Social Media Advertising Tutorial: Create Profitable Social Ads

Here is a simple-to-follow web-based media publicizing instructional exercise for you

If you've been reading our posts for a long time, you've probably seen us talking about results like this one where we're generating hundreds of thousands of revenue from social media advertising for our customers.

You can see results like this even with the right strategy!

Are you ready to take control of your social media ads and get real results?

And we are talking about more than just followers and likes, we are talking about website conversion and lead form completion here.

If you're ready, keep reading, because today we're sharing a complete social media advertising tutorial.

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This will assist you to lay the inspiration for a profitable social media advertising strategy.

So what we've prepared today may be a 9-step decision to get you started with social media advertising to avoid pitfalls along the way.

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Step 1: Research different social media platforms

Step 2: Audit what you've done so far on that platform

Step 3: Conduct a Competitor Analysis

Step 4: Set your goal and what you want from your social ads

Step 5: Make a list of the goals and pain points of your target audience

Step 6: Create Ad

Step 7: Ad A/B Split Testing

Step 8: Customize and Simplify

Step 9: Flush, Wash and Repeat with Other Platforms

Step 1: Research different social media platforms

.The initial phase in this web-based media publicizing instructional exercise is to figure out which online media stage has the biggest pool of your main interest group

Because this is the platform on which you would like to advertise.

Most people are automatically attracted to Facebook as it has the largest user base.

And as a result, it is usually a portion of everyone else's target audience on the platform.

But if, for example, your target audience is millennial women and you own an eCommerce home decor store…

...Pinterest might be a better place to start advertising.

We have a whole post discussing the top-ranking social media advertising platforms and what makes each of them so attractive, so be sure to read this post further.

But overall, you'll want to find out where your target audience spends most of their time and money.

Is it on Facebook? Instagram? Pinterest? LinkedIn?

Whatever the platform, you will want to start advertising from there first.

Step 2: Audit what you've done so far on that platform

But before we get into that, if you're interested in learning more about social media ads, you can check out our new social media advertising webinar.

Now back to our social media audit.

If you don't yet have a business account on the platform you've decided to use, you'll need to start there.

The setup process will vary slightly from platform to platform, but you'll typically want to create a business account or page.

And then, set up your ad account for that platform with the tracking pixel from that ad account.

Now, we have a post if you need a tutorial on how to set up a tracking Facebook pixel on your website that you might want to read further.

But in addition to just set up your accounts, if you haven't already, you'll want to make sure they're optimized.

So step 2 is to "audit what you've done so far" on the platform.

Because even if you already have an account set up, you'll need to adjust things to make sure it's optimized for your audience and platform.

For example, on Instagram, this might mean changing your bio to include keywords, especially now that keywords are searchable on IG.

For our purposes, we have the words "computerized promoting office" and "internet advertising" in our profile...

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...so that if someone is typing those words into the Instagram search bar, we're hoping we'll be one of the top accounts.

Or on Facebook, it could mean that the About section is stuffed in so people know how to contact you:

phone,

website, or

your physical location.

Overall, just write a list or create a spreadsheet of the things you've done on the platform to date, including:

Content posted by you,

ads you run, or

That's how complete your normal page setup is.

This is because you'll need this information within the next step of this social media advertising tutorial.

Step 3: Conduct a Competitor Analysis

In a competitor analysis for social media, you specifically study their social media accounts and ads to look at them:

what good are they doing,

what are they doing bad, and

How well your shared target audience responds to them.

So you first need to pinpoint either your direct competitors, or common interest accounts with a shared target audience, or both.

We usually start with any direct competitors you'll find.

But if they do not have social media accounts, you'll advance to indirect competitors and general interest accounts.

Also by normal interest accounts here we mean.

Suppose, for instance, you sell chess sheets, you'd potentially discover a record called ChessLoversClub or something.

They are not a competitor in the sense that they sell chess boards, but they may have an audience that is interested in what you sell.

So once you've figured out 3-5 accounts to study, take inventory:

What are they posting?

ads they are running (if any),

how they engage with their audience in comments or on stories,

what do their bios look like,

...and something else worth noting.

You then want to compare this information with the information gathered in step 2 of this social media advertising tutorial to see what you are currently doing.

Any obvious discrepancies? Are you doing anything better at them or, more importantly, worse than them?

You are looking for a clear way to what you can do differently to better connect with your target audience on social media.

Also to strengthen your social media presence.

And here's a pro tip for you: You can spy on your competitors' ads by viewing their Facebook page. Here's what to do:

Visit their page and scroll down to the Page Transparency section.

Click View All, and scroll right down to "Ads for this Page," and it'll tell you if they're running Facebook ads.

If they are, click Add Library and you can scroll through to see all the ads they're playing.

And you can see from the little gray icon if they're running ads on Instagram as well.

Even if you're studying your competitors for Pinterest or Twitter instead of Facebook…

...This tool can still give you some insight into the general messaging and creativity that your competitors are delivering to your common target market.

And once you've got yourself a list of CTAs for what you can do to improve your social media presence, it's time to move on to the next step.

Step 4: Set your goal and what you want from your social ads

Before you proceed, you need to figure out what action you want your audience to take with your social media ads.

Where are they in your funnel and, therefore, what makes the most sense for them to do next?

Exchange their contact information for lead magnets? Receive a discount code encouraging them to shop directly on your website?

We posted on Marketing Funnels and Sales Funnels, so we suggest you read both…

...if you are a little lost in this step of this social media advertising tutorial.

