It’s good that you are running Facebook ads, Here is a Checklist to help you to Run Profitable Ad Campaigns
Sign up for Facebook Business Manager
Generally people would use a Personal account to Run Ads, but it’s Recommended to use a Business Manager from the Very Begining. Sign up Here – https://business.facebook.com/
If it’s a Client you are serving, then ask them to add you as an Advertiser in their Facebook Business Manager.
Set up an Ad Account inside Business Manager
You can create just one account, that would be enough.
Set up your Payment Method
Please use a Credit Card as it has multiple benefits, I use SBI Air India Platinum Card, Rewards + Postpaid Payments = Super Fun
Set up a Backup Business Manager
Facebook is nuts and sometimes Bans Business Managers for no reason. Though we can appeal and get it back but still as a Caution, please make a Second Business Manager from your Parents/Siblings/Friends Facebook Account.
Set up an Ad Account inside the Backup Business Manager
Only 1 account for now is sufficient…
Analyse the Business for USP and Competitive Edge
Even before you think of ads, you have to first Analyze the Business and answer this Question. How are you Better than the Competition? What’s your Unique Selling Preposition, what problem do you Really solve? If you cannot find an answer, in that case you need to work on the Business Value Preposition first and ads later.
Define your Audience
Now the Next Thing which you need to do is Audience Research, you need to know who are you really targeting? What’s the Persona of the Audience? What’s their Gender? What’s their Age Group? What interests them the most?
Setup your Landing Page/Funnel Correctly
Please select the funnel you are going to use for advertising and make sure to complete the landing page / funnel first. Many people say we don’t have a website, can I run my ads? No you cannot do that, because you need to drive the traffic to a Landing Page or Funnel. Caution: Don’t use Facebook Lead Ads ever as the Quality of Leads there is ridculously low. The Only way to counter the Quality issue is by making a Landing Page.
Set up your Automations
In case you funnel needs any form of Automation, please set that up. Like Automated Emails, Automated SMS or any other types of Automations can be set using a Tool like Zapier, Pabbly Connect, Integromat or Integrately
Installing a Chat Option
While Setting up your funnel, it’s Highly Recommended that you set up a Chat on your Page as it helps to mitigate risk. If anything is broken then the Audience will let you know in the Chat.
Setting up your Pixels Correctly
Verify your Domain
First thing first, you have to Verify your Domain even before setting the Pixel. Use any of the 4 methods to verify the Domain.
Setting up the Pixel
There are 2 methods to set up the Pixel.
(a.) Installing it Manually in the Code (Make sure you install the Base Pixel on all pages and Conversion Script on Thank you page/pages)
(b.) Setting it up with Partner Integration using Conversion API (Woocommerce, Shopify, Magento have native integrations with FB)
Prioritising Events
After the iOS 14 update, you can Prioritize a max of 8 Events per Domain. So Please give Purchase/Leads/App Install the maximum priority, then Add to Cart, then View Page. This is the correct way to setup the Pixels.
Ad Angles (Copywriting)
Isolating Target Audience
The Easiest way to Write Copy is by Isolating your Target Audience. For Eg: We have a Target Audience of Creators, SoloPreneurs and Consultants. Talking to all of them at Once will cause issues in the Ad. You have to talk to just one Audience Segment at one time.
Defining Problems for Each Target Group
The Second thing is we need to Highlight the Problem which we are solving for the Target Market. We can research their problems on Quora, Forums, Facebook Groups, Amazon Reviews, Youtube Comments or even do a Primary Research like survey directly the TG.
Writing Short Form Cold Ads
Now based on Audience and Problems, we need to write Short 2 Line Ad Copy for each set.
Writing Long Form Ad Copy for Cold Audience
Now based on Audience and Problems, we need to write Long Form story based Ad Copy for each set. You can use Frameworks like AIDA, PAS, Before After Bridge… If you do not know How to write Copy, then I would highly suggest you to watch Words that Sell Program
Writing Retargeting Angles
It’s best to write Retargeting Ads at the very Onset, because thinking about different levels of Persuasions upfront will give you a Great Clarity on Business. Even though we can start running Retargeting Ads after 3-4 days of Cold Ads, but writing them upfront gives you a true clarity.
Ad Creatives
Select a Designer or a Designing Tool
If you are Good at Designing or Short of Funds, you can design the Ads yourself. You can use Free Tool – Canva to make Image Ads and Offeo to make Video Ads. If you have enough budget, then you can Outsource this to a Designer.
