How To Make Money With Facebook Ads & What Works For Our Clients

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Is It Really Possible to Make Money with Facebook Ads?

If you’ve landed on this article, the chances are you are looking to make money with Facebook ads. And as a business owner, why wouldn’t you be?

There are over 2.23 billion monthly active Facebook users – keyword being active there.

So that number isn’t including the inactive, abandoned accounts.

That’s 2.23 billion people that could be seeing and interacting with your Facebook ads and your business!

So if you’re wondering “can I make money from Facebook ads?” then the answer is yes!

Brand awareness and consumer engagement from Facebook ads can lead to…

…better customer relationships, more sales, and lower overhead costs for your business.

When you put all of this together, you have a great potential for growth, all at an inexpensive cost.

When you compare the cost of social media to other, more traditional forms of advertising such as billboards, TV commercials, etc.,

You’ll see the cost per result is infinitely less on social media.

The chart above shows the average cost to reach 1,000 people per advertising medium.

As you can see, social media can reach 1,000 people quickly for a lot cheaper!

So we know there is potential money to be made on Facebook. But you may be wondering if it’s possible to actually make it.

Whether you’re new to Facebook ads and excited to get started, or you just want to know how you can improve your current Facebook ad campaigns…

…we’re going to show you just how possible it is to make money with Facebook ads.

Today we’re sharing our top marketing tips that help business owners like yourself make money with Facebook advertising services!

Please understand that these tips are drawn from real life experience and real life results (or should we say real LYFE results!).

These are tips and strategies that we implement with our clients every single day.

And we’re sharing them here because they work and we’ve seen results with them!

So with that being said, let’s dive into the process you need to take to make money with Facebook ads.

Determining Your Business Goals

The first thing you’re going to want to determine are your business goals.

If you don’t define what you’re looking to gain from social media, then how can you measure how effective it is?

The Facebook ad campaign you run should reflect your goals.

You wouldn’t start running 5 miles every day to build up your arms, would you?

No, you wouldn’t!

In the same way, you want to run ad campaigns that are going to actually help achieve your target business goals.

That sounds like common sense…

But you’d be surprised at how many ad accounts we analyze that have been handled by previous marketing firms who…

…implemented the wrong type of ad campaign based on the client’s goals.

Now, let’s talk about what some of these social media goals can be.

Above are all of the campaign types or “objectives” that Facebook offers.

What’s important to know here is that each campaign optimizes for its objective.

So, what does that mean exactly?

It means if you run a traffic campaign, Facebook is going to show the ad to people within the target audience you select who are likely to click.

Because the whole objective of a traffic campaign is to gain clicks!

However, if you run a conversion campaign, Facebook is going to show the ad to people within your target audience who are likely to…

…not just click but also convert.

A conversion could be an online sale or an online lead depending on how you have your website set up. 

Conversion campaigns are one of the leading objectives that help to make money with Facebook ads!

Let’s look at another example. Under the Engagement campaign are a few objectives to choose from.

One of which being the post engagement campaign.

This campaign is going to optimize for more engagement (likes, comments, shares etc.) on your social media posts.

So if your goal involves wanting more engagement and eyeballs on the content you’re producing.

This campaign is going to be a better fit than a traffic campaign that sends people to your website.

Now we understand not every company has ecommerce or a business model that operates around online sales.

We know that some businesses (like ourselves!) are service-based and need leads as opposed to direct online sales.

Or maybe you’re in the restaurant industry and need better brand awareness.

Whatever industry you work in and whatever your business model, our overall point here is that you want to choose a…

…Facebook ad objective that matches what you’re trying to achieve in order to make money with Facebook ads.

One of the items we always discuss with our clients is which strategy they want to use to approach these goals:

The long term strategy or the short term strategy.

We always suggest a long term strategy for long term results with the greatest ROI. But we understand that some clients are on a tight budget!

In those cases, sometimes the short term strategy can make the most sense.

The main difference between a short term and long term strategy is where you start in the sales funnel pictured above.

Most of the businesses we work with are small to mid-sized businesses.

While we do work with a few name brands you would recognize upon hearing, most of our clients are not in the same playing field as Nike, for instance.

