As a B2B service provider, we understand the challenges that arise from targeting a business as opposed to a consumer through advertising efforts.
Social media is by far one of the most successful and prevalent to develop solid marketing qualified leads (MQLs).
Making USD $4 billion in revenue over the year, Facebook advertising is proving to be an efficient and effective powerhouse as far as marketing platforms go.
For product advertising, in particular, Facebook offers a unique solution to integrate high-quality advertising into a more dynamic and palatable format.
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What is a Facebook Product Advertisement?
Facebook product advertising works to enable the promotion of multiple products or a product catalog. It is compatible across all platforms the Facebook application is accessible from.
Product advertisements can be built to target specific demographics. Alternatively, Facebook offers an automated system that allows inbuilt statistical analysis to determine and maximize who your advertisement reaches.
Product advertising on Facebook can be customized to approach customers at any time over their experience interacting with the products or the company.
This means advertising can target specific actions within customer experience e.g. to encourage discovery or to solidify a checkout or purchase.
When using custom audiences (a target demographic based setting), people who have visited particular websites or have listed certain interests can be selected as the pool advertising must be visible to.
Additionally, Facebook allows advertisers to streamline the information accessible to prospective customers at first glance. Businesses are able to pick the information and/or product(s) to highlight.
The growing repertoire of features is built to enhance both front and back end experiences. The interactive and aesthetic features have improved business performance in comparison to conventional Facebook advertising.
Industry heavy hitters like Target are on the receiving end of growing conversion rates, better access to mobile users and increased click-through rates.
How does Facebook Advertising work?
The reach of Facebook advertising is determined by an inbuilt algorithm. This determines how frequently posts are put in front of the target audience. Facebook has been adding features to enhance user and commercial experiences since its invention in 2004;
- The algorithm came into play in 2009 with the introduction of a “sorting order”. This helped prioritize what the audience wants to see when they access their home page.
- In 2015 the introduction of the “See First” feature further streamlined and prioritized the content the audience wants to see to the top of their homepages.
- By 2016, prioritization occurred without the audience directly intervening. Based on the time spent viewing the content, Facebook began to automatically showcase more similar content to the user.
- 2017 introduced more weight to reactions than likes. Reactions offer more complex and emotionally weighted interactions with content. This helps Facebook understand where content is more interesting to the user.
- By 2018 this was the mechanism used in cohesion with high-value engagement (comments, replies and reposts) to determine what a user viewed when they opened or scrolled through their homepage.
- High-value engagement posts may not always be positive. Negative content tends to solicit higher engagement rates simply out of more extreme emotional responses. This introduced a streamlining mechanism in 2019. Users were able to use the “Why Am I Seeing This” tool to limit what they do not want to see even if they have been responsive.
Today’s Facebook utilises three statistics to determine whether a user would enjoy the content put forward by a business;
1. Typical User to User Engagement
Depending on who the user tends to interact with posts are introduced to their feed. This means Facebook is more likely to introduce your advertising efforts to individuals that consume content relevant to the field of the business.
2. Medium of Media
More dynamic advertising collaterals are more likely to be consumed by a user. Posts that include mediums like videos, links and images are prioritized higher than simple text promotions.
3. Post Popularity
With every reaction, like, comment and repost a post receives it becomes of higher value and in turn, a priority. The Facebook algorithm pushes posts with higher engagement to other users.
Understanding how the algorithm works is critical to the success of a Facebook advertising campaign. Customizing content to maximize visibility keeps the resources and time invested in building marketing collaterals worthwhile.
How Brands Stay Relevant
There are two major components that come into play when trying to run a successful Facebook product advertising campaign;
1. Optimizing Settings
When building your Facebook advertising campaign, a series of intricate settings and options are offered to maximize awareness and engagement;
Understanding Your Marketing Objectives
Every organization has a different conception of what successful marketing efforts look like. Facebook offers 11 different categories including
- Traffic (redirection of the audience to an application, website or Facebook Messenger conversation)
- Lead Generation (introducing new prospects to sales funnels) and
- Conversation (encouraging interaction with a website such as subscription or purchase)
To help businesses understand what the end goal from their campaign is and cater to the next steps to enhance the same.