Hiring a Good Designer
The Best Designers I have hired are Interns from Internshala.com. You need to have a Company formulated to do this. If you do not have a company and are just starting out, then you can use Fiverr. You can get a lot of Stuff done from these Designers at a Very Cost Effective Price.
Designer Brief
If you are using a Designer, then share the Angles that you have written for Short Form and Long Form Ads. Give Designers any reference of How the Design should be as it helps them to brainstorm better. Tell them the Text to be written on the Ads Creative else they will badly mess up. Giving a Power Brief is very very important to prevent any to and fro headaches. You can even call them and tell them exactly what you need. Use Skype, Zoom or Google Meet for Video Calls.
Number of Creatives
You would want at least 2 Creatives minimum for Each Ad Copy. So please make min 2 different concepts for each Ad Copy.
Launching the Ads
Audience Size
Before you Launch your Campaign, please make sure that each Interest you have selected should be Broader enough for Facebook to spend money on. Generally I would use Interests having 10,00,000 (1Mn+) Audiences.
Campaign Setup
To Begin with start with ABO campaigns instead of CBO. We want to be running Conversion campaigns most of the Times unless your end goal is App Install or something else other than Sales or Leads.
You need to have Single Interest Adsets, where you are targeting only 1 Interest at a Time. This helps us to know clearly that which Interests are performing better.
Budgeting
You should start always small because a lot of things will be needed to be optimised and we don’t want to lose a lot of money upfront. So set up small ABO’s of Rs 500 each or $30 each.
Run the Test Campaign
Once you have created all the Adgroups and added all the Ad Creatives, it’s time to Run the Ads.
Generally I would trigger the Ads either at Midnight or in Morning like 8 am. Switching on Ads at any other interval does not help with right budget attribution.
Analysing Test Campaigns
How long should you run the Test Campaign?
Generally, it’s best to test each Adset for Minimum 100 Clicks as that would give us a very fair idea of our Conversion Rates. Once we have spent that much money, for all the interests that is giving us results we keep them running, we turn off all other Interests.
If you CPC is coming low, then you can also run it for 200 Clicks before turning off the Ads.
Keep an Eye on Comments
I have seen most of the People losing on ton of Sales and leads because they don’t seem to answering people’s comments on the Ads. Also if there are any spam comments, please make sure that they are deleted and those people are banned from the Page.
Keep an Eye on Chat
The Number #1 way to Optimise anything is by Talking to People visiting your Page. So Chat is very Important during this phase of Testing. Chat with them and make a note of all the Objections they have.
Winners and Losers
Once you have sent enough Traffic to the Pages, you can kill the Losing Targets and 2X the Budget of Winners right away. So push ABO’s to Rs 1000 or $60 a day and keep a track of the ROI.
Launching Retargeting Ads
Whom to Retarget?
You can retarget the Following People: People who visited the Landing Page but did not take action (3 Days Old), People who visited the Landing Page but did not take action (7 Days Old), people who have Watched 50% of Video Ads, People who have Scrolled the page more than 50% or 75%. You can use a Tool Called Connect Retarget to do better Retargeting. Generally I would make different Ad Groups for each of these segments and try to see which ones are converting better initially.
ABO’s for Retargeting
To Begin with we want to Launch an ABO for Retargeting. We will keep it very simple in terms of Budget and start with 1/4th of the Budget allocated to Cold Ads Campaigns. For Ex: If you are spending Rs 1000 on Cold Ads Campaign, we will set Retargeting Ads Budget to Rs 250 to Remarketing at max initially.
More Testing for Finding Audiences
Why more Testing?
Before we think of even Scale, we have to make sure we get the following things right. Right Offer with Optimized Copy, Right Targeting with At least 5-6 winning Audiences, Right Ad Copy, Right Ad Creatives, Right Backend Funnel. Hence, it’s Highly Recommended to Actually optimise each one of it and test more with Interests, Ads and Angles.
Find your Winners
Please make sure that before proceeding to the Next Stage you have found at least 5 winning Audiences, minimum 3-4 Ads Creatives along with winning copies.
Transitioning to CBO’s and Scale
Time to launch Your CBO’s
Once you have found your Winners, it’s time to launch a CBO campaign. Pull all the Interests inside the CBO with Single Interest Ad Groups and each having your Winning Ads. Do not stop the ABO’s before the CBO stabilises.
