Your Facebook ads have been performing well – is it time to scale? If you’re seeing a healthy return on ad spend and you’d like to build on this success, scaling your Facebook ad campaign may be a reasonable course of action.
But successful scaling requires more than just throwing more money into a high-performing campaign. Facebook’s algorithm optimizes ads over time; this means that if you suddenly balloon your budget, it throws the algorithm off and your ad performance may plummet.
Instead, take a methodical, strategic approach based on engagement remarketing and audience insight tools to mitigate this risk.
Whether you want to achieve higher returns, increase sales, or attract more customers, these tips can help you scale your ad campaign.
1. Engagement Options: Video
As users spend more time on their feeds, Facebook has been able to track a new range of user behaviors, leading to a new set of Engagement Remarketing options, including ones that chiefly deal with video content.
Start by heading to the Audience section of your Ads Manager, creating a Custom Audience and clicking on Engagement. Here, you’ll find a range of targeting options at your disposal. Let’s start with Video behavior.
This option lets you choose which video-viewing behavior your Facebook ad campaign will target, down to the second.
For instance, say you want to create an audience of users who watched at least 50% of a video about the features of your latest product. You can target this group with a video further detailing one of those features.
You can also create a “lookalike” audience based on this group. Facebook will use the traits you specify to find other users who are likely to view your video, which helps focus your targeting.
2. Focus on Lead Ads
Want to grow your contact list? Lead ads may offer a cost-effective solution.
This ad type prompts users to enter their names, email addresses, and other info without having to leave the Facebook platform to visit a landing page, which eliminates a possible point of attrition.
You can then use engagement targeting based on the way the user interacted with your lead form.
For example, you can choose to remarket to anyone who opened the form, or users who opened the form but did not submit it.
Offering a sales promotion message to these users may help move them further down the funnel. Use the characteristics of users who both opened and submitted the form to create a lookalike audience.
3. Engage with the Page
The page engagement option applies to more than just users who visited your page.
It can also target users who engaged with ads or posts on your page, clicked on a call to action, saved or sent a post, or sent messages to your page.
Page engagement allows you to keep interacting with users who interacted with your page in any way. You can also use this option to drive ads to Messenger.
4. Interact with Instagram
If your Instagram account is thriving but your Facebook page needs a boost, the Instagram Business Profile Interaction option may be just what you need.
Like Facebook’s page options, this feature lets you create ads based on selected behaviors. Users who engaged with your business on Instagram by sending a message to your profile, engaging with or saving a post or ad, or visiting your profile can be chosen for remarketing.
For brands that rely heavily on image-based marketing, this is a no-brainer approach to drive Instagram fans to Facebook. You can use these groups’ interests and behaviors to create lookalike audiences, too.
5. Expand Your Facebook Audience
Finding the right audience takes some finessing, but once you do, it’s time to expand.
Since Facebook ads focus on user data and interests, start by creating detailed buyer personas. Include factors such as age, gender, income level, location/market, and interests when building personas that represent your target audience.
Once you’ve developed a few, fine-tune your target audience personas by utilizing the Audience Insights tool. Facebook makes it easy to search by user interests, page likes, and other demographic data.
You may need to try a few different Facebook ad campaigns to see which are most effective at driving conversions.
When you’re ready to take the next step and increase your ad budget, take advantage of Facebook Ad data to inform your strategy.
Moving in small increments is key; rather than fighting the algorithm and just doubling or tripling your spend on an effective ad, make small changes based data gleaned from Engagement Options and Audience Insights.
Test (and re-test) until you determine which options work best for you. Soon, you’ll successfully generate Facebook ad campaigns at scale.