Because of this, you really have to start building relationships between your brand and your target audience.

This is what the long term strategy does. It builds trust and recognition in your brand which translates to sales over time.

It’s easy to comprehend when you think about your own experience with small businesses.

If you see an ad on Facebook from a company you’ve never heard of before.

Selling products or services you’ve never seen before, are you going to purchase right then and there?

Not usually, no. But that’s okay!

That’s where our long term strategy of repetition and branding comes into play.

It helps bridge that gap so that your target audience becomes more and more familiar with your business until they’re ready to become a customer.

This is an example of how you can make money with Facebook ads in the long run.

Now, as we mentioned earlier, we understand not every business has the time or resources to afford the luxury of waiting.

In those cases, we implement a short-term strategy. This skips over brand awareness and relationship-building and goes directly for the sale or lead.

Generally, the cost per result can be a little higher in the short-term strategy.

But you may see results come in a little faster since you’re putting all of your money towards lead generation and conversion campaigns.

In the end, you’ll want to choose the campaign objective and strategy that matches your goals and your budget.

What Is The Difference Between Organic Content & Paid Ads? And What Does It Matter?

We’ve talked a lot about how to make money with Facebook ads so far.

But let’s take a moment to truly define what Facebook ads are. What’s the difference between Facebook ads and organic content?

In the simplest of terms, Facebook ads are going to be anything you fund with money. And organic content is just a plain post that you don’t sponsor.

We’re bringing this to your attention because lots of businesses post content on their Facebook page.

But what most don’t know is that a very small percentage of their followers actually see the content (if they even have followers to start with!).

Facebook is a “pay to play” platform. Meaning you can’t grow followers organically.

You need to run page like ads to grow your followers using Facebook Ads.

Followers being people who have “liked” your page and will see a portion of your posts in their newsfeed moving forward.

But even then, you also need to run boosted posts to make sure your followers see the organic content you’re posting!

Just because you have 2,000 followers, that doesn’t mean all 2K are seeing the posts you’re putting out every week.

In fact, less than 10% usually see your posts organically on Facebook!

So while organic content is great, and it definitely plays a part in the long-term strategy…

…you will want to invest a little money to see a return when it comes to Facebook.

How To Set Up Effective Facebook Ads

What’s the point of going to all this trouble with Facebook ads if you don’t set them up properly?

The first thing you’ll want to do is install a Facebook tracking pixel on your site.

Now, we could probably write an entire blog on all of the benefits of a Facebook tracking pixel, but we’ll try to keep it brief.

The Facebook pixel tracks your website visitor activity, and helps you use that data to your advantage when…

…running Facebook ads (therefore making it easier to make money with Facebook ads!).

The way you install your Facebook pixel will vary depending on what kind of website you have.

But if you’re signed up with a social media management agency like LYFE Marketing, we can take care of it for you when given access to your website!

Check out this quick video that explains (in under a minute) a little more on what the Facebook tracking pixel can do!

Determine Your Ad Budget

The second part to setting up your ads effectively is to determine your ad budget.

While most marketing agencies require a certain ad budget that is all wrapped up into your service fee, LYFE Marketing does not operate that way.

We understand budgets are not a “one-size-fits-all” deal when it comes to businesses.

So we only charge for the service fee which allows you to give as much as you want towards your ad budget.

Having said that, we do provide our best recommendations for your ad campaign budget based on what we’ve seen work.

At a minimum, we suggest a monthly budget of no less than $150 per campaign.

Depending on the campaign objective you choose from the list we showed you earlier.

The minimum Facebook will allow the campaign to run varies between $1 and $5 a day.

That being said – in general, a better starting budget would be $300-$500 per campaign.

The reason we say this is because we conduct a lot of A/B split testing in the first few months with our clients. 

For those reading that don’t know, A/B split testing simply means testing out different ad creatives and…

…target audiences until we find the working combination that produces results at the lowest cost per result!

And once we get those results, we like to scale up on the budget. Because as we said before, Facebook is a “pay to play” platform.

Meaning the more you want to pay, the greater results you will see.

Speaking of target audiences, let’s talk a little more about that.

Who Is Your Target Market (Who Do you Want To See Your Ads)?

