Long before anyone was learning TikTok choreography or saying regrettable things on Twitter, there was Facebook. Though it’s still the most widely-used social network in the world, B2B marketers don’t always see it as a viable platform for generating leads. It’s easy to dismiss Facebook as a place for sharing memes and getting into arguments with your least favorite uncle when LinkedIn is right there, ready to get down to business. Easy, but wrong — because with the right strategy, Facebook is a viable channel for B2B marketing.
What Are Facebook Ads?
Facebook Ads is the name for Facebook’s integrated advertising platform. Ads show up in users’ news feeds and sidebars based on the targeting options selected by the advertiser. User activity (both on and off Facebook), demographic data, profile details, and device information can all be determining factors in which users see a particular ad.
Are Facebook Ads Right for B2B?
Conventional wisdom says that Facebook is much friendlier to B2C than B2B when it comes to marketing. However, most companies — 91%, according to one survey — are hedging their bets by investing in a Facebook presence to reach their leads and customers. In another survey, Facebook tied with LinkedIn as the social advertising platform with the highest ROI. If you don’t find ways to connect with your prospective buyers on Facebook, somebody else will.
There are several advantages to using Facebook Ads. Facebook’s vast user base and flexible ad budgeting options provide marketers with a great environment to experiment, test, and refine their campaigns. Another advantage is that ad placement isn’t limited to the platform itself. Facebook Ads can also appear on Instagram and other apps that are part of the Facebook Audience Network.
How to Succeed with B2B Facebook Ads
One thing separates the B2B marketers who get their money’s worth out of Facebook Ads from those who walk away convinced that the whole platform should be abandoned to the B2C crowd: a winning strategy. Come at it with an unfocused approach, and you’re likely to see your budget drained on messages that get lost in the noise. If you want to leverage the strengths of Facebook to run a marketing campaign that delivers, here’s how to do it.
Know Your Goal
Before you can make any smart decisions about the direction of a campaign, you have to know what you’re trying to achieve with it. Different goals mean different messages – and different metrics for measuring success. There are three campaign objective categories for Facebook Ads, each of which correlates with where your potential buyers are in the sales funnel.
Target the Right Audience
Creating buyer personas can help you get your ads in front of the right sets of eyeballs. The more you know about the people who decide whether or not to buy your product, the more effectively you can reach them with Facebook Ads. The targeting options Facebook provides are pretty robust. In addition to the usual demographics, you can segment your audience by interests, life events, job title, employer, industry, political leanings, and much more.
Serve the Right Audience the Right Ad
A famous philosopher once said, “The medium is the message.” In other words, the format you choose for your ad is a big deal. You can select either photo or video Facebook Ads, along with some mixed-media options like stories and carousel ads.
Give Your Audience Relevant Ad Content
Facebook Ads has a built-in system that lets you know whether your audience is finding your ads relevant or not. It does this by giving your ad a constantly updated score between 1 and 10. If users view or engage with your ad, that brings the score up. Hiding or reporting the ad brings it down. With or without Facebook judging you from the sidelines, delivering relevant content to your audience is extremely important.
Efficiently Manage and Integrate Ads
A Facebook Ads campaign should always be part of a broader multichannel strategy. One of the most effective ways to use Facebook is to take advantage of its targeting options. You can efficiently run multiple campaigns for different audience segments at various points in the sales funnel. It can be a lot to stay on top of, which is why it’s so important to have tools to manage your campaigns and integrate them with your marketing activities.
Use Facebook’s Strengths to Your Advantage
At first blush, Facebook might seem like an environment where brand awareness is the best B2B marketers can aim for. But if you can get the right content in front of the right users, there’s no reason you can’t drive home conversions too. B2B companies can get great results with Facebook by focusing on their goals and crafting targeted, relevant ad campaigns. The key is to know your audience, listen to what they want, and use the platform’s strengths to your advantage.
This is a good article although we’d also point out that actually 3pd is also a good option for targeting B2B audiences within Facebook. Being able to target by seniority, turnover, age of company is all possible by working with a 3pd provider