Which area of Facebook advertising would you like to learn more about in 2018?

Holy guacamole. Almost half of the Design Pickle community surveyed report that they are unfamiliar with Facebook advertising and want to learn the basic how-to’s of this social-platform-gone-marketing-machine.
We were overloaded with follow-up questions asked by the community, so instead of choosing one area of Facebook advertising to focus on, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 most frequently asked questions and areas of concern. Click on any of the questions below to jump directly to the answer or simply start with the first question and keep scrolling to get all of the knowledge you need to start advertising on Facebook!
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“What is Facebook advertising?”

Facebook advertising is a way to pay for your advertisements to be shown to Facebook users in the Facebook app (on desktop, mobile, tablet, and any other supported device), Facebook messenger app, Instagram app or on another app that is part of the Facebook Audience Network.
The Facebook Audience network includes apps from various industries. Facebook uses a complex algorithm to figure out which apps your target audience is using and places your advertisements somewhere in those apps. Not only does this give you the ability to target a specific audience on an app they frequently use, but your offer will seem more legitimate if your audience has seen the same deal/ad across multiple apps.
The reason over 3 million advertisers choose Facebook to market online is due to the vast reach of the Facebook network. Posting organically on your Facebook or Instagram page can be great if you have a dedicated following, but startups and growing businesses don’t always have a large organic following to advertise to. Instead, they use Facebook marketing to ‘buy’ a place in the feed of somebody in their target audience, i.e. people that share characteristics with the company’s ideal customer avatar and are likely interested in the products and services they have to offer.
Ads are shown in various placements across these applications. While you can manually choose the placement of your ads shown through Facebook advertising, it’s a good idea to start a campaign with “automatic placement” to let Facebook decide the most relevant placement based on the (super smart) algorithm.
Ads can be shown on Facebook:

• directly in the newsfeed
• through instant articles
• with in-stream videos
• in the right column of the app (desktop only)

Ads can be shown on Instagram:

• directly in the newsfeed
• through Instagram Stories

Ads can be shown on Facebook Messenger:

• directly on messenger home
• through sponsored messages

Ad placement cannot be chosen on the Audience Network, nor can you choose the actual app with the Audience Network to advertise to. Facebook does the hard work of researching relevant apps for you and makes that decision accordingly.
You can create an ad to be shown across Facebook, Instagram, or the Audience Network in the Ads Manager of your Facebook Business Manager. Ads Manager is the hub for creating, implementing, and analyzing the performance of your paid ads. We’ll go into more detail about setting up your business account in the next section.

“Where do I start?”

In order to start advertising on Facebook, you’ll want to create a Business Manager account. Business Manager is a tool to organize and manage your ad account(s), implement and report on ad performance, and collaborate with vendors and clients without sharing logins or passwords.
Once you’ve set up your Business Manager account, you’ll need an ad account. You can create a new ad account, add an existing ad account to your Business Manager, or request access to another existing ad account. You can create, add, or request access to an account by opening Business Manager > selecting “Ad Accounts” > then clicking “Add New Ad Account.”
Note: if you are going to request access to an existing account (say, to manage the ad account of a client) or if you need to add an existing ad account to your Business Manager, you’ll need to know the ad account ID number. The account ID can be found under “Ad Accounts”. The most current version of Business Manager lets you simply copy/paste the ID number with one click on the number.

Once you’ve got an ad account set up within your Business Manager, you’re almost ready to start creating your first ad. The next step is to set up a Facebook tracking pixel on your website to record and report on user activity.

“Pixels! Help!”

