Looking to expand beyond Google and Bing Ads? Are you a B2B company thinking you can’t get leads from social media platforms or a B2C company not taking full advantage of them? Here at Unfair Advantage, we have successfully used Facebook to drive awareness and conversions for all kinds of B2B and B2C businesses. How?
Using our extensive paid media expertise and training, we have developed Facebook paid advertising strategies and tactics for B2B and B2C that cover:
- Brand awareness vs lead gen vs conversions
- How to use audience groups
- Different ad types and ad copy
Keep reading to learn best practices and pro tips to succeed with Facebook ads for both B2B and B2C companies.
Why Use Facebook Paid Advertising?
As marketers our goal is to connect users with our brand. On a platform that has roughly 2.4 billion users and is the world’s most used social media platform, why not get those eyeballs on your ads? In 2021, 89% of B2B and 96% of B2C businesses are using Facebook. Combine that quantity with the ability to target your ads in many ways including geographically and by niche interests and you’ve got a powerful advertising platform.
Why Use Facebook If You’re B2B?
Think top-of-funnel engagements. How are your customers getting information today? B2B buying cycles are a long process; tapping into potential customers’ awareness lays a foundation for any future decision-making. Facebook is an excellent advertising platform for increasing brand awareness and engaging with other businesses.
It’s not just brand awareness, though. With audience targeting capabilities based off lifestyle interests, news outlets, emerging markets, and social behaviors, Facebook makes it easy for B2B companies to build relationships with their customers by focusing on what’s important to them. And Facebook’s lead gen forms make it easy to turn those relationships into leads.
Facebook Ad Strategies & Best Practices for B2B
Lead gen forms, Facebook’s ad library, and audience targeting are some of the best tools that Facebook has to offer B2B companies.
Lead gen forms: Lead gen forms eliminate user friction that would otherwise come from landing page redirects. Take advantage of the endless custom form features, from personalized questions to click-to-call settings. This gives customers quick and easy access to all necessary information without having to search on several landing pages. Facebook lead gen forms collect valuable contact information from your potential customers that can be used for customer email lists and now you have material for lookalike audiences, the most effective remarketing audience.
Pro tip: Check out Facebook’s automatic form fill feature; this is a life saver for companies with higher mobile to desktop user ratio.
Ad library: What are your competitors saying on their ads? How are they targeting their customers? Instead of waiting for their ads to show on your screen, use Facebook’s ad library. This powerful tool allows you to look at every ad copy published on Facebook. With a simple search navigation bar, you can view all competitor ads in addition to statistics on their followers.
Audience targeting: Facebook has over 400 niche audience interest groups you can choose from, and this list doesn’t even include company-specific targeting. In addition, Facebook allows you to target company pages, brand or public figures, top fans’ page likes (similar interest groups), and related pages. The more specific you are, the better quality leads you will get. The only downside is that adding these audiences can be a more manual process, but the best agencies out there will always advocate for Facebook audience granularity. If you’re not sure which audiences will perform the best? Test, test, test!
Pro tip: Got a small budget? Set-up A/B testing at the ad set level with budgets at the campaign level.
Does Facebook Paid Advertising Work for B2B?
Here are some recent Unfair Advantage results:
During Q4 of 2021, a client that sold asset management software came to us with a challenge: they wanted to increase brand awareness and webinar/demo sign-ups. Our solution was to use prospecting efforts in Facebook to drive more customers to their landing page. We were allocated about 6% of monthly spend for testing and within the first month of lead gen form testing, Facebook accounted for 14% of their leads. The next month, with the same budget, we increased Facebook leads by 257% and lowered Facebook’s CPL by 70% MoM.
Our client’s Facebook engagement was crucial in the buying cycle process because Facebook webinar sign-ups expanded our client’s brand awareness. And when prospects attended the webinar, this established the company as an authority. When customers later needed industry experts, they would look to our client.
Why Use Facebook If You’re B2C?
Facebook Ads enable businesses to interact directly with users and acquire customers’ trust. Catalog ads and carousels provide that tailored virtual shopping experience that customers love. No need to wait for a redirect landing page to load when they can just look at the Facebook ad.
Facebook Ad Strategies & Best Practices for B2C
Think about the three C’s: carousel, collection, and copy. These are the biggest movers when enhancing the B2C customer experience.
Carousel and collection ads are designed to capture and maintain user focus. Carousel ads allow you to add up to 10 images within one ad. Collection ads connect with your shopping feed and will dynamically update. Add social proofs or customer testimonials on your ads to really wow your viewers. 99.9% of consumers read reviews and 98% of them consider this an essential step prior to purchase. These ads are the ultimate online shopping experience at customers’ fingertips.
For example, below is a Facebook carousel ad illustrating pricing as a value proposition and a clear “book now” call-to-action:
And below is a collection ad in Facebook with videos of home décor and ad copy speaking to the user:
When writing ad copy, it’s best to directly address your customer. The more personalized it seems, the more interested they will be. Think about it similarly to emails, are you more likely to open something that has a generic opener or the one that addresses you personally? Lastly, you can’t use 1000 words for Facebook ads, so add a picture instead!
Pro-tip: Add videos if you have it! Video creatives generated 64% of account conversions for our clients in Facebook.
Final Thoughts
Facebook advertising is not just a B2C playground, there is plenty of space for B2B companies to make their stand. With the strategies listed above, it’s possible for B2B companies to leverage Facebook to build brand awareness and generate qualified leads and for B2C companies to level up their game.
Enjoyed reading about these Facebook paid advertising tips? Read more about how using social media for B2B lead gen and expanding to LinkedIn will impact your advertising efforts.
Contact us to learn more about the Unfair Advantage approach to digital marketing, including our social media best practices, and more!
