How to Run Your First Facebook PPC Campaign (if You Have no Experience)

Author: Neil Patel / Source: Quick Sprout Facebook’s reach is insane. What started out in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room has gone on

Author: Neil Patel / Source: Quick Sprout

Facebook’s reach is insane.

What started out in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room has gone on to revolutionize the world.

This means one thing for online marketers: boundless opportunities.

Of course marketers have been using Facebook organically for years, but recently Facebook PPC has become the go-to marketing trend.

It’s interesting because I remember not all that long ago that pretty much the only PPC platform on marketers’ radars was Google AdWords.

It was AdWords or nothing.

But with Facebook having 1.86 billion monthly active users as of Q4 of 2016, it’s easy to see why Facebook PPC has exploded.

Just look at Facebook’s growth from 2008 to 2016:

But I know from experience that getting started with a new PPC platform can be a little harrowing.

You want to make sure you’re not wasting your marketing budget, and you want to get legitimate results from the money you’re putting in.

This article is intended for those of you who are just getting your feet wet with Facebook PPC and have no experience.

I’m going to walk you through the initial steps so you can set up your first ad and feel confident that it will perform well.

Choose an advertising objective

One way that Facebook PPC differs from platforms like AdWords is that advertisers can have several different types of objectives.

While on AdWords your goal is to drive qualified traffic to your landing page, on Facebook, you can have multiple objectives.

Here are just a few examples:

Building brand awareness
Generating leads
Getting people to install your app
Getting store visits

It’s important you have a crystal clear idea of what you want to accomplish as it will dictate the specific approach you take.

I recommend doing some brainstorming beforehand so you know exactly what your advertising objective is.

Here’s the first thing you’ll see when starting your campaign:

Let’s say your objective is to increase engagement by getting more page likes.

You would click on “Engagement,” and this would pop up at the bottom:

Facebook will give you a generic campaign name. In this case, it’s “Engagement.”

But you can replace it with whatever campaign name you choose.

I’ll just use “Neil’s Engagement Campaign.”

Once you’ve entered your campaign name, click on “Create Ad Account.”

From here, you’ll need to choose your country, currency, and time zone.

Selecting your audience

Here’s where it gets a little trickier.

The first thing you need to do is select your audience.

It’s crucial that you zone in on your target audience and be as specific as possible.

Otherwise, you may end up wasting money if irrelevant or unqualified people find your ad.

Here’s what you’ll see:

This is pretty self-explanatory, but you need to be meticulous about filling out this info, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar business with a limited demographic in a particular region.

Don’t assume that you want to target “everyone in this location.”

Instead, carefully consider who it is you’re trying to reach.

Where do they live?
How old are they?
What is their gender?
What language do they speak?

This is why it’s so important to have a clear understanding of your target audience. If you’ve never gone through the process of creating and understanding your target persona, this is a good time to do so.

Just below this, there is “Detailed Targeting” and “Connections.”