A tracking pixel is a tiny image (only 1×1 pixel in size) that is embedded on website pages to track user behavior like how many times a customer visited your homepage, how long they stayed on your pricing page, or if they completed a website purchase.
While it might sound creepy to install an image that follows your page visitors around the internet, setting up a tracking pixel will show the most complete picture of where your potential customer is in the buyer’s journey and help to create relevant ads based on their experience with your company.
Setting up a tracking pixel is easier than you’d think (and won’t take very long). Note that you will need access to the backend of your website (or a way to contact your website developer) in order to set up a pixel.
To find the tracking pixel code, open Business Manager > go to “Ads Manager” > click the menu icon in the top left corner > click “All Tools” at the bottom of the menu > select “Pixels” under Measure & Report > click “Create a Pixel”.
(Note: Your code should start with <!– Facebook Pixel Code –> and end with <!– End Facebook Pixel Code –>)
When you’ve got your pixel tracking code, copy it to your clipboard and open the backend of your website. Paste the entire code verbatim into the “header” section of your website and save your changes. The process of getting to your website header will differ based on where your website is hosted, so do a little exploring or reach out to your website developer for some help.
That’s it! Once you’ve copy/pasted the tracking pixel into your website header and clicked save, you have officially installed your Facebook tracking pixel (easier than you thought, right?). Facebook can now gather information about every page of your website and use that information as a baseline to track the behavior of those who land on your site from a Facebook paid ad.
The next step is to test your pixel and make sure it is working properly on your website. You can download Facebook Pixel Helper (a Chrome extension) to make sure there are no errors in or with the pixel code.
Before you can get started creating and launching paid ads, you must set up the “events” you’d like to be tracked by Facebook. That is, you have to insert a snippet of code on certain pages of your site to let Facebook know when the events that matter to you – like making a purchase or completing registration – have been made. Knowing exactly which events matter to you will help Facebook optimize your ad campaigns for the results you want.
Installing a standard event code is where things get a tad bit more complicated, so take a deep breath and follow along closely!
There are 9 standard events that Facebook can track. Those events (and their corresponding code snippets) are:

• View Content: fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’);
• Search: fbq(‘track’, ‘Search’);
• Add to Cart: fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToCart’);
• Add to Wishlist:– fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToWishlist’);
• Initiate Checkout: fbq(‘track’, ‘InitiateCheckout’);
• Add Payment Info: fbq(‘track’, ‘AddPaymentInfo’);
• Make Purchase: fbq(‘track’, ‘Purchase’, {value: ‘0.00’, currency: ‘USD’});
• Lead: fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’);
• Complete Registration: fbq(‘track’, ‘CompleteRegistration’);

Each of these events must have defined parameters, or specific actions someone on your website must take in order to “complete” the event.
Let’s look at an example of this: if someone were to make a purchase on your website, they would land on a thank you page. No site visitors can get to your thank you page without actually making a purchase, so you can safely make the assumption that if somebody landed on the thank you page, then they have completed a purchase. Since all websites are different, you’ll need to tell Facebook the specific pages that correspond to the events your site visitors have completed.
That’s where adding event codes on individual pages comes in.
On just the page that each standard event takes place, you’ll need to add the specific, corresponding snippet of code. To do this, go to the specific page that an event occurs and open the header. Locate the base Facebook pixel code (it should already be added to the header of this page, thanks to your earlier efforts) and find where the code says:
….
fbq(‘init’, ‘ACCOUNT ID’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
</script>
….
Note: where the text above says “ACCOUNT ID,” yours will actually have your numerical account ID number.
Create a new line between the end of fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’); and  </script> and copy/paste the event code associated with the page. If this was a thank you page for a purchase, the new code snippet would look like this:
….
fbq(‘init’, ‘ACCOUNT ID’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘Purchase’, {value: ‘0.00’, currency: ‘USD’});
</script>
….
For the “purchase” event, you can edit the value from 0.00 to whatever the price of your product or service costs. For example, if you sell a service that costs $15.99 per month, you can edit your Facebook pixel code on the purchase thank-you page to look like this:
….
fbq(‘init’, ‘ACCOUNT ID’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘Purchase’, {value: ‘15.99’, currency: ‘USD’});
</script>
….
Note: Be sure to use the correct currency code if your online business exchanges a form of currency different from the US dollar.
Once you’ve added the event tracking code snippet unique to that page, save your changes to the header and repeat the process with the other standard events on the pages you’d like to track.
You can also use your pixel to create custom tracking events on your website. While this article won’t go into detail about how to actually create custom events and conversions, the Facebook Help Center has a great resource on how to create custom events and conversions if you’re interested in tracking custom events outside of the standard 9.
That’s it! Once you’ve set up your tracking pixel on your site, tested it, and informed Facebook of your event parameters, you are officially ready to launch your first paid advertising campaign.