Campaign Name
When entering the name of your campaign, Facebook offers an A/B split test option.
This allows you to target two separate but random groups with two sets of information (in this case a name) to determine which option works best.
Account Set-Up
This stage allows you to register an advertising account if this is the first attempt at launching a marketing campaign. This prompts you to enter country, currency and timezone to optimise scheduling and target audience detection.
Who is Your Audience?
There are two options Facebook provides to aid concentrated marketing efforts;
a. Custom audiences allows a business to target groups of people that have engaged with your business. This is helpful for established businesses looking to revamp their practices.
b. The “Target Audience” tool allows you to adjust the location your ad is available for view in and the age, gender and language of the user.
With every detail clarified, Facebook offers an estimate of likes and helps you understand the potential scope of reach.
To further amplify efforts, Facebook Ads Manager offers more detailed targeting options. This allows you to include interests, behaviors and detailed demographic information e.g. including users interested in pets, cats, kittens but not Persian cats.
The connections tool allows you to base your audience on their interactions with certain pages e.g. expanding your audience by excluding people who have “liked your page” or targeting friends of users that have interacted with your page.
Deciding Placements
An automatic placement option is available. However, the option to adjust settings manually offers you a more personalized feel, allowing you to determine;
- Determine the device/s the ad is available on.
- The platform of visibility (Facebook owns a number of platforms including Messenger and Instagram).
- Placement of the advertisement; within feeds, stories, messages, in-article, application or instream (for video content).
Budgets and Scheduling
These settings allow you to determine the start and end dates of the campaign, overall budget and daily expenditure.
The details within this tool allow you to decide how you get charged and how to spend your budget.
Efficiently and effectively understanding your audience helps you decide how to pump in or withdraw funds and ad availability based on when they are more likely to be on the platform.
Format
Deciding how the text and media components of your advertisement is crucial to creating a powerful first impression.
Depending on the previously selected objectives, businesses are offered presets and templates.
A preview tool allows you to see what your end-user is privy to. Options include carousels (scrollable content), single image or video placement (could be replaced with a slideshow for multiple images) and collections (a group of items presented in a group of small pictures).
Once these steps are complete, Facebook will send an email notification approving the advertisement for circulation.
Consider The Algorithm
Read this article by Hootsuite for more information about how to maximize your advertising efforts and capitalize on the Facebook algorithm.
Product Feed for Facebook
Facebook Ads : B2C eCommerce vs B2B eCommerce stores
Facebook advertising has played an important role in developing engaging and interactive B2C relationships. However, with the inbuilt mechanisms offered by the product advertising suite, it can be helpful to move the business into a more B2B friendly spotlight.
- Facebook ads offer businesses the opportunity to maximise the information conveyed to users. With users ranging from all professional backgrounds, adjusting your target audience could open doors should it reach the right professionals in your industry.
- Introducing comprehensive product information including pricing and checkout options for wholesale enquiries help open the page up to B2B enquiries.
- Complementary content such as webinars and instructional content targets corporates as opposed to consumers. Businesses are always looking for a bigger picture of your operation and this helps fill in the blanks.
- Facebook groups are a great way to interact with professionals in your industry. Should they raise professional inquiries, your business could offer a solution.
- Most importantly the care put into developing content should focus on a B2B aspect. Sharing this information on your page and adjusting your target demographic helps organically yield desirable results.
Conclusion
Facebook product advertising is a lucrative set up to build B2B relationships. The success of a campaign heavily depends on the quality of content, the selection of targeting mechanisms and the frequency of information sharing. The key to consistent success, however, is adjusting your strategy to improve results. Be creative.
