Facebook ads are often touted as the be all and end all in terms of digital marketing and don’t get me wrong, they can be incredibly powerful for your business.
If done right, Facebook’s targeting options allow you to get so granular and specific with who you display your ads to that it’s like hand picking a list of potential clients and sending them a personalised invitation to purchase your product. Only, it’s more visual, it’s probably going to cost you less and you can measure everything about their interaction with your ads.
But one thing I have noticed, businesses wanting to run Facebook ads over any other strategies to the point where they start to develop a tunnel vision in their marketing.
One thing you need to remember is that while Facebook ads can be super targeted, your first ad is typically going to act like a billboard.
1,000 people might drive down the highway on a given day and see your billboard, but only 20 of those people are even remotely interested in what you have to sell, and only 1 of those are actually in the market for your product or service.
That’s what it’s like when you run a general awareness campaign, or boost a post on Facebook. Your ad gets shown to 1,000 people, but not all of those people want what you have to sell.
On average it takes 6-8 touchpoints to generate a sale, especially if it’s for a higher value product, or a service. You can’t just display a Facebook ad to a group of people on Facebook telling them to buy your product and expect them to hand over their cash. That’s like walking up to a random person on the street and asking them to marry you. It doesn’t work (well, it shouldn’t work!).
You’ve got to take your potential clients on a couple of dates, you need to make them trust you and that takes work.
You’ll need them to see the ad more than once
If you were to do all of this wooing through your Facebook ads, it’s going to take a lot more than one ad. You’re going to need to take it slow and guide them through the buying cycle. 9 times out of 10, your Facebook targeting will be hitting potential customers when they’re at the start of that buying cycle – you’re creating awareness of the product and they’re pretty passive about the whole sales interaction.
Your ads – and yes, I say ads because you’re going to need a couple of them to retarget that initial group of people – need to pull them through the research and comparison stages before they’re even ready to buy and you need to drum up some enthusiasm along the way.
Sometimes this can work incredibly well, but other times there is an easier way.
This is where Google search ads can provide a massive amount of value and better return than Facebook ads alone.
When someone is actively searching for the product or service that you offer, they’re past the awareness phase, they’ve started doing their research and they’re starting to compare products. But most importantly they are extremely high intent customers. They’re ready and wanting to buy – you don’t need to convince them that, you just need to convince them to buy your product over your competitors!
This is why we will often pair a Facebook ad campaign with a Google search campaign – the intent of the two audiences is completely different! If your customers start their advertising journey with you through your Google ads, they going to be more open to your offer and once they’ve clicked on an ad, we can retarget them through Facebook and the Google display network and it will often take a lot less effort (and money) to convert them into a sale.
Cheers
