Home to over 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook is indeed one of the largest social media networks – falling just behind India and China in terms of population. Almost everyone on the internet has a Facebook account, which is why it is one of the most attractive platforms for advertisers as well.
Moreover, social media gives plenty of customized advertising options that allow business owners to detail target their audiences and effectively reach their revenue goals. Coupled with the potential to reach a staggering number of customers, many marketers prefer to implement marketing strategies on the said platform to get the most out of their efforts.
With holidays upon us, advertisers are rushing to develop campaigns that will enable them to target their customers with relevant and profitable strategies during the most lucrative time of the year.
Not sure where to begin?
This article will help you discover the key steps to get your holiday ad campaign for Facebook to get started in the right direction. So, without further ado, let’s get started!
1. Dive Deep Into Targeting for Your Facebook Ad Campaigns
Facebook’s ad targeting options are unparalleled and allow interested marketers to target an audience with various markers, including age, marital status, location, interests, income, etc.
Unlike traditional advertising modes, such as TV and print ads, there is no one-size-fits-all protocol for Facebook ads. Instead, business owners can take advantage of the specific targeting offered by the social media network and be as precise as they can be.
Narrow down your audience based on what your target marketing is actively searching for, or what their interests are. This will help make the most of ads. Let’s take a look at some examples:
Facebook Brand Example #1: Dr.Pepper
See how Dr. Pepper have correctly targeted their chosen audience with the right blend of visuals and text.
Why This Ad Works: The ad targets three categories:
* People who like soft drinks – to resonate with Dr. Pepper’s target market and create awareness
* People searching for colleges – as the offer lies for everyone in this age group
* Students looking for college scholarships – narrowing down to directly reach everyone who would be interested in their offer
Facebook Brand Example #2: Love Book Online
The ad by LoveBookOnline.com usually shows up on the News Feed of Facebook users who have anniversaries coming up.
Why This Ad Works: The online book retailer has specifically set the ‘target audience’ to people who have anniversaries coming up. This is great because just when your anniversary is around the corner and you’re in search of the perfect gift, this ad will hit you with the perfect idea.
Under the demographics, there is a ‘Life Events’ option. Within this category, you can find the ‘Anniversary’ option.
You can further narrow down the anniversary day by choosing people who have anniversaries coming up within 30 days, 60 days, and so on.
Depending on what product or service you are running an ad for, narrow down your audience with features such as this to make your viewers relevant to your offering. This will ensure a high CTR!
For more help on Facebook targeting check out our guide How to Create a Targeted Facebook Ad Audience Using Power Editor.
Pro Holiday Tip #1: Use Buyer’s Persona
Before you start working on your ad, make sure you have a buyer’s persona ready. The buyer’s persona is generally a fictitious sketch of your ideal consumer and should include details such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Occupation
- Language
- Interests
- Household Income
- Parental Status
You can also take information from the Facebook Audience Insights to figure out the type of people connected to your social media account.
Pro Holiday Tip # 2: Use Custom Targeting
Now that you have a buyer persona in place tap into the advanced targeting options by specifying your brand’s custom audience. Custom audiences are those who have already interacted with your business through various mediums.
These are your warm leads and are already better prospects. They are also likely to give you better results during the holidays than the cold leads (or the one you create from interests or basic demographics).
2. Add a Attractive Layout for Your Facebook Ad Campaigns
In a space full of posts, visuals are what grab the audiences’ attention while they are swiping and scrolling through the News Feed.
Several studies have also shown posts with images to increase engagement and click-through-rates by a substantial number. This means making attractive images your best friend can help significantly in driving conversions.
Facebook Brand Example #1: TOMS
Take this ad by TOMS. For the visuals they have added pictures of their latest collection, while the layout indicates a wintery theme.
Why This Ad Works: While the brand doesn’t need any introduction, their latest ad successfully displays their latest offerings with a few simple pictures and captions highlighting the discounts being offered.
Facebook Brand Example #2: Pura Vida
The California-based company is renowned for selling hand-made bracelets and jewelry. They often display a collection of colorful images in a carousel-ad format, which resulted in Pura Vida selling 20X more.
Why This Ad Works: The simple image of sea-colored bracelets and a logo of Sea Turtle Conservancy is enough to capture the attention of the viewers. Combined with the social-conscious message of saving the sea turtles,’ this ad nails the Facebook ad strategy.
Pro Holiday Tip #1: Use the Finest
When creating Facebook ads, make sure images are:
- Relevant and are accurately representing the content of the ad while keeping up with the holiday spirit.
- High-quality and not blurred or stretched to fit the specific Facebook ad requirements.
- Engaging and appealing to the specific audience segment.
- Not protected by copyright. If you purchase stock photos, make sure they are from reliable sources and allowed for commercial usage.
Pro Holiday Tip #2: The Text/Image Rule
Facebook prefers images as well and allows only 20% text on each ad. Business owners and Facebook often overlook the requirement and let a little more text to get away. However, during the holiday season, Facebook, with limited ad capacity, becomes stringent and starts penalizing the ads that go overboard with texts.
To ensure this doesn’t happen to your ad, use the Facebook Overlay Tool, and aim for a green ‘OK’ tick.
Maximize your ads for remarketing with Wishpond’s all-in-one marketing tools. Click here to get started.
3. Add Videos to Your Facebook Ad Campaigns
With videos dominating Facebook’s interface, video ads are another effective strategy for reaching your target audience and driving sales. They are engaging, fun to watch, and gazed 5X more than static posts.
