Now is a good time to think ahead about the latest trends predicted for Facebook and Instagram advertising in 2020. The platform is constantly changing and staying informed can go a long way to getting better advertising results and staying ahead of your competition. The following comes from episode 235 of the weekly podcast Perpetual Traffic.
Use a Variety of Ads Types
As the Facebook advertising platform becomes increasingly saturated it will be more important than ever to cater to your audience. Make sure you have 4-6 ads are running at once for each ad set in your Facebook campaign and that each ad uses a different ad type. For example, you could use image, carousel, video and slideshow formats concurrently. People prefer different types of ads and you want to appeal to all of them.
Use 30 Day Lookalike Audiences
In case you aren’t familiar with them, lookalike audiences are audiences you target based on an existing email list or website visits. You may for example, upload your donor list and create a lookalike based on it. Facebook will then use machine learning to identify new people who are similar to them and most likely to convert.
You can also create a lookalike audiences based on real time conversion data. This constantly updated information provides Facebook with the ability to more effectively zero in on the right people. This can be done by leveraging the Facebook pixel you place on your website that is used to help Facebook track conversions and visits to your website.
Let’s say for example, that you are promoting a free online class and have set up a campaign that is optimized for leads so you can track registrations. You would create a new audience based on leads captured over the last 30 days as shown below. To make sure you only track leads for the campaign you are working on make sure to add the correct confirmation page URL that leads to a conversion.
Improve Your Landing Pages
Too many advertisers work on creating high quality ads but neglect the landing pages their ads send people to. This can have a major impact on your campaign. According to Digital Marketer, if you can get twice as many people to convert on your landing page you have effectively halved the amount it costs to acquire a conversion through advertising. The easiest solution is to create two versions of your landing page and use a third party tool to show both versions and then pick a winner. Search for “split testing tools” on Google and you will have plenty to choose from.
The load time if your landing page can also make a big difference. Every one second increase in load time reduces your conversion rate by 7 percent. One in four will abandon a page that takes four seconds to load. Plus, Facebook looks at what people are doing on your landing page. If it sees a lot of people bouncing off your page that indicates a poor user experience and they will penalize you by showing your ad less and raising your costs.