This is because it is important that you see the big picture of your potential buyer's entire customer journey.

With buying at a higher price point (or in the example of most B2B and service-based businesses)…

... it will take longer than viewing 1 social media ad to convert a follower into a customer.

Whereas low price buys and impulse buys can usually get away by asking for the sale a little earlier.

You need to know what it takes to convert your customer.

Also, where are your customers usually in the process when they show your ad on social media?

This is in order that you'll create an efficient social media ad campaign.

In addition to addressing your audience appropriately…

...consolidating your goal now will help your social advertising campaign run perfectly smoothly for the rest of this process.

We have mentioned in other posts that social advertising platforms design their campaign objectives by a target on the backend.

So looking at Facebook's objectives, for example, if you choose a conversion campaign…

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…Facebook is going to deliver ads to your chosen audience, who are most likely to not only click but convert.

Whereas if you select Engagement Campaign and select After Engagement in Ads Manager…

…Facebook is going to show ads to the people in your audience who are most likely to engage with your ad, but nothing more.

We've seen a lot of new advertisers start off by taking the wrong steps:

engagement campaign, or

even traffic campaign

...when they really want website sales or lead form completion.

If you choose the wrong campaign you are hurting yourself from the very beginning.

And that's because you're telling Facebook you want something different than what you want because you've chosen the wrong purpose.

And this applies to all social ad platforms, not just Facebook.

That's why this step is so important, both for them to understand how to address their target audience…

...as well as victory in setting up your campaign correctly for the technical side.

Step 5: Make a list of the goals and pain points of your target audience

And then, make a list of the problems they want to solve or the goals they want to achieve as it relates to your product or service.

This is because, ultimately, you don't sell a product or service, you sell a solution.

For example, in the example of Target's delivery service, where they deliver your Target orders from your local Target store to your doorstep on the same day…

...they are solving the pain points of their customers as they do not have time to go to the store themselves and do the shopping on their own.

Or, wanting to stay home as much as possible amidst everything that's going on since 2020.

They are selling convenience and time savings.

So if they want to make an ad about it, it's better to start with something like this:

Not enough time within the day to travel grocery shopping? Place a Target order on the same day from your phone and get it delivered to your doorstep within 2 hours.

Contrast something like Our target delivery service is awarded 5 stars in XYZ Magazine.

see the difference?

Listing your audience's Gs&Ps will help guide you in what message you need to build your ads around.

Step 6: Create Ad

You want to create social media ads that meet the needs of your audience and portray your product or service as a solution.

You may also want to consider step 4 of this social media advertising tutorial where you decide what your goal and offer will be for these ads.

So you'll want to marry both: addressing your audience as needed + giving them a CTA with your goal.

Now as far as actually creating ads is concerned, we have a complete graphic tutorial on how to design animated reel ads and more, all for free with Canva.

But the important thing we want you to stay away from is that at its core…

... If you're going to stop them in the middle of the scroll, your ad needs to address your audience with something that matters to them.

If you're talking about something your audience doesn't care about, all the fancy video ad creative and clever technical setup won't matter.

So be smart and intentional together with your messaging here.

Step 7: Ad A/B Split Testing

A/B split testing is where you test multiple ads or ad sets at the same time, changing 1 of those variables to see what performs best.

So it might look like running the same exact ad for 3 different audiences to see which one responds best.

And it can run 5 different ads for 1 audience to see which ad performs best.

If you ever run only 1 or 2 ads for the same audience, you'll be disappointed, wondering why you're not seeing scalable results.

So if you work with a digital marketing agency like Digital PGK Marketing, you'll see us use extensive A/B testing in your clients' campaigns.

This is so that we can find the combination that works to get the most results at the lowest cost.

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This includes everything from testing to:

Multiple cold audiences (which are people that haven't heard of your business before),

To set up a retargeting audience,

lookalike audience,

…even more.

It is important to note that you cannot put all your eggs in one basket with 1 audience or 1 ad and then expect results.

You need to test multiple ads, multiple audiences, and look at your campaigns as a funnel.

Step 8: Customize and Simplify

If you're doing A/B split testing ads appropriately, you may find that some ads or audiences don't work.

They don't drive results, or they are doing, but at a very high cost.

You don't want to leave those ads and ad sets running because they will continue to drive up your cost per result.

You'll want to cut out those ads so that your budget can be reallocated to ads that perform well.

And the ads that are performing well will change over time.

So it's a continuous process in which you want to stay on top after your ads run for some time.

We say "after a while" because at the same time you don't want to make changes too quickly.

We talked about this earlier in what Facebook calls the "learning phase."

This is a specified period for Facebook's machine learning to collect data about your ad.

And every time you make an edit or change to an ad or ad set, you reset the learning phase.

This extends the learning phase, which is meant to help Facebook reach and deliver your ad to the people who are most likely to convert.

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So every time you start it again, you are harming yourself.

That's why you'll be wanting to attend until your ads are out of the training phase.

Or, 50 customization events have been received within a 7-day period to start making changes.

Step Nine: Flush, Wash and Repeat with Other Platforms

Going back a step, if you have any other social media platform that was a strong second in target audience population…

... advertising there too can be beneficial for you.

Of course, keep your advertising budget in mind first.

You don't want to stretch yourself too thin financially or in terms of your time and labor.

But at the very least, clean up your accounts on those platforms, making sure they're complete, and pointing to your website if nothing else.