“How do you run a campaign from start to finish?”

This is where the fun begins. To set up your first campaign, go to “Business Manager” > select the correct account from “Ad Accounts” > go to “Ads Manager.”
Ads Manager is the place you’ll go to create, implement, edit, and analyze the performance of your paid ads. All of your campaigns will appear under the “Campaigns” tab once they have been created, regardless if they are active or not.
To create your campaign, click “create ad” from Ads Manager. You’ll be prompted to choose from a variety of options, including objective, audience, ad placements, budget, schedule, ad format, media, and creative.
Once you’ve made all of the decisions on the ad campaign logistics and you’ve uploaded your media and ad creative, Facebook will give you a campaign overview to approve and send your campaign for review. The Facebook team reviews every paid ad campaign to make sure your ad copy and creative meets the Advertising Policies. This happens very quickly and you’ll be notified when your ad is approved and set live or if something needs to be fixed before Facebook sets your campaign live.
You can see the results of your campaign after it’s gone live in Ads Manager. Locate your campaign name on the dashboard of Ads Manager and click “View Charts” under the campaign name.

This will pull up all of the data Facebook collected from users engaging with your ad and the information received from your tracking pixel in organized, interactive, easy to use charts and graphs. We won’t get into how to analyze reporting data in this article, but the Facebook Help Center has a very insightful resource on how to use Facebook reporting tools.
That’s it! From start to finish, the entire process of running a campaign can be completed in Ads Manager. Keep reading to find out more about each step of the campaign-building process in Ads Manager.

“How do I determine the right campaign type for my business?”

The very first choice you’ll need to make when setting up a campaign on Facebook is what type of campaign you’d like to run, or the “objective” of the campaign. You’ll need to choose a campaign type based on what action you’d like your leads to perform when they see your ad. There are 3 types of objectives to choose from.
Awareness is the objective to choose if you simply want to promote/advertise your product, service, or brand. Facebook will show your ad to as many people as possible in your target audience.
Consideration is the objective to choose if you want people to learn more information about your product, service, or brand.
Conversions are the objective to choose if you want people who are already familiar with your brand to make a purchase or otherwise “convert” into a customer (i.e. starting a free trial).
Within each of these 3 objectives types, you’ll have to choose the specific campaign objective for your particular campaign. Let’s take a look at every option available and highlight an example use scenario for each objective:
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It’s worthy to note that once your campaign is live, you can’t go back and edit the campaign type; you’ll have to create a brand new campaign. The number of campaigns you have in your account is irrelevant, so creating new or multiple campaigns does not affect your ad account in any way.
The only issue you might run into with having multiple campaigns running at a time is your own sanity (read: notification nightmare). Instead of running more campaigns, test a few different types of campaigns and spend time optimizing the ones that drive results. Optimization can include improving your landing page layout, testing a new headline or link description, or testing a new stock image in your ad.
It’s also important to name your campaigns appropriately so you and anybody who will be analyzing the data (like coworkers, clients or vendors) can easily organize and navigate between campaigns.
After choosing the appropriate campaign objective, you’ll need to choose the audience you want to advertise to.

“How do you target the right audience?”

