Facebook and Instagram ads are part of digital marketing. They specifically fall under social media marketing. Honestly, you cannot have effective digital/social media marketing without paying for ads. Social media spaces are so saturated that without ads, you won’t be able to reach lots of people. You will definitely need ads to promote your business. And the good news is that you can spend on Facebook & Instagram ads for as low as $1 per day.
However, the scary thing is that you can run ads on these apps and get nothing in return. No leads, no sales, nothing. That is usually the case for most businesses. This happens when the ads were not set up well. Therefore in this post, we will show you how to set up Facebook and Instagram Ads that will effectively bring you sales. You can read our Facebook Marketing Strategy To Make Your Business Succeed post.
Meta Ads App
Here are steps to take (on your mobile phone):
1. Download and install Meta Ads (formerly known as Facebook Ads) from Google Play Store or Apple App Store. This app is used for both Facebook and Instagram ads.
2. Tap on the green + button at the top right of the screen. The Create Campaign page will then open. You will see seven (7) marketing objectives: Post Engagement, Video views, Website Traffic, Reach, Messages, Page Likes, and Event response.
Post Engagement Ads
This type of ad is to get more people to see and engage with your post.
3. Tap on Post Engagement.
4. Select the post you want to use for the ad.
Audience
Kindly note that the instructions given under Audience, Budget and Schedule, and Review Order are the same for each type of ad. So you may have to refer to them when your ad gets to that stage of setting up.
5. On the Audience page, tap on Create New Audience. Give the Audience a name (e.g. Ghana Women over 30 years, Ghana Men under 50 years, etc.).
6. In the Include these locations section, you can choose Ghana as a country, or the cities (e.g. Accra, Kumasi), regions (e.g. Brong-Ahafo, Northern), or neighborhoods (e.g. Dansoman, Bantama) as you prefer.
7. If there are any locations you do not want the ad to run in, kindly use the Exclude these locations to specify them.
8. Drag the Age bar to set the age range you want to target with your ad (e.g. 18-24).
9. Under Gender, choose whether you want to market to both genders or to only one of them.
Detailed Targeting
10. Under the Detailed Targeting section, you have the option to include or exclude people based on their demographics, interests, or behavior. For example, if you are selling cooking oil, you can use the Detailed Targeting options to target people interested in cooking.
When you tap on the detailed targeting section, it will open to a page where it will tell you to Include people who match. You can use it to reach people based on their interests, demographics, and behaviors.
Interests are used to reach a specific audience by looking at their interests, activities and the Pages they have liked. It has categories such as Business and Industry, Entertainment, Family and relationships, and so forth.
Demographics are used to reach people based on their education, employment, household, and lifestyle details. It also has classifications such as Education, Financial, Life events, and so on.
Behaviors are used to reach people based on their purchase behavior or intent, device usage, and more. It has groupings such as Anniversary, Digital activities, Ex-pats, and so on.
Each of these Interests, Demographics, and Behaviors has further details you have to see if the grouping matches your target audience. Moreover, there is More categories that is used to reach Facebook Partner categories.
Facebook ads are all about detailed targeting. Whether they will be effective or not depends on the detailed targeting you used. If you don’t set the detailed targeting to match your target audience, you will run ads and they will be shown to people who are not interested in them. And they will not buy from you. That would be a waste of money because you did not use detailed targeting to reach your target market.
If you want to reach wealthy people with your ads, read our post How To Target Rich People With Facebook & Instagram Ads.
11. Tap on the check icon at the top right of your screen when you are done with the detailed targeting.
12. In case you want to exclude any group of people too, you can use the Exclude people who match to omit the demographics, interests, or behaviors you want to.
13. Tap on the > icon at the bottom left of the screen.
Budget and Schedule
This is where you enter the money details of your ad campaign.
14. Under the Campaign budget, you can set it to Daily or Lifetime. With Daily, the amount you enter will charge daily against your account till the ad period ends. But with Lifetime, the amount you enter is what will be spent for the whole period of the ad. For example, a Daily amount of $2 for 2 days will cost $ 4. But a Lifetime amount of $2 for 2 days will cost only $2.
15. Under Schedule, use Start Now to start your ad immediately. Or use Start Later to determine the time you want the ad to specifically start.
16. Tap on Delivery. Under Optimization for Ad delivery, choose the option you prefer whether it is Maximise number of impressions, Post Engagement, or Maximise unique daily reach.
