Web Profits How To Use Facebook Ads To Drive Growth PDF

How to Use
Facebook Ads to
Drive Growth
A powerful tool for marketing your business at different
stages of the sales funnel.
Intro
It’s no secret that Facebook Ads are a powerful tool for marketing
your business. As of March 2016, more than 3 million companies
were taking advantage of the platform, and their spending
represented 19% of the $70 billion spent worldwide on mobile
advertising.
That said, I’m not going to use this guide to tell you how to
set up Facebook Ads or showing you all of the platform’s various
features – you can find that kind of technical ‘how-to’ info
anywhere – and I’m not here to rehash something you can find
elsewhere online.
What I want to share with you is something vastly more

important to the overall success of your campaigns: how to use
Facebook’s targeting options to reach target audience members at
different stages of your sales funnel.
Armed with the practical knowledge you’ve picked up from

other resources (or from running your own campaigns) this
strategic insight will help you maximise your business’ growth
with Facebook Ads.
Why Facebook Ads?
As a marketer, you have dozens of channels into which you can invest your
advertising spend, from paid ads like those found on Facebook and Google’s
advertising platforms, to content marketing, social media marketing and more.
So why Facebook Ads?
In practice, Facebook Ads are one of the best growth drivers for business –
possibly one of the best growth channels in general – thanks to the
unprecedented level of control the network’s extensive social data offers when
it comes to demographic and psychographic targeting.
Let’s talk specifics:

As of January 2017, Facebook reached 1.87 billion monthly active users
worldwide, relative to Twitter’s 317 million, Snapchat’s 300 million and
LinkedIn’s 106 million (Instagram, which counts 600 million active users,
is owned by Facebook).
Image Source: Statista
HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 3

Thanks to Facebook’s inherently social nature, the platform has captured
significant volumes of personal data – from users’ occupations and
interests to their social connections and the brands they like. These data
points, among others, give advertisers an incredible level of control when
targeting their messages.
Facebook offers a wealth of tools for brands hoping to reach Facebook

and Instagram users, including the ability to upload customer data to
Facebook as part of a Custom Audience, to target these groups with ads,
and to create Lookalike Audiences consisting of users with similar
characteristics as those found in your Custom Audiences.
Facebook Ads’ matching algorithms leverage the latest in machine

learning, which helps ensure the right ads are shown to the right people,
at the right time. This makes using Facebook’s automatic bid optimisation
option not just an easy one for marketers, but an effective one as well.
The network’s broad reach and extensibility means that a tremendous

number of tech tools are available to help advertisers target and scale their
campaigns. Take, for example, Experian Marketing Services’ Facebook
integration, or tools like Qwaya, Driftrock and others that facilitate the
process of placing, testing and measuring ads.
Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords
The Facebook Ads platform is often lumped into the general pay-per-click
category with another popular platform – Google AdWords. And although they
share some features, advertising on these two platforms requires a very different
approach.
Google AdWords, for starters, is a search-based platform. When someone

searches for something online, you can use AdWords to put your ads in front
of them. The exact position of your ads is based on your bid and your website’s
quality. The only way you can gauge user intent is by the specific queries they’re
entering.

Imagine you sell Converse shoes. While you could run AdWords campaigns
based on broad queries like ‘online shoes’ or ‘men’s shoes’, you’d likely want to
tailor your ads to keyword phrases like, ‘buy Converse Allstars online’, ‘Converse
shoes [your city]’ or even ‘best price Converse Allstars online’. These more
specific queries indicate that searchers are ready to buy. Putting your ads in front
of them at that point gives you the best odds of driving business.
In this way, Google AdWords is essentially the ‘easy way out’. Searchers are
already showing interest in what they’re searching for (and what you’re selling).
Facebook Ads, on the other hand, are a little more complicated.
On Facebook, people aren’t searching for anything in particular. In fact, they

generally aren’t searching at all. They’re there to pass the time, to connect with
friends and family members or to be entertained by the content they encounter.
This poses a major challenge to marketers. Despite your ability to drill down in
your targeting options to ensure your ads are reaching the people who are most
likely to be interested in your products or services, you’re still presenting a
commercial message in what they perceive to be a non-commercial space.
You’re still “interrupting” their social experiences with advertising.
Resolving this potential conflict comes down to your ability to identify intent. In
fact, I’d argue that intent-based targeting is the most important factor in making
your Facebook Ads successful, while the ads you create are secondary, based on
the audiences you’re targeting.
The Converse shoes ad campaign we talked about earlier, for instance, would be
out of place if the Facebook user hadn’t expressed any interest in a purchase.
You can see how it’d be significantly more welcome if the user had just finished
searching Google for Converse shoes.
With Google AdWords, intent is indicated within the search itself. On Facebook,
your path to advertising success is more complicated. In addition to identifying
intent, it’s up to you and the ads you create to build relationships and stoke
desires – all within an environment users would prefer to be free from
advertising messages.