Finding the “right audience” is kind of like finding “the one” – you won’t know who they are until you’ve found them.
And, just like dating, there are infinite options to choose from. Technically there is a finite number, but it’s just as foolish to stop testing new audiences as it is to marry the first guy who asks you out on a second date.
Facebook advertising deals with real people who change their interests and behaviors constantly, so dive into targeting and audience-building knowing that your audience will change and your targeting efforts will have to adapt accordingly. People who have a need for your product or service today might not have the same need 60 days from now, and people who didn’t need you 60 days ago might be looking for exactly what you provide today.
TL;DR: Test new audiences and test them often.
There are 2 billion fish in the sea of Facebook, and – unlike dating – it is your duty as a marketer to catch all of the fish who will bite buy.
Facebook lets you choose who you’d like to target – that is, who you’d like your ad to be shown to – through characteristics Facebook collects about users from the information they provide on the site. You can build an audience to target certain characteristics like demographics, location, interests, and behaviors. This kind of targeting is called interest-based targeting (duh).
Interest-based targeting is a great way to promote your products, services, or brand to new prospects. If you don’t already have a wide network of clients and fans to advertise to, interest-based targeting is a great way to get in front of eyes of a new group of people who share the same characteristics as your current clients and fans.
While we will only cover the details of targeting implementation in this post, Digital Marketer put together a complete guide to Facebook Ad Targeting to help you create the strategy behind your interest-based targeting (i.e. how to research your audience and choose targeting characteristics accordingly).
You can also create an audience based on information about your current customers from files you upload to Facebook, from user engagement with your Facebook/Instagram page, or from information your tracking pixel gathers about your website or app. Creating a custom audience like this requires access to your customer files and a properly functioning tracking pixel.
To create a new custom audience, open Business Manager > go to “Ads Manager” > click the menu icon in the top left corner > click “All Tools” at the bottom of the menu > select “Audiences” under the Assets tab. This is where you can manage all of the audiences you target with paid advertising.
Click “Create Audience” to begin your audience building. From the drop-down menu, select “Custom Audience.” There are currently 5 ways to build a custom audience. Below is a chart of each audience-building type and an example of how you can best utilize that audience in your paid advertising efforts:
[table id=1 /]
Once you’ve created a custom audience (either from engagement on your website, app, social media page, or from an uploaded customer file), the Facebook algorithm can find shared characteristics amongst everybody in that audience to create a lookalike audience.
A lookalike audience is an audience that “looks” – or, more aptly, behaves – like the audience you chose to base the lookalike audience on.
A great way to take full advantage of this feature is to create a lookalike audience of your customers based on lifetime value (LTV). In essence, you upload a customer list to Facebook that includes the monetary value of each customer on the list over the lifetime of your business relationship. Facebook takes this data to find out the characteristics of your most valuable customers to spend your ad budget targeting other Facebook users who share those specific characteristics.
To create a new lookalike audience, open Business Manager > go to “Ads Manager” > click the menu icon in the top left corner > click “All Tools” at the bottom of the menu > select “Audiences” under the Assets tab. Click “Create Audience” and select “Lookalike Audience” from the drop-down menu. The audience builder pop-up will look like this:

The source of your lookalike audience is the audience that you’d like Facebook to analyze and find other Facebook users who will most likely behave in a similar way too. For example, you could create a custom audience of people who have made a purchase in the last 30 days and create a lookalike audience of people who the Facebook algorithm thinks will behave like those customers and will also make a purchase on your site.
The location of your lookalike audience is simply the country or region where your lookalike audience lives. If you have a successful campaign running in the United States, for example, you could create a lookalike audience of people who live in Canada that share the same characteristics as your U.S. audience.
The audience size is the percentage of the selected location population that will see your ads. Remember that Facebook is creating a lookalike audience based on users who fit your criteria the best, so the larger your audience size is, the less likely your lookalike audience will share the same characteristics with your custom audience. This doesn’t mean a 1% lookalike audience is always the wisest choice, though, because a 2% or 3% lookalike audience might have a very similar cost per acquisition (CPA) while advertising to millions more people than the 1% audience.
Like dating, finding the right audience to market your product or service to can be frustrating at first and exhausting when it doesn’t work out. The best advice is to stay calm and keep testing; there are a billion more fish in the Facebook sea.
Now that you’ve got a handle on who you are targeting, let’s take a look at how to choose relevant ad creative.

“I’d like to know more about ad creative idea generation.”