Facebook Brand Example #1: Cielo
Cielo WiGle uses the concept of falling snow to show how their smart AC/Heat controllers can maintain the temperature when the weather changes. They have intelligently linked the concept with their holiday sale stating ‘temperatures are dropping and our prices falling’.
Why This Ad Works: Cielo’s above video could have gone out as an image too, but falling snowflakes adds an extra touch, making it more attention-grabbing. It also keeps up with the holiday spirit and indicates their cut-down prices during the year’s most demanding time.
Pro Holiday Tip #1: Maintain Quality
To ensure your success with Facebook video ads:
- Make your videos relevant to the specific niche.
- Ensure they are high quality with all imagery in high resolution.
- Make them short – around 5 – 15 seconds to capture the attention of Facebook users effectively.
Pro Holiday Tip #2: Follow the Mute Rule
While Christmas music may be appealing to the ears during the holiday season, do remember that 85% of Facebook users watch videos with the sound off. Research also indicates that 4 out of 5 react negatively if ads in the feed play out loud unexpectedly. Facebook further recommends creating stories that don’t require sound to communicate the message.
Skip the holiday beats (in fact, all music) in your Facebook ads. Instead, add captions and text to convey your core message.
4. Fine Tune Your Facebook Ad Campaign CTA
A clear call to action button on Facebook ads tells the viewer exactly what you want them to do after they have finished watching your ad. The social media network offers several CTA options, including the common ones ‘Send Message’, ‘Download’, ‘Call Now’, ‘Shop Now’ and ‘Contact Us’.
Facebook Brand Example #1: Nike
Nike adds a ‘Shop Now’ call-to-action in their Facebook ads page.
Why This Ad Works: Nike is a household name when it comes to sportswear. To keep their customer base and revenue growing, they add a ‘Shop Now’ CTA to their Facebook ads. Clicking on the CTA takes the potential customers straight to their eCommerce site, encouraging them to further enhance its conversion rates.
Facebook Brand Example #2: Lyft
The ride-sharing service uses the ‘Download’ CTA to compel the audience into taking immediate action – i.e., installing their app and receiving a discount with the code as mentioned above.
Why This Ad Works: The CTA is persuasive because when the viewers see it with the discount offer, they are immediately drawn in. And when they click on it, they are taken to a page where new customers can learn how to claim their free $50 ride credit.
Pro Holiday Tip #1: Be Relevant
Make sure you add CTAs that are relevant to the ads and according to the buyer’s journey. Avoid giving mixed signals and go for concise CTAs that compel the audience to take attention immediately.
Pro Holiday Tip #2: Offer Free Incentives
To get a better edge over your competitors, why not add an incentive to the holiday shopping extravaganza. Similar to the above ad by Lyft, adding discounts and freebies can help increase sales and even build brand loyalty.
For example, the holidays give us many opportunities to offer deals during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Boxing Day. However, don’t keep your promotional activities limited and offer various discounts to the customer throughout the month.
Of course, be careful that the discounts don’t eat up your profits. If in doubt, simply add a ‘free shipping’ till a particular date to create urgency.
5. Consider Facebook Ad Placements
Facebook’s ad placement tools enable you to suggest where your ads appear within the platform and outside. Different ad placements have the ability to perform differently – depending on the number of advertisers.
All in all, Facebook has around 16 different placement options, including:
- Desktop News Feed
- Mobile Newsfeed
- Marketplace
- In-stream Video
- Stories
- Messenger Inbox
Is your target audience more active on Instagram, do they love to participate in stories? Depending on the activities of your audience you can pick and choose your placements.
Facebook Brand Example #1: Starbucks
Starbucks uses Instagram Stories to feature one of their latest additions.
Why This Ad Works: It works because Starbucks went for other options, besides Facebook to display their ads. The more placements you choose, the more visibility your ads will have.
Pro Holiday Tip #1: Choose Additional Placements for Your Facebook Ad Campaign
While business owners rely on the same ad placements for all of their advertisements, it is worth exploring other areas for enhanced exposure. For example, with over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is another platform to consider during the holiday season. A subsidiary of Facebook, the photo-sharing app can be very profitable if done right.
Pro Holiday Tip #2: Don’t Set and Forget
Once your ad copy is live, make sure to test the performance daily. The holidays are profitable yet short! And a monthly or even weekly reporting may waste your time in case you have to make modifications. To prevent any mishaps, keep an eye on the metrics daily and make ongoing tweaks if necessary.
Summary
The holidays can be very lucrative for businesses. In fact, analysts predict holiday shopping to rise 0.9% to $1.013 trillion with eCommerce significantly dominating the retail market.
Moreover, a huge portion of shoppers plan to search and buy from eCommerce stores, apps, and social media networks – making Facebook advertising an arena full of opportunities for the business owners.
As the Christmas days come near, customer spending will increase as they rush to buy gifts for themselves and their loved ones. To leverage on one of the most profitable times, make sure to implement all the tips in your Facebook ads:
- Deep dive into targeting
- Go for an attractive layout
- Add videos
- Fine tune your CTA
- Consider Facebook ad placements
You can implement these tips andl make the most out of your Facebook ad campaign during the most joyous season of the year. Good luck!
About the Author
Amos is an entrepreneur and expert in the stock photography field. He is passionate about digital marketing, technology and visual imagery. Founder and Editor of Stock Photo Press and all its publications. Amos has a successful background in sales, and he also loves food 🙂
amir