Ever since GM pulled its ad dollars from Facebook back in May, there’s been a ton of conversation around the worth and effectiveness of Facebook ads. When Facebook became an IPO, the controversy continued. Now the question is not only whether Facebook advertising justifies a major ad spend, but are also whether Facebook will even be around in a few years.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, because it makes no sense that ads on Facebook wouldn’t show a significant return. Not only are there 900 million users, spending on average six hours on the network per day, but it’s also a data machine. The amount of personal data Facebook has access to can translate into hyper-targeted, very well-performing advertisements.

Here’s the problem: the majority of those engaging in Facebook advertising on their own are under-informed about how to use the platform correctly. 

As with most ad mediums, Facebook requires its own set of best practices to ensure good performance and ultimately ROI. After some experience with the platform and one of the best resources for Facebook Advertising, the Social Fresh Facebook Advertising Conference, I know that you really need help to make sure that your ads not only perform well, but to also spend less per click!

Here are the 9 steps to creating effective Facebook advertising campaigns:

1. Your goal affects everything! If you’re working for a smaller business, you might not have a specific goal in mind. Maybe what you really want is just to gain Facebook fans. You need to think differently! Figure out if your campaign is to create awareness about something, whether it’s meant to create influence, generate leads, or generate actual sales. There’s only so much one advertisement can do, no matter where it lives, so pick out one goal and then go by a few rules we’ll post next week!
2. Think about your targets (and you should have multiple) as people. Your ads will not be effective if you lump a bunch of interests into one target group. Create targets based on their personas – they probably have an age range, a geographic location, and more than one interest. For instance, if you’re selling scrapbooking supplies maybe your target is in their thirties, they like DIY, but do a little digging to find out that they might also like country music, or have a few kids. Think about them as holistically as possible.
3. Create content for specific targets. While you might have a similar message to serve all of your targets, each has its own way of processing information. Put everything in context and use the language that your target uses to make highly relevant advertisements.
4. Test, Test, Test! Test everything and every combination. Split test your headlines, your ad copy, your image and then test how they all work together with specific targets. You might be thinking, “there’s no way I can do all of that.” There probably wouldn’t be, if it weren’t for amazing services like Qwaya and Clickable that save target information, and automatically pair these variables for you. They also allow you to monitor and analyze all of your campaigns asa well.
5. Prevent ad fatigue. If you didn’t know this – get ready, this is a BIG concept. The more people click on your ads, the lower your ad will cost you. Mind boggling. Usually with display advertising, once click thru rates improve, the site can start charging more. Not with Facebook (or LinkedIn for that matter). Facebook will always award a lower cost per click (CPC) to those ads that prove to truly engage users. After a few days, your ad is probably not receiving the same CTRs as it was when it first started to run. As soon as you see a dip, you should pause the campaign. Otherwise, the same ad will start costing you more and more. To prevent this, all you have to do is make a few changes. Swap out an image or change its color. Keep in mind, though, that lower CPCs are not necessarily indicative of a high-performing campaign. Higher engagement rates on your website or your Facebook tab might mean you need to pay a little more for the click.
6. Think about the future. The higher CTRs your ads (as an ad manager) receive, the better your reputation. This means from the start of your campaigns, your suggested bids can be lower and lower as Facebook trusts your messaging. So, when creating campaigns today, be sure to monitor them tightly to make sure your average CTR doesn’t nosedive.  Or else, so will your reputation! Remember that Facebook’s benchmark for a great CTR is 0.02%.
7. Audience sizing is muo importante. It’s not only important to craft very special and deliberate targets to serve your facebook ads to, but it’s also important to make sure that the size of your target makes the effort worthwhile. Any target audience that contains fewer than 5,000 people lends itself to a low-performing campaign AND will result in diminishing returns.
8. Image, Image, Image. Employ the 3-foot-rule. If you can’t see what’s going on in the image from 3 feet away, then it’s not going to make for an effective ad. In fact, the single most important factor in a well-performing campaign is the image used.
9. Think about users expectations when it comes to your landing page. If you’re not showing users what they expected to see when they clicked on your ad, then you’re going to have high bounce rates and not see return on your ad dollars. Be sure that  you follow through with any call to action included within your ad AND that you make it super easy for users to understand and take that action. AndNEVER make them scroll.