Nothing in this article means absolutely anything unless your ad creative – the media and copy of your advertisement – makes your audience click through the ad. While we like to think people won’t judge a book by its cover, we all do. You could be advertising an awesome product to a well-targeted audience in a paid campaign for a thousand dollars a day and get zero return on investment (ROI) if the actual ad creative doesn’t appeal to your audience (i.e. they don’t click).
So how do you create an image, video, or slideshow of images that make people interested in your product or service?
Honey, if a blog on the internet could answer that question, we’d all be Facebook-made millionaires.
In all seriousness, the success of your ad creative depends on your business and your ideal customer. What are your ideal customers into? What are your current customers into? Do they prefer video or image? What colors will stand out to them? Will they understand a Tupac reference in the copy?
You’ll have to test creative until you find a variation that makes your audience click through to your site. The best way to test creative is by setting up an A/B test. If you have never run an A/B test, take a quick crash course on A/B testing.
Before we dive into testing new creative, let’s first dissect the elements of a Facebook ad:
The value proposition text is the attention-grabbing copy that informs your audience of the offer, or the value the audience will get by taking the action you describe. The way you write this copy is dependant on the audience you are targeting and where they are in their buyer’s journey.
In the example above, the audience being targeted might be anyone who visited the Design Pickle pricing page in the last 90 days, excluding current customers. The offer described in the text – 40% off an annual subscription – is relevant to this audience because anyone who navigated the site all the way to the pricing page but did not become a customer most likely thought the service was out of their budget. They may not have signed up for service at the current price, but they will most likely sign up for 40% less than the original price.
The copy also creates a sense of urgency to purchase by putting a timeframe – 3 days – on the sale. While there are many ways to write incredible Facebook ad copy, the copy that will capture and inform your audience will differ greatly between businesses.
Be sure that you optimize graphics for each placement on the Facebook network. The Facebook photo dimensions change every so often, so be sure to reference an updated Facebook photo size guide before you start designing your creative. When creating an ad on Facebook, you can upload a separate image (sized as a square) for Instagram. The video specifications on Facebook, Instagram, and the Audience Network are all different, so be sure to coordinate with your videographer or content producer accordingly.
The link description should be direct and actionable. Tell your audience what they can expect from clicking the Call-To-Action (CTA) Button. In the example above, the link description “learn more and save up to 40% on Design Pickle today” lets the audience know they will be able to learn more about the service on your page, there will be an option to purchase the service at a discounted rate, and the timeframe they should take the action (today). The CTA button “sign up” is the desired action you’d like the audience to take – to sign up for service at this discounted rate.
You must include relevant imagery (or videography) to support your offer and appeal to your audience. The imagery in the example above supports the campaign offer very obviously by restating the value of the sale, but text can only take up 20% of the image, according to Facebook’s advertising policy.
The supporting graphics in the example ad above demonstrate the value of the offer – an annual graphic design service subscription – by showcasing the complex graphic design elements and tools that you will not have to use if you sign up for our service. It’s important to constantly update and test new visuals so your audience doesn’t get annoyed – and less likely to buy – from seeing the same ad over and over again.
The headline text should be short, sweet, and straight to the point of the offer. There are hundreds of formulas and strategies to write irresistible ad headlines, so test, retest, and keep on testing.
The headline in the example above grabs the attention of the audience with the bold statement of “Save up to 40% off one year of unlimited graphic design help.” If you have ever outsourced graphic design before, you know it can get expensive, fast. Most people don’t pay for a year of graphic design service upfront when they are just getting started marketing, either, so the service time frame might intrigue the audience to learn more.
Lastly, including “3 days only” portrays a sense of scarcity that might compel the audience to learn more today instead of saving the ad for later.
Phew! The options for ad creative are seemingly endless, but for good reason – every single business offers something unique, so the advertisements every business shows on Facebook should be equally as unique.
While we can’t tell you which ad creative will convert your audience the best, you can check out our Digital Design Library for 200 design ideas to inspire your next campaign. If 200 examples don’t spark any ideas, AdEspresso created a 500+ Facebook ads example guide that might be helpful. If you want more information on the best practices of choosing ad creative, read the 4 lessons learned from running 1,573 Facebook ad campaigns in 4 years from the #smarketers over at Digital Marketer. Want more design tips? Check out our Facebook ad design guide to learn more!
Keep your offer, your audience, and your best marketing practices in mind when thinking about your ad creative possibilities.

“What should I be putting on Facebook that will create real engagement?”

