selected) and Advanced Demographics (where sexual preference is selected). Remember, the and operator filters, refines, and requires combinations of targeting attributes within users and therefore reduces reach.
There are 37,640 women who live in United States and are interested in women and like opera or like classical music. The estimated reach has been increased because the or operator is preset in the Interests bucket (where interests are selected). Remember, the or operator increases reach and, in this case, slightly reduces focus. This is key. We have not found gay women who like both opera and classical music. They like either opera or classical music. If the additional segment had been either Phantom of the Opera or Pavarotti, focus may not have been reduced, because they’re both highly related to “Opera.”
Start with the basic premise. The main sections have the and operator between them:
Location
Demographics
Interests
Connections on Facebook
Advanced Demographics
Education & Work
Specifying values in any of these main sections reduces reach because targeted users must meet all the criteria in each section, in combination. Think of each section as having targeting output determined by selections made to the attributes within.
The main sections have some targeting parameters strung together by and but others by or. Hang in there. You’ll get it as we review each attribute within each main section. It may be time to start listening to music while you read.
Typing Patterns Reveal Related Segments
Throughout the UI, all values for every attribute box are preset. Typing a word in any UI box that is not part of Facebook’s preset social graph simply will not result in a value that Facebook Ads will accept for targeting.
Fortunately for advertisers, FB goes to exceptional lengths to reveal social segments that are conceptually related to descriptive words typed into the UI. This functionality is a miracle of modern contextual targeting. For instance, typing Boston Bruins into the Precise Interests attributes box presents options that I never would have thought of, unaided (see Figure 3-4).
A bit of coordinated alphanumeric pattern testing surrounding key concepts yields fascinating UI typing hacks. These typing patterns help reveal a cornucopia of preset Facebook targeting attributes available to choose from. Think of it the same way as a search-and-rescue mission flown by the coast guard, scouring the sea in a grid to locate a missing ship. You literally type patterns to the point that a rhythm is established. To the privileged few given access to the Facebook Ads application programming interface (API), these testing grids can be automated. For the rest of you advertisers out there, get used to the idea of those typing patterns.
Figure 3-4: Facebook Ads suggests Precise interests similar to Boston Bruins.
This is easily illustrated in its most basic form by typing the letter a in the Precise Interests bucket. The following preset social-segments inventory is offered: A Prayer For Owen Meany, A Clockwork Orange, A Walk to Remember, Aaron, and so on. They seem to be roughly offered by segment size, but this is far from consistent. To explore b, backspace and type the letter.
It works for words, too, not just individual letters. Start with the word boat in the Interests bucket. Boats, Boating, Boatbook, Boat That Rocked, and Boat Trip are the first options. That’s great, some good options for sure, albeit seemingly random. Facebook does not reveal its algorithm for how it selects. One can only imagine.
From the basics, things can only get more complicated as the search patterns deepen. Invoke a little trickery. Try typing in boat a, the a being the first letter of an alphabetical search pattern designed to discover more social segments not shown previously.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Nuggets of interest—gold like Antique Boat Center, Andros Boatworks, and Aberdeen Boat Club Hong Kong are rendered. Try boat c, boat d, or boat 1 to flesh out even more preset targeting ideas. To move through the different tests faster, copy boat to your computer’s Clipboard. Then, execute the pattern, pasting into the Interests bucket, the results of which are shown in Figure 3-5:
Paste boat / type a space and a after boat / select any presets.
Paste boat / type a space and b after boat / select any presets.
Paste boat / type a space and c after boat / select any presets.
Figure 3-5: Facebook Interests bucket with boat keywords
Once preset options have been discovered, selected, and exhausted, undertake the same testing pattern using tightly related words, which can include plurals, abbreviations, and synonyms:
Paste boats / select any presets.
Paste boats / type a space and a / select any presets.
Paste boats / type a space and b / select any presets.
Paste boats / type a space and c / select any presets, etc.
Paste yacht / select any presets.
Paste yacht / type a space and a / select any presets.
Paste yacht / type a space and b / select any presets, etc.
Paste yachts / select any presets.
Paste yachts / type a space and a / select any presets.
Paste yachts / type a space and b / select any presets, etc.
Each targeting attribute has its own idiosyncratic alpha patterns, which can be used to hack out heretofore unrevealed preset options. Some typing patterns are more Byzantine and others require some creativity. We’ll take a closer look at classic patterns as we cover each attribute.
Note: Facebook Ads targeting only recognizes alphanumeric characters for targeting. “Amazon.com” becomes “amazoncom” and “I <3” (text colloquialism for “heart” or “love”) becomes “I 3”.
Location
The first main section of the targeting facebook Advertising is Location. The practice of geotargeting ads is venerable and proven. Once you’ve selected the country or countries you’d like to target, it’s easy to further refine the audience by selecting specific states, provinces, or cities users self-identify as their location. Only locations that are within your selected countries will be shown.
Facebook Ads’ geotargeting is a deeper animal than the classic IP-driven geotargeting search pay-per-click marketers have come to know over the years. Search engines typically mine a user’s Internet Protocol (IP) address to reconcile location against a database of IP addresses and physical locations, including countries and cities. Facebook bases its geotargeting, for the most part, on the location users claim when filling out their Facebook profiles.
