7 Steps to Maximize Your Facebook Ads Strategy for The Holidays

Keep in mind that only 1.79 out of 7 billion people worldwide buy their goods and services from E-Commerce businesses. This number is shockingly low because 95% of first-time shoppers leave E-Commerce sites without purchasing. We live in a society that loves to scroll but not purchase. This is your chance to leverage your advertising skills to turn scrollers into shoppers!

Consider the following questions:

• Where does the excitement come from when you are waiting in line to try on the latest pair of shoes from Nike?   
• How does the satisfaction of buying the latest Apple product alleviate the stress of waiting in long lines and fear of it being sold out once it’s in your hand?
• What incites employees from REI to take action with the REI #OptOutside campaign on every social media platform like no other?

How do we make our brand compelling enough to be bought? Learn how to maximize your Facebook Ads Strategy with these seven helpful tips!

Step #1: Determine Your Facebook Ads Strategy

Get ahead of the game and plan your pre-holiday brand awareness SWOT strategy. Your business should set goals that are specific to what your market and business needs. Make sure these goals are attainable and keep in mind that the holiday season is to meant to create product and brand awareness. By creating product awareness, you have the potential to introduce your brand to new holiday shoppers.

 There is no such thing as not enough awareness. Add more value to the organization; Facebook ads offer an opportunity to improve brand awareness and provide an easier way for audiences to shop. Consider increasing the quality of sales. To enhance the quality of sales, it starts with niching down your audience. As you do this, your business will better reach your target audience more efficiently (We’ll address this further down).

Step #2: Consider Using Additional Placements

Facebook has about 14 different ad placement types to give you the opportunity to put your ads in spaces like the Facebook Feed, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Feed, Instagram Stories, Messenger and more.

When selecting your Facebook placements in your ad set, make sure to only check Facebook Feed, and Instagram Feed, they are the highest performing placements. A placement that is rising in popularity for Ecomm stores is Facebook Messenger.

Create a separate ad set and ad creation just for Messenger and be sure to speak to your audience depending on which products you are trying to get sales for. Offer them discounts, buy one get one, last min deals, hit them hard this week for Black Friday sales. Showing urgency will be your winning strategy during the holidays.

Step #3: Create Your Custom Audience

When customizing your audience, put into consideration people who have previously taken action on to your app or site.

Make sure to have at least these 2 custom audiences set up for remarketing. Once you’re finished driving all your traffic this week for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the shopping does not stop there.

Create a website traffic audience for those for added to cart but did not check out. Use Dynamic remarketing ads to show those people the same products they previously looked at.

 Also, create an engagement remarketing list for those who have interacted on your ad. Offer them a second chance to receive the deal, make sure scarcity and urgency are represented within your ad copy.

Use ‘Create a Custom Audience’

There are many custom audience categories available such as:

1. Customer File. This utilizes your customers’ email addresses.
2. Website Traffic. This targets people who have visited your website in the past.
3. App Activity. These are people who have visited your mobile app recently.
4. Offline Activity and Engagement. This allows you to see who interacted with your business’ content, such as video, on Facebook.

Utilize a custom audience filter to pinpoint who your ad is reaching. Custom audience filters help your business find better target audiences, which is better than targeting cold audiences created from only interests and basic demographics.  

Step #4: Design Your Facebook Content

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner! To beat out other retailers, you should create a compelling offer that will make people stop and click your ad. Any discount on your products or services should be at a minimum of 20% to be effective.

If your business cannot profit with a minimum of 20%, try an alternative other than direct discounts. Look into where you can purchase items, such as scarfs, mugs, holiday bags in bulk so you are able to give them away for free to customers. By adding some sort of deal, this will increase traffic to your website and the likelihood that people will purchase items.

Try offering complimentary free items for specific purchases!

Consider the following examples:

• For a jacket, offer a free scarf.
• For gloves, offer a free hand warmer.
• For ties, offer a free pocket square.

These are all items that can be purchased easily in bulk. This will help your customers see the use and worth your brand is offering.

Step #5: Schedule Your Facebook Content

Planning out your content calendar in advance increases the quality of your posts. This will result in higher organic engagement for your business. Planning out your content gives you a higher chance of reaching the audience you want to because it allows you to pick a specific time and day for your postings to go live.

There are social media management tools, such as eClincher, Buffer, Sprout Social, HootSuite, Sendible and more, that were created to help you stay on track with your content. These tools can help you set up a posting schedule for not only Facebook but your businesses other social media platforms. Save yourself time and stress by planning ahead.

Step #6: Reminder: Check Your Ad Account Spending Limit

During the Black Friday weekend, your business could quickly reach its ad limit without even noticing. If things are going well with your campaign, you will be spending above your regular budget. Overspending can result in your campaign turning off until you clear your ad account balance.

Keep a close eye on your ad spend limit – you sure don’t want to spend over your limit!

Step #7: Track & Analyze Your Reports Daily

Staying on top of your campaign performance is vital to being successful this Holiday season. To do well this season, you need insight into what works this holiday season. I highly recommend you monitor your campaigns daily. Make sure you understand what needs to be changed or added to improve your blogs.  Especially since Black Friday is on a short time frame and so is the holiday season itself.

ReportGarden Facebook Ads Reporting can help you manage clients, campaigns & reporting on a single platform.

Conclusion

To recap, don’t forget to follow these steps to maximize your Facebook Ads!  

Don’t forget to:

• Determine Your Facebook Ad Strategy
• Consider Using Additional Placements
• Create Your Custom Audience       
• Design Your Facebook Content
• Schedule Your Facebook Content
• Check Your Ad Account Spending Limit
• Track & Analyze Your Reports Daily

“The key is, no matter what story you tell, make the buyer the hero” – Chris Brogan

Happy Holidays from Momentum Digital!