As of January 2018, the Facebook algorithm is changing slightly. Instead of trying to find relevant content to show users, the new algorithm is instead optimizing your newsfeed to help you create more meaningful interactions with other users.
While we can’t say for certain what this will mean for advertising on Facebook, this is no time to panic and abandon Facebook advertising altogether. Instead, optimize your ad creative to inspire more meaningful interactions with users. Use your content to spark a conversation between members of your audience in the comments. The more user-to-user communication Facebook sees your content, the more your content will be shown in the newsfeed.
A few ways to increase comment engagement are:

1. Questions. Ask your audience an interesting, open-ended question that they will be compelled to answer. You might even want to include a CTA to “answer in the comments below.”
2. Fill-in-the-Blanks. Post a fill-in-the-blank sentence referencing something that your audience might have differing opinions on. For a graphic design company, a fill-in-the-blank like “The most outdated image on my website is currently ______.” You could even include a CTA to screenshot the image and upload it to the comments below without any explanation. Outdated graphics are going to be funny to other marketers, so there may be an increase in comments from people responding to the picture comments, as well.
3. Contests. Contests are a great way to promote comments and shares. The contest could be anything from submitting a name for your company’s new mascot to submitting a new flavor idea for your next product launch. Motivate more people to enter your contest by giving away a prize for the winner (and be sure to actually give away the prize at the end of the content). According to Facebook’s ad policy, you have to acknowledge that your giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise associated with Facebook. There are quite a few Facebook contest and promotion apps that can help you organize and manage a contest.  
4. Giveaways. Giveaways are like contests, but different in the sense that the winner will be chosen at random instead of based on their answer or entry. A great way to utilize a giveaway is to have users tag a friend in the post comments as their “entry” to the giveaway. You can use an app like Comment Picker to choose a winner at random when the contest is over.
5. Relevant Content. While questions and contests might be a quick way to boost your engagement short-term, the best way to engage your audience in your content long-term is by posting meaningful content that, in itself, promotes users to express their opinion in the comments and share with their friends.

The Facebook algorithm will continue to change, grow, and adapt to the interests and behaviors of users (as they change, grow, and adapt). As with all aspects of marketing, stay flexible, stay hungry, and stay committed to continuing education.

“I’d like to know more about available tools for analyzing Facebook data.”

Facebook offers Facebook Analytics to help you understand your ad campaign results without needing to navigate through results in Ads Manager. Best part? It’s completely free!
If you’re looking for more help with analyzing data and creating reports, there are a few paid tools available:
Sprout Social can help you make sense of your Facebook data by providing you with reports that are just as easy to read and understand as they are to export and share.
Socialbakers can help you create benchmarks for your content and compare yours to benchmarks of competitors in your industry.
TapClicks can help you create a dashboard for reporting on marketing efforts and managing operations.
Simply Measured offers free reports to help you analyze data across all of your social media platforms. They do offer comprehensive marketing services to analyze your entire marketing funnel, but those services are a bit more expensive than simple reporting tools.
If you need more information on how to read reports and analyze Facebook data, consider taking a data course through General Assembly.

“What are best practices for advertising on Facebook?”

Hopefully, you found this article filled with tips, how-to’s, best practices, and actionable advice. To recap, below is a list of 10 best practices to reference when beginning (or improving) your Facebook advertising:

1. Set up your Facebook pixel to track all of the events on your website – standard and custom – that matter to your business.
2. Choose a campaign type based on what action you’d like your customers to perform when they see your ad.
3. Test new audiences and test them often.
4. Create a lookalike audience of your customers based on lifetime value to further optimize your targeting.
5. Test your lookalike audience at 1%, 2%, and 3% and compare the results to find your most profitable audience size.
6. Set up A/B testing to optimize your ad creative.
7. Optimize your images and video by sizing them appropriately for the placement and platform they’ll be shown on.
8. Create ad content with the offer and the audience in mind, using imagery to support or feature the offer.
9. Increase audience engagement by posting a question, fill-in-the-blank, contest, or giveaway.
10. Remember that marketing online is still marketing to humans, so your advertising strategies will change as your audience changes (so you’ll need to adapt your practices to stay relevant).

Best of luck to you in your Facebook advertising efforts! If you find yourself in a pickle trying to design your own ads, let the professional team at Design Pickle help you level up your content, get clicks, and make a huge return on ad spend.