According to Facebook, “If a user has listed a current address on their profile, they may see ads targeted to that location, regardless of where they are currently located. Ads are not targeted to a user’s geographic networks or any other information.” Marketers are not given controls to choose between targeting users by either IP location or addresses in their profiles. Facebook decides behind the scenes.
It’s amazing how accurate this really is: It can tell when you’re out of town and places ads from that locale on your page. Facebook decides and seems to do a decent job understanding the difference between a road trip and a permanent move.
Facebook Mobile has been widely adopted. The 200 million active users accessing FB via their mobile devices are two times more active than non-mobile users. This portends an incredible future for advertisers, who could benefit from adding additional geographic context to targeting.
Facebook Places, a highly publicized mobile application much like Foursquare, encourages users to “check in” at an Event Page or businesses’ Places pages. Obviously, users give away highly specific geolocation data, cultivated by their mobile phones’ GPS signal. If widely adopted by users, this could be a treasure trove of hot-live information that is transient enough to provide data valuable for advertisers.
For instance, if an advertiser could target users checked in at a certain Laundromat, potentially with time to kill while clothes dry, the users could be targeted by a coffee shop next door offering free coffee for Laundromat patrons. It’s not currently possible to target Facebook Ads by this method. However, it is already possible to “target people who ‘Like’ your Place page if you have performed a Page to Place merge,” according to Facebook. This seems to carry the same limitations of Facebook Page marketing, where advertisers are allowed to target only their own fans, friends of their own fans, or everyone but their own fans.
In the future, we may be able to target by combinations of user profile and IP address mash-ups, and just think of the possibilities! It would be super-cool to target folks who live in Montreal, as indicated by their Places activities while visiting Nantucket. These users might be targeted by ads that tout special Canadian currency exchange rates at an establishment in Nantucket.
Country
The first attribute in the Location section is Country, which defaults to the country you register as home. This attribute is mandatory in order to move forward—if you deselect all entries in the Country section, the estimated reach isn’t zero but, technically, invalid. Choosing a country is very straightforward. Like all Facebook Ads parameters, countries are preset values that populate as you type. You can’t just type in the letters for some country that Facebook does not offer as a preset. Facebook does not have an All Countries setting, and you’re limited to targeting 25 countries at a time. Not to worry; for tracking purposes, it’s nearly always a better idea to target smaller groups or single countries in one ad.
Research-Typing Pattern One
Type a in the Country parameter box to see 26 countries beginning with a. Facebook lets us target from Afghanistan to United Arab Emirates. Type in al to see the countries beginning with these two letters: Aland Islands, Albania, and Algeria. This research-typing pattern works in a number of other Facebook Ads parameters boxes.
Choosing multiple countries eliminates the option to target specific states and provinces within those countries. To target specific states and provinces within multiple countries, create multiple ads targeted to each of the countries, one at a time.
Behind the scenes, Facebook Ads inserts the or operator between multiple countries, meaning targeted users live in any of the countries listed. While some users might have dual citizenship or claim multiple homes (think college students studying abroad), you can’t target such duplicity in the Country attribute box. For practical application, each additional country adds more users to the countries bucket. Figure 3-6 shows us targeting users who live in any of the countries listed.
State and Province
If available, based on selecting a country, the next attribute in the Location section is State and Province. If a single country is big enough and/or it actually has states, provinces, or analogous subdivided territories, ticking the states and provinces radio button reveals granular states and provinces options.
In the real world, not all countries refer to their territories as states or provinces. The key to figuring out how each country works in Facebook is to see what attribute boxes show up after country selection and what preset values are returned. For the most part, the UI is intuitively dynamic and comes close to handling different country configurations. There’s some stuff that doesn’t make total sense, so be sure to pay attention. The United Kingdom is actually a constitutional monarchy and unitary state, not a country. Wales is technically a country within the UK. Yet in Facebook Ads, UK is a country and Wales shows up as a state, though Wales is not technically a state.
Choose Northern Mariana Islands and watch the State and Province options disappear. Just keep in mind that in Facebook Ads, states and provinces have various configurations, handled in assorted ways, including hiding city and/or state parameters and other workarounds for less common governmental designations.
City
Another location-based option to refine your targeting is to select specific cities (Figure 3-7). Only cities within the selected countries will be shown. The Cities parameter box is super-cool. It’s smart too. Choosing multiple countries eliminates the Cities option, meaning advertisers can’t target United States/New York and London/United Kingdom in the same targeting scenario. To accomplish this, duplicate the ad, targeting each clone to a different country/city combination.
Figure 3-7: Facebook Ads targeting with city and radius criteria
Choosing cities is easy. Just start typing the name and the rest will take care of itself (Figure 3-8). Don’t be surprised if a specific city somewhere is not listed. Facebook is not everywhere, though it sometimes seems that way. Another interesting feature is the ability to target users within 10-, 25-, or 50-mile radiuses of selected cities. Since it works for more than one city, this capability makes drawing circles around a collection or population centers a really useful tactic.
Figure 3-8: Facebook Ads targeting, expanding cities
