Week 4 - Facebook Ads

We have all been on Facebook scrolling through the feed when suddenly an ad appears, and we click on it for either personal or entertainment reasons. When we do this we are populating data for the website who is running the ad. The data aspect is cool because it allows the creator to see where the clicks are coming from, if they are male or female, and even their age.

A Facebook ad can be helpful as there are over a billion users on the social media site, so the potential to reach out is almost endless. However, Facebook ads are not free and cost money. Yet, if one is trying to promote a business, increase sales,  or create awareness, the investment can be worth it.

For this blog I created a Facebook ad to see more of the data side of things rather than increasing my overall page views. It was my first time creating an ad on Facebook so I want to share the experience with everyone as a learning perspective. The first thing you want to do is go to https://www.facebook.com/business/. From there you will want to select "Create Ad".

Once selecting "Create Ad" it directs you to page where you can start customizing your ad campaign. The first question will be to let Facebook know the purpose of the ad. 

For my blog, I selected "Send people to your website". I selected this so I would get page views, which I could see the data on. It was mainly for experimental purposes. Step 2 then allows you to really customize the campaign by selected your target audience by multiple factors.

All that is left is to select the time frame of the ad campaign and to link it up to a credit/debit card. 

HELPFUL TIP: When creating the ad and it comes time to set the financial boundaries, select "Lifetime Budget". This will allow you to tell Facebook that you are only wanting to spend a certain amount of money throughout the entire lifespan of the ad campaign. If you select daily budget you might expect to see a lot more money invested than what you originally planned on. For example, a lifetime budget of $20 and a daily budget of $20 for a campaign thats five days long can be up to an $80 difference. 

I have one day left remaining on the campaign that I set up. So far I have a decent amount of views (I did not expect to get that many). What I like it that I can see a lot of data from the overall campaign. I can see where the clicks are populating from, the gender ratio for clicks, and I can even see the overall amount spent. 

Overall it has been a fun experience playing around with the Facebook ad. I can say it has been a different, yet useful learning experience. If anyone has any questions please comment below and I will do my best to help out. 

-STURCO