Gauging Intent with
Facebook Ads
On Google, you can identify buyer intent

by the phrases they enter into the search
field. Intent on Facebook, on the other
hand, is all about behaviours – and those,
we identify through Audience Targeting.

Here’s how it works…
When you launch ads on Facebook, one of the first choices you’ll have to make
is what specific audience you’ll target. You have three options for targeting your
ads by audience characteristics:
Custom Audiences
Lookalike Audiences
Core Audiences
Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail to see how they can be used to
measure intent.
Custom Audiences
Facebook Custom Audiences let you leverage your existing customer data to
target your ads towards your current customers or to people who have had some
type of measurable engagement with your brand.
Some estimates put the cost of attracting a new customer at five times more
expensive than selling again to an existing client. This is why Custom Audiences
perform better than other types of ads; you’re able to use them to reach people
who already have a relationship with your brand.
Custom Audiences can be based on:
Your existing contact lists (email addresses and phone numbers)
Users who have visited your website (based on Facebook Pixel tracking
data)
Those who use your mobile app

Those who have engaged with you on Facebook (for example, by Liking
your page, watching your video or clicking on a previous ad)
Ads based on these segments will perform better than ads marketed to more
arbitrary Core Audiences, as you can use them to reach those who are already in
your funnel and who have demonstrated some type of buying intent.
For example, you could target:
Your existing customers (perhaps to offer a coupon code for a future

purchase)
Customers who have purchased more than three times with you (these are
the people who are most likely to buy from you again in the future)
Those who visited your shopping cart but didn’t buy (in order to offer a
cart-completion reminder or incentive)

People who visited one or more pages on your website but didn’t convert
(in order to drive them back to the website to take action)
Those who have a specific leadscore in your CRM system (based on how
much they’re engaging with your email marketing and website)
The hottest leads in your pipeline, securing conversions that might other
wise go to your competitors
People who purchased something from you in the past (in the hopes of
re-activating them for future purchases)
The list goes on, but these examples alone should get you thinking about all the
different combinations of website, email, app and phone data you could use to
target your ads. Just remember: Custom Audiences are where you’ll generate
leads and/or sales.
As an example, take the specific Custom Audiences marketer Paul Ramondo

creates as part of his ELOPE Facebook funnel creation strategy:
When plugged into his system, Ramondo claims to have been able to create ads
built around these Custom Audiences that have driven $163,969.49 in 43 days, off
a $5,989.09 spend.
JackThreads, a men’s streetwear shopping club featured in a Facebook case

study, also used Custom Audiences to meet their goals (in this case, driving
1 million new email opt-ins).

At first, JackThreads started with Core Audiences, aimed at reaching men ages
18-30 who had past Likes and proven interests around hip hop and rap music (for
example, having Liked the artist Drake).
As their email list grew, JackThreads used Custom Audiences, uploading

segments of its 2 million member email list such as ‘people who haven’t opened
an email in 30 days’ and ‘people who have never opened an email’. Each of these
segments was then targeted with relevant messages and creatives designed to
drive brand name awareness, ultimately driving leads to the ‘Conversion’ funnel
stage. As a result of its targeting efforts, JackThreads was able to drive:
30% lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA) for new member sign-ups than on

other advertising channels

6X return on advertising spend when using Custom Audiences
500,000+ new members acquired through Facebook Ads
Lookalike Audiences
After Custom Audiences, Lookalike Audiences are the next-best-converting type

of audience.
Charlie Lawrance, writing for Social Media Examiner, describes four types of
Lookalike Audiences Facebook marketers should try:
Lookalike Audiences based on those who have already watched your

Facebook videos
Lookalike Audiences based on your email list subscribers
Lookalike Audiences based on those who have triggered a lead event

action on your website
Lookalike Audiences based on those who already ‘Like’ your page

Though his list isn’t exclusive, the options above represent a good place for most
new Facebook advertisers to start.
To create a Lookalike Audience, you’ll take the same customer list, retargeting/
website data, Facebook connections or app data you used to create your Custom
Audiences and ask Facebook to create a Lookalike Audience comprised of users
who share similar qualities and characteristics.
When you’re creating your Lookalike Audience, you’ll be given the opportunity
to choose between a 1% and a 10% match (based on an individual country’s
population on Facebook), as well as to specify a target country where you’d like
leads to reside.
Lower-percentage matches (starting at 1%) pull the leads that are most
similar to the members of your Custom Audience.
Higher-percentage matches (as high as 10%) pull broader audiences that

may not be as closely related to your initial group of audience members.
Understandably, higher-percentage matches will create larger groups of

users than a more selective lower-percentage match. Currently, in the U.S. a 1%
Lookalike Audience includes about 2.1 million people; in Australia, it’s around
157,000 people (note: each percentage point represents 1% of the number of
people who use Facebook in each country).

