A Simple Facebook Guide – Advertising Tips – Facebook Setup (Part 3 of 4)

Facebook is easy if you know how. This is a short guide (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) for learning how to start Facebook Advertising.

After all the thinking and research, it’s finally time to set-up your Facebook ad.

Now the fun really begins.

Use the information developed in steps one and two (links above) as guiding principles as you choose a title, text, a destination URL and a picture for your ad.

Remember!

Your title need to be attention grabbing and less than 25 characters.

Text is even more difficult – 135 characters to reach your goal.

A stunning and representative picture is also critical.

To finish, top off the ad with the destination URL that most represents your company or product!

Find more Facebook Ad setup tips here.

Don’t be afraid to test.

In fact, if you spend too much time analyzing here – you’ll never get out of the starting gate. Testing is key. Run reports daily, and learn what works – and what doesn’t.

When you create ads, make sure you are targeting your audience – in a way that “speaks to them”. Don’t throw sales jargon out there. Be a friend, and use the “friend of friend” feature to have people “Like” your ad as well.

Consider using a Fan Page directly, and test between pages (website and Pages).

Related articles Facebook Setup & Pages

• Facebook Ads Can Now Specify Any Page Landing Tab as a Destination (insidefacebook.com)
• Facebook Rolls Out New Pages Layout (allfacebook.com)
• Facebook Announces New Design and Upgrades to Fan Pages (hubspot.com)

A Simple Facebook Guide – Advertising Tips – The Strategy (Part 1 of 4)

Facebook is easy if you know how. This is a short guide (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) for learning how to start Facebook Advertising.

If you are looking for more ‘face time’ with potential customers, advertising on Facebook may be great opportunity.

Begin your quest by identifying some workable goals.

Remember that not all ads are driven by the force of the sale.  In fact, a more workable solution may be using Facebook advertisements to generate leads, increase brand awareness or generate increased traffic for a specific page of your site.

Use these goals to help develop text for your ad – always remembering that Facebook limits the number of words you can use.

A successful Facebook strategy always starts with identifying  specific goals. What objectives are you thinking about?

So, what goals have you defined? Here are some examples:

How many leads? How many new likes? How many fan pages? How many ads? What pictures to use? How many new content pieces each day? Contests? Quizzes? What else?

And, goals don’t get met in a day. Space these over time, and make sure you have a process in place to make it happen. Build out a plan for it, including resources if you don’t have it.

Related articles About Facebook Strategies

• Facebook Announces New Design and Upgrades to Fan Pages (hubspot.com)
• How To Create and Optimize a Facebook Content Strategy – Advice from Alison Zarrella (bethkanter.org)
• New Facebook Pages: Everything You Need To Know (allfacebook.com)

5 Ways To Create a Successful PPC Business (B2B) Advertising Campaign

Presently over 50% of all B2B (business-to-business) leads are generated through the Internet. To stay competitive in today’s market a business needs to be present on the search engines. PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is not only a very effective marketing tool, but is also an excellent way for businesses to establish a website’s Internet presence.

A PPC (pay-per-click) campaign designed for B2B (business-to-business) is much different from a campaign designed for B2C (business-to-consumer).

Instead of relying on the high volume of traffic that a B2C campaign generates, a B2B campaign is designed to lower costs by filtering out irrelevant clicks that don’t convert into sales. The strategy for a successful B2B pay-per-click-campaign consists of driving quality leads to optimized landing pages which ultimately results in higher conversion rates. These assets will be used for PPC and SEO both.

The benefits of focusing on high value leads rather than the volume of CTR (click through rate) are that the cost per click is minimized while the sales generated by quality leads are maximized. Understanding some key components of what drives pay-per-click advertising is vital for a successful campaign.

Here are the 5 tips for a Successful B2B PPC Advertising Program:

1. Target Qualified Traffic – Knowing what a desired target audience searches for in terms of keywords is the most crucial element in driving quality traffic to a website. It is best to use highly targeted keywords while avoiding one-word keywords and opting for long-tailed keywords instead. Data from competetitive research, and continually testing keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to a product or service with insight tools, analytics and experimentation is just as important as bidding on the right ones. This will help determine which keywords are most effective in generating sales and which ones are underperforming and in need of replacement. Find more keywords using the Google Keyword Tool (search “keywords” in Google).
2. Provide Effective Industry Specific Ad Copy – Although B2B ad copy is targeted towards a more sophisticated audience and should be tailored to include industry specific jargon, it still needs to be visually appealing when you use graphic displays (like the Google content network). By using clever copy with a clear call to action that is also formatted to stand out among the crowd, the ad will actively sell a product or service. Using bullet points, numbers, and small blocks of text with plenty of white space will also make an ad easier to read and more likely to generate a sale.
3. Insert Keywords and page data – By using HTML Title + Meta tag descriptions inserted with keywords and sprinkled naturally into the body copy, the site will attract more relevant traffic. This is a “websites-only” opportunity to make a good first impression. There is no point in getting the traffic if no one wants to click through it.
4. Apply Negative Keywords – In many cases providing a comprehensive list of negative keywords is just as important as using applied keywords. Using negative keywords allows the search engines to weed out unnecessary clicks that would otherwise cost money for no conversion. In essence, using negative keywords helps direct the right kind of traffic to a website and is an easy way to improve the ROI for a search budget. For example, a keyword like “Cruise” may mean a “boat cruise” to you, but searches for “Tom Cruise” will also show up, and you waste impressions and clicks. A combination of keyword match types (broad, phrase, exact) and negatives are important.
5. Continually Measure Results – It is most important to know what happens after the click. If a pay-per-click advertising campaign is resulting in a high bounce rate or a low conversion rate there may be a problem with the ad copy, landing page – or it may be a problem with the quality of traffic visiting a website. By continually testing different strategies for bidding on keywords and monitoring the number of relevant lead generations and page versions, a site can determine what is working to achieve higher conversion rates.

If done right, pay-per-click advertising costs are well worth the money spent. Not only does pay-per-click advertising help to establish a website’s Internet presence, but it is also a highly effective way for businesses to communicate with one another. B2B PPC helps businesses improve their website’s traffic and visibility on the Internet and continues to be one of the most popular marketing tools being utilized today. Your business can be up and running on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing in minutes!

Learn more about Pay Per Click Management for Business here.

Google Online Advertising Company Acquisition Blocked

Image by Tywak via Flickr

Since July, Google, Inc has been planning the purchase of Zao Begun, a search and contextual video and text advertising business, owned by Russian based Rambler Media.

“We are very disappointed to hear that FAS has come to this decision,” said Google in a statement. “We strongly believe that this acquisition will enable us to significantly improve opportunities for Russian users,advertisers, and publishers, as well as the entire industry.”

Zao Begun currently has a network with 40,000 advertisers covering 143,000 Russian language Web sites.

In related news, the U.S. Department of Justice is currentlyinvestigating a deal made by Google and Yahoo that would allowYahoo to show Google search ads. This program had been slated to start this month, but has been delayed pending the DOJ review.