17. Under Bid Strategy, you can set your own bid or leave it to the app to do it for you. I recommend you select Bid cap to set your own bid. And set it at $0.05. Ads bid against each other to be shown. And the one with the highest bid gets to be shown first. However, entering a high amount can make you spend more than necessary. In Ghana, a bid of $0.05 is optimal for a Facebook and Instagram ad.
18. Tap the check icon at the top right-hand side of your screen.
Placements
Your order will appear for you to review. This is for you to check to see whether everything is okay. But there are a few more steps to do here.
19. Tap on Placements. If you want the app to do the placement for you, you can leave it at Automatic. However, you can select Manual and do the placements yourself. Placements are where the ads will be shown. It is not every ad that can be shown in any place. So I recommend that you do the placement manually.
When you select Manual, you will see Device Types. Choose whether you want your ad to show on both Desktop and Mobile. I prefer Mobile because many people use mobile than desktop. And at Ghana Yellow Pages, we run a mobile-first marketing campaign.
Under Platforms, select whether you want your ad to run all over Facebook (feeds, In-stream videos, Stories, etc.), all over Instagram (Feed, Stories, Explore), all over Audience Networks (note: I hardly use this option. I usually uncheck all of them. Because the ad appears on other peoples websites. But I want to show my ads only on Meta apps.), and Messenger (it depends on the kind of ad you are creating if it is good to appear on Facebook Messenger).
Moreover, if you want an ad to run only on Facebook or only on Instagram, this is where you check the boxes to specify so. This is how Meta Ads is used to run both Facebook and Instagram ads.
Review Order
20. Crosscheck if the Campaign Budget & Schedule and everything are as you set them to be.
21. Under Account and Payment, you will have to add the information on your VISA or MasterCard. Meta does not take Mobile money. You will enter the card number on the front of your card. And enter the three digits at the back of your card as the CVV.
22. Click Place Order when you are satisfied with all the details of the ad. You will have to wait for some time for Meta to approve your ad. They will notify you when the ads start running. Also, note that you can Save ads and return to them later to finish them. So take your time. Don’t rush. You can always come back to this post to continue from where you left off.
Video Views Ads
This type of ad is for promoting your video to get people’s attention.
On the Create Campaign page, tap on Video views.
Select the video you want to use for the ad. And tap the > sign at the bottom right.
Use the Thumbnail to select the cover image for the video.
In the Primary Text section, type the text you want to use as the video’s caption. This will show in the ad.
When it comes to the Placements, Audience, Budget & Schedule, and Review order see the guidelines given above. They are the same for each type of ad.
Website Traffic Ads
The purpose of this ad is to send people to your website. For example, when we have a blog post on our Ghana Yellow Pages Blog and we want to boost it, so that people will come from Facebook to our website to read it, this is the ad type we use.
At the bottom of your screen, you will see Format written there. It gives you the option to select a Single Image, Carousel, Single video, or Post as the format to use for this type of ad. For example, as mentioned earlier, when we want to promote a blog article on this site, we will post that article on Facebook. Then we will use the Post format to select that particular article.
If you select Single image, that image is the only one that will show in the ad. And when people click on it, it will send them to your website. The same applies to the Single video format. With the Carousel, you get to choose multiple images including photos from your Instagram page.
Again, when it comes to the Placements, Audience, Budget & Schedule, and Review order, see the guidelines given above. They are the same for each type of ad.
Reach, Messages, Page Likes, & Events Ads
You use Reach ads to reach a maximum number of people. And Messages ads are for getting more people to message you in Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram. Page likes ads are what you use to get more people to like or follow your Page. Use it to grow your page likes. Event response ads are used to get more people to see and respond to your event (e.g. church program, seminar/conference, etc.). Before you create any Event responses ad, you should have created a Facebook event on your page already.
On the Create campaign Page, select Reach or Messages, whichever you prefer. For any of these, you have the option to select a Single image, Carousel, Single video, or Post just like the website traffic ad. But for Page Likes ads, you only have the option to select a Single image or Single video as a format.
Also, concerning the Placements, Audience, Budget & Schedule, and Review order, see the guidelines given above. They are the same for each type of ad.
We hope these steps will be helpful to you. At Ghana Yellow Pages we care about your business. we want you to succeed. List your business on our site for free.