When you first start using Lookalike Audiences, begin with a 1% match and
increase your percentage points from there as needed (making sure to exclude
your previous audience from your next campaign). Expect that your conversion
rates may go down as your audience grows larger and their specificity
diminishes (though this doesn’t occur in all cases).
You may find that the demographics of your Lookalike Audience don’t match
what you expected from the makeup of your Custom Audience. Facebook
software engineer Ben Savage talks about how the way Lookalike Audiences are
created influences the final grouping in an article on the SumDigital blog:
“When Facebook creates lookalike audiences

from a custom audience, all kinds of features are
considered. Age, sex, and location are factored in,
but so are other things like likes, and interests. The
automatic algorithm which creates the lookalike
audience attempts to find common patterns among
the audience, and age/sex distributions are not
necessarily the strongest correlation. As such, there
is no certainty that the lookalike audience and
custom audience will have the same composition
of demographics.”
The key to making Lookalike Audiences work is to use the cleanest data source
possible so that Facebook’s algorithms will match your audience with the right
people. As a rule, it’s always better to use a smaller, more accurate source of
audience data than a larger, inaccurate list.

Imagine, for example, that our athletic shoe seller decided to get into Lookalike
Audiences. If they had to choose between a small list of customers who
purchased within the last three months and an un-scrubbed list of freebie email
subscribers built over the past three years, they’re almost certainly going to get
better results from the customer list.
Now, here’s how Lookalike Audiences can work in the real world…
Wellness coach Kathleen Kastner decided to try Facebook Ads marketing around
the same time that the platform was rolling out stricter restrictions on what
kinds of language could be used with regards to promises of weight loss.
To navigate these new requirements and optimise her ad spend, Kastner

partnered with Wahida Lakhani who helped her create a piece of ungated ‘epic’
blog content, which was then promoted to a Lookalike Audience made up of
Kathleen’s existing email list, filtered by those who also followed wellness guru
Kris Carr, and followers of the page ‘Forks Over Knives’.
According to Lakhani, the campaign was able to achieve a CPC of just $0.65, a
relevance score of 10/10 and a CTR of 5%, beating the industry average of 1-2%.

Core Audiences
A Core Audience is one you build using Facebook’s built-in targeting features.
For instance, you might build your Core Audience around:
Location
Demographics
Interests
Behaviors
Connections
Location-based audiences
These are defined by users’ locations within established country, state, city or
postal code boundaries. Local businesses might use these targeting features to
ensure their ads aren’t displayed to those outside of their geographic areas,
while e-commerce sellers might use them to exclude buyers who live in
countries they don’t ship to.
Demographic targeting options
On Facebook these might encompass age and gender, but might also include
things like education, employment, household/marital status and other lifestyle
details (such as generation or ethnic identification). Some of these targeting
options are only available within the U.S.; others are open to marketers
worldwide.
Interests-based audiences
Interest-based audiences can be be controlled according to the interest

information Facebook has captured about its users. This information is
typically gathered based on the posts users share on their profiles, the pages
they Like and the apps they use, and is broken down by categories and
subcategories that enable advertisers to hone in on specific interests (such as
the sports they enjoy, the TV shows they watch or the types of clothing they
purchase).

Interests-based audiences - Detailed Targeting
Behaviour targeting
Behaviour targeting typically relies on data made available by third-party

sources, on users’ internet activities, past purchases or pre-purchase
behaviors. Partner data, for instance, may reveal the likely creditworthiness of
users, their willingness to donate to charity or their interest in travel. As with
interests-based targeting, multiple behavior categories and subcategories exist
(and may not be available in all locations).
Finally, Facebook Ads can be targeted to people who already have connections
with your business. This could include people who have Liked your page, those
who attended a past event of yours or those who interact with your Facebook
app.
All of these targeting options have their place, but Core Audience targeting
is generally the least effective type of targeting. When you use Core Audience
targeting, you’re targeting by characteristics – not necessarily actions or
intent. