PAID TRAFFIC CAMPAIGNS
Hi, my name is Alex Copeland and I work with Richard Fairbairn and the online success model team and this is our course on Facebook marketing ‘Paid Traffic Campaigns’
In this section I’m going to be defining paid traffic campaigns in two different forms.
Now, I can pay to boost the post or I can pay for direct traffic to my target website. Please, note that I’m presenting that information in that order deliberately.
- Boost posts first and then
- Pay for direct traffic
There’s a reason for this. The thing is if you can’t master Facebook’s pay traffic to your page posts then it doesn’t make any sense to pay for it directly to your website as you could end up spending a tremendous amount of money, time and effort and have very little to show for it if it doesn’t go right.
It is better to boost the post in a strategic way that what you can understand what kind of content connects with your intended audience. Once you know this then you can drive traffic to your website. Now you’re actually covering several things at once by focusing on boosting the post;
- You can get more page likes
- You can get more branding opportunities and
- You can also get more clicks through to your target website in the form of a content link
So, here’s how it works;
POST BOOSTS
First target a look-alike audience based on your user insight demographic. You’ll get this information from inside Facebook. To explain what this does Facebook is going to show your Ads a fresh set of users, but it’s going to do it in such a way that they share the same sort of details and interest as your current page fans. People with these similarities are much more likely to also like your content. Now, don’t pay Facebook to show your post to the people who’ve already liked your page because instead you want to get fresh people to your page posts.
EXISTING AUDIENCE POST BOOSTS
The next option you’ve got available to you is to boosts your post to the people that have actually like your page already. This are your actual page fans. They know what you’re about, they know the sort of content you give out and they liked it enough to like your page. So, they’re expecting this sort of content.
SO WHY TARGET THEM?
Well, unfortunately like we said earlier, Facebook only shows your content to a small fraction of people who liked it. The only way to make sure they see it is to get your fans to click the see first option when they like your page, but not many people will know about this. Therefore Facebook will use its natural algorithm to select the initial group of people that would be shown your page content and if enough people engage with that then Facebook will show it to more. However, it’s never going to show it to 100 % of your fans that just doesn’t happen. This is why it’s a good idea to boosts your posts reach to the people who have liked your page.
The upside to this is there are enough new people visiting your page. In fact they’ve seen it and liked it so much that they’ve clicked the like button and want to see more of it. So, at least you know there are some interests there. But please understand that while there’s a certain degree of familiarity there and this increases the chance that these people actually engage with their content and possibly click through isn’t a guarantee.
EXISTING AUDIENCES PLUS FRIENDS
There’s an old saying that birds of a feather flock together and likewise friends usually have shared interests. In fact if you think about it that’s the main reason we make friends. It’s because we have certain interests in common, we have certain thing we like to talk about and that’s why we make friends, it makes sense. Well, you can apply the same logic to a Facebook marketing campaign as well because this can produce a tremendous amount of marketing opportunities.
Since your page fans also have friends on Facebook you can buy your post boosts that show your Ads not only to your fans, but to their friends as well. This is my favourite type of post boosts because it’s a cheap way of getting clicks to your target site to reach a much wider audience.
Please understand if your page has a fairly small number of likes even if you boost post after post you’ll only have this very small base to work with. If you expand that base by including your existing audience plus their friends you now have a lot more people to work with. You can spend within certain level of confidence because you know their friends usually have shared interests and will be interested. This translates to possible cheap clicks to your target site.
The best way to do this is to post a link directly to your content or your promotional page on your website that has some content. This way when someone clicks through they go straight to your website. They can read your text, but the text should call them to action. This is the cleanest way to get direct traffic cheaply using post boosts targeting your existing audiences and their friends.
DIRECT TRAFFIC TO YOUR TARGET SITE
The next option is to promote a target URL directly. This doesn’t show a post from your page instead it goes directly to the Target website and it goes along with the picture. This is a direct traffic option for Facebook and to become successful with this you have to use the look-alike audience based on your engaged user insight data. In other words your Facebook page should be mature enough; it should have been around long enough for you to get solid intelligence that you can then use to target potentially interested audiences on Facebook.
This is the best way to do this, but there are other ways you could run raw targeting. What this means is that you’re not relying on any user insight instead you’re just looking for age range in a geographic location. In certain situations this may pay off. In fact you may get better results and look-alike audience, but generally speaking you should focus on using the consumer intelligence your Facebook page gathered to target an audience very similar to people you know has demonstrated a solid interest in whatever you’re promoting.
BEST PRACTICES
First run small tests; this enables you to fail quickly. People who really know their way around Facebook run campaign after campaign, after campaign until they’re able to connect the dots and come up with one that actually works. This is why you need to run small cheap test so you can easily see which campaigns are working out and which ones have failed.
KEEP A LOW BUDGET
Make sure your budget is low. A few dollars a day for 7 days a week is good enough to see if an Ad has potential. So, you can run several Ads at once and not spend a fortune.
FOCUS ON WHAT WORKS
Let me tell you when you run many small tests the winners will stand out if they get the clicks or they don’t and that’s the bottom line. However, at this stage we’re not just looking for clicks, you’re not just looking for an Ads campaign that gets a lot of attention instead you’re also going to be looking for an Ads campaign that actually delivers conversions. You have to set up your Facebook pixel to your target website so you can track where the traffic from Facebook went all the way through whatever funnel you have in place.
I’m not just talking about traffic produce when people click on your link and they go to a content page and then leave. That’s worthless, that’s not going to help you. That traffic has to go to the content page then to the sales page and eventually make it to the shopping cart or buy page. That’s when you know your campaign actually has traction.
FOCUS ON WHAT GETS A HIGH CLICK THROUGH RATE COMPARED WITH THE CONVERSION RATE
However, to get there you’re going to have to burn through many, many different Ads. This is not going to jump out on you, it’s not going to be obvious and it’s not going to be easy. But once you’ve identified that Ad and you fine tuned it, you can scale it up that’s how this works.