Maintaining Fluctuations
CBO’s are very powerful once you have added Multiple Winners inside the CBO’s then it will auto balance the Conversions across adsets. CBO’s will spend more money in the Adset Performing well. So if on one day, a particular adset does not performs, the Other ones will balance it off and the spends gets attributed to performing Adsets inside CBO. However, if you have just one Audience inside CBO, then it may work – but fluctuations will still be an issue.
Launch a Sniper Campaign
Since you have already found your Winners, it’s Time to launch your Sniper Campaign. Please refer to the Scaling Tutorials for detailed Tutorial on it.
Launch a Lifetime Budget Campaign with Day Parting
By now you must have figured out that Our Campaigns performs better at some timings then the Others. Like in our case, Afternoons just don’t perform well. So we launch Lifetime Budget campaigns spending some Rs 3k-5k ($500 – $1000) and do Day parting to the Times we have got results. This helps give good results.
Setting Up Rules
Eyes Glued? Solving Anxiety with Business Manager
One of the Biggest Issues with Huge Spends is that we have to closely monitor the Fluctuations. For e.g: If you are spending $5000 or more per day on Ads, then you cannot be literally glued to screen all the Time and it really causes Anxiety if we do that. So the Best Solution is to apply Rules at Adset levels and cut off any Adset that does not give you the Desired ROI automatically. This is Stop Loss Rule, Also make sure to set up another rule to Turn on those Adsets if they have spent any money on Previous day. This will remove your Anxiety forever.
Scale with Lookalikes
Making LAL’s
If you have received 1000-1500 Actions on your Campaigns by now, then It’s time to Scale with LAL’s. Go to Audiences and Make these LAL’s.
- Buyers LAL (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Add to Cart or Remarketing Audience LAL’s (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Lookalike of People who Engaged with your Facebook Page in last 180 days (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Lookalike of People who Messaged your Facebook Page in last 180 days (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Lookalike of People who Engaged with your Instagram Page in last 180 days (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Lookalike of People who Messaged your Instagram Page in last 180 days (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Lookalike of People who 75% of a Video Ad in last 180 days (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Lookalike of People who 50% of a Video Ad in last 180 days (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
- Lookalike of People who have bought the Full Funnel in last 180 days – Basically High Value Customers (1%, 1-2%, 2-3%, 3-4%, 4-5%)
Testing Again
Launch an ABO to test the New LAL’s just like we did it Last Time. You can now start with Higher Budgets because you already know the Drill. Kill the Ones that do not Perform
Shifting to LAL’s CBO’s
Now Since you already have Winning Ads, you have also found New Winning Audiences, it makes perfect sense to Launch CBO’s for the New LAL’s. Launch Them and bundle 5 Winning Audiences in one CBO if possible.
Sniper with LAL’s
Just like we did earlier, its now time to Launch Sniper CBO’s with each Winning Audience separately. Get that sweet spot and nail the Second Phase 🙂
Lifetime Budgets with LAL’s
Just like we did earlier, it’s time to Launch Lifetime Budgets with all winning LAL’s with Day Parting Enabled.
Read this Please
I want to Thank you from the Core of my Heart for Trusting me with your Business. I truly hope I was able to Serve you Good. If you also feel the same way, I would like to ask a Favor of you.
Ad Account Blocked?
Step 1 – Appeal
Ok whenever an Ad Account is blocked, we have to Appeal and ask the Facebook Team POLITELY, if we have violated any Policy. It would be great if you can point me to the Same so that I never make the Mistake Again. Generally writing this to the Team would resolve the issue unless you made some serious Violation.
Generally I would wait till 48 Hours of the Appeal for a Response before I start doing something else.
Step 2 – Shift
In case your Ad Account is not reinstated for a Serious Violation, I would go to the Backup Business Manager I set up. Now I would look for anything serious which could have caused the issue and not run that particular ads in the New BM. I will warm up with smaller budgets to begin wit and within a week, I will scale the Things again.
Step 3 – Rebuild the New Backup
Our Main Backup is gone, so unless you had a Second Backup – It’s time to Create a New BM. We try to use Family/Siblings/Friends Accounts. We use a New Card as well for this BM and if Possible a New System too. This is to make sure Facebook is not covering your IP tracks and you need to be absolutely careful with Creation of New BM’s.
What won’t work?
- Talking Disrespectfully to Facebook Rep won’t work
- Creating New Facebook Profile will not work
- Using VPN’s will get you in Trouble
- Using Same Billing Sources may also not work, it’s better to have more than One Credit Card at a Time
- Doing the Same Mistake of Triggering the Policy Violated Ads won’t work
- Getting Impatient won’t work