We know that the more money you spend on Facebook ads, the more reach your ads will receive.

But who is seeing them? Are you reaching the right target audience?

When clients come to us from different marketing agencies, you’d be surprised to see what we see in their ad accounts when it comes to the audiences they’ve targeted!

For instance, if you sell a product for young children, then specifically target parents, grandparents, teachers etc.

Don’t just target “women ages 35+ in the U.S.” like we see so many new clients have done.

Facebook offers a plethora of targeting options! Everything from demographics like we just mentioned to buying behaviors and self-marked interests.

Another great feature Facebook has is the lookalike audience feature.

This allows you to upload data such as a customer email list.

And, ask Facebook to find more people who “look like” your existing customers based on patterns Facebook sees.

You can also upload these customer lists to target directly! This is one of many forms of retargeting.

For instance, you can also retarget Facebook engagement, which is huge!

This means anyone who has liked your Facebook page, watched one of your videos for more than 3 seconds.

Or, liked a post etc. can be retargeted with a sales ad from your business.

The warmer your audience is (aka the more familiar they are with your brand and business) the lower the cost per result is ultimately going to be.

That’s why it’s so important to choose the right audience in order to make money with Facebook ads!

You could be doing all of the right things in terms of setting up your Facebook pixel and running the right campaign that reflects your goals…

But if you’re showing your ads to people that aren’t relevant to your brand, then you’re just wasting your money!

What Kind of Ads Does My Target Market Want To See?

Now that we’ve chosen a campaign and a target market, let’s talk about what ads we’re showing them!

Videos outperform still images 9 times out of 10 in results and cost per result on social media.

Even if the video you have is not the “greatest” or the most “professional” we’d usually still recommend using it over still images.

You have to remember that people are on Facebook to socialize with their family and friends. They didn’t log on to specifically look at your ad campaign.

So, you have to make your ad creatives visually appealing enough to make them want to stop scrolling and pay attention!

Videos are usually your best bet at doing that. They convey a lot of information visually and in a quicker fashion.

Also, several studies have proven that more users prefer watching videos among other form of content.

Add that to the fact that this ad type highly converts.

According to a research done by Adobe, users who watch videos are 1.81x more likely to buy a product or service compared to those non-viewers.

And also, TechCrunch says that the average ad revenue per user increased to 50% in the US this year.

Rather than if the user had to read a long caption or click over to a website to learn more.

Having said that, there still are many cases where static images still do their job well!

Carousel images for example are great for ecommerce clients because users can quickly scroll through…

…products and do a little shopping right there on their Facebook newsfeed!

By the way, those scrolls are trackable, allowing you to retarget them even if they don’t click!

We also offer graphic design services that can help take an ordinary product photo to the next level!

When it comes to the copy of your ad, LYFE Marketing has very specific methods we use that we see work.

The biggest key is to make the ad not sound like an ad.

As a marketing agency, we’re not ignorant to the fact that most people on social media are saturated with ads every day.

Most people think of ads negatively! Yet still, many of our clients are seeing a profit from the ads we run for them.

Why is this? It’s because we have specific methods to help ads look and read more like a regular, shared social media post.

As opposed to a “buy this now” type ad.

Remember, as we stated earlier, relationship-building is the key for small to mid-sized businesses.

If you can provide value to the customer through educational how-to’s, free e-guides etc., they’re more likely to trust and…

…interact with your brand than if they just see your ads shoving sales prices into their newsfeed right out of the gate.

All Of This Sounds Good In Theory…But Does It Really Work?

This is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

Just like any digital marketing company, of course we’re not able to say that…

…these strategies will guarantee you sales every single time for every single business.

However, what we can tell you is that these strategies have worked for the larger majority of our clients.

Watch this video to find out how a new small business generated their first $18,000 in revenue through Facebook Ads.

While we can’t guarantee sales, we’re just earnestly sharing the strategies that do help the vast majority of our clients see sales.

Conclusion

There are ways to make money with Facebook ads, and today we’ve shared a few of the best methods that we’ve seen work for our clients!

Want to be our next successful case study and client?

Contact us today to speak with someone from our business development team about how we can help your brand make money with Facebook ads!