Over the last 12 months, we have seen over £1M in sales using this Facebook ads strategy. I have used it with multiple brands, from scale-ups to SMEs and the key to this strategy is it’s not solely focused on sales 🧐 That’s not how we operate. We know that for you to build a brand that succeeds in the long run, you must create demand through awareness, not just absorb the current demand and high-five over your ROAS.
Want some proof?
So if you want to learn how to implement a Facebook Ads strategy that will yield returns whilst growing your brand for the long term, check out the below.
I’ve split this blog into three sections. The first covers some key focus points for your ads, after all, if your ads suck the framework won’t work. The second covers the framework and its thinking. And finally the framework itself.
High competition and reduced targeting capabilities have meant that quality creative, both your image/video and your copy, is vital to seeing results.
Constantly be testing. This should be the mantra for your creative and copy. I aim to run at least 3-5 creative and copy tests a month. Trying out completely new ads or slight variants on ones already performing well. The best place to start testing your ads is with your remarketing audience. This is your warmest audience, so if your ads don’t perform well here, they won’t perform further up the funnel.
Create a sandbox ad group in one of your BOF campaigns and launch multiple ad creatives and copy. Monitor the CTR and engagement, and if it’s a video, the number of people who watch at least 50%. Your main aim is to find the style of creative and copy that people engage best with.
Now you’ve got the style of a successful ad, it’s time to move it on up.
Create a sandbox in one of your TOF and MOF campaigns. Take the successful ad(s) from step 1 and create multiple versions tailoring to this colder audience by updating the copy and even the image but keeping to the winning style. You know the style, the aim here is to find out what creative and copy works best at each stage.
At this point you should have a bunch of winning ads on your hands you can move into the main campaigns. To take things even further you can look to optimise these ads by testing even more granular details, such as; button CTA, font size, small changes to the creative and copy etc. This final step is usually only applicable to brands with large budgets and huge audiences. You need this to get clear enough results on such minor changes.
Allow a test at least 7 days to run to get enough data to truly understand success.
70/30 is your ideal target; try to make 70% of your ad creative video. That’s a lot, right? Well yeah, and this also needs resource, but the algorithms and the people love video.
MOF is all about nurturing demand and connecting with people who have shown interest in your brand, this could be through a like, share or a web visit. The best of these will be those who have watched part of your video, this is a strong indicator of interest. No video, no video views audience to retarget.
According to a 2021 survey by Wyzowl, “88% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video”.
This framework involves using both 15-second and 6-second videos as ads.
Often overlooked. So many brands put all their efforts into their creative and then spend a few moments on the actual message. That thing you use to talk to your customers and actually tell them what’s up, yeah, that’s the thing that is an extra thought. Pretty dumb when you think about it.
You need to shift focus and give your message 50% of your focus when creating ads.
Here’s a good example; Over Black Friday every brand is saying the same thing “Up to 40% off this Black Friday”. Now imagine your audience has been on more than one website in the last month, chances are pretty high. Every brand will be retargeting this person so how do you stand out from the other brands retargeting the same person with the same message?
“Good for you and the planet. 20% off this Black Friday and 20% of your sale donated to More Trees”. A more thought-out promotion, one that will connect deeper, allows for more dynamic copy, copy that stands out.
Customers don’t buy when they understand, they buy when they feel understood, so focus on building a connection with your customer.
Want to scale your Facebook ads to over 6 figures per month even in 2023?
Download my Paid Ads Framework. It includes the campaigns, audiences and ads you need to be running.
Get The Framework 👉
Rather than waffling on about each element, I have condensed this into an easy-to-use framework. This is the exact framework we have used across multiple brands to achieve great results. Simply sign up below, and the framework will be sent straight out.
First, though, you need to understand the objective of each stage.
Look at it this way, if you’ve not built systems that are consistently creating demand, that demand will eventually run out. If you want to take something out, you have to put a lot more in. Brands aren’t stupid they do know they need to do this; the common mistake is the split of the investment. It will often get 10-15% of the budget. This is completely backwards; it should be getting at least 50% of your budget with a target of 60%.
Your objective here is brand awareness, get your brand or product in front of new audiences in an engaging way that drives actions you can retarget down the line. Your best weapon here… VIDEO. I focus only on objectives that provide actionable KPIs, not vanity metrics like Reach & Ad Recall Lift.
These guys know your brand, and they’ve shown interest. But you don’t jump straight for the sale, you need to nurture that interest, wine and dine it and build a connection. The objective here is to create higher intent, get them onto a product page or subscribed or following you on social media.
Now it’s time to pay the bills. These guys have shown high intent and are prime for the sale. Paid search is your best channel for this, and paid social is second to that. Good job my framework has covered both.
You’ve done all the hard work of creating a new customer, but brands often forget about the most important of KPIs, LTV (Life Time Value). This is your cheapest and most valuable audience. Ensure you’re marketing to this audience through Meta and Email. As this is about ads, I’ll stick to Meta. The key here is to treat this audience differently, with different creative, different messaging and different offers. Make it personal.
Utilise the Facebook Ad Library to check out what your competitors are running. They will be doing the testing for you so take notice of what they’re doing.
The TOF part of this framework focuses predominantly on Facebook-side KPIs. The focus is on building audiences you can retarget who have signalled they are interested in your brand either by watching a certain amount of a video, engaging with an ad, visiting your site/page (and browsing) or giving you their email. Vanity KPIs such as Reach, Ad Recall Lift & BA, are not the focus anymore; their value is far less quantifiable now.
Make sure the size of your prospecting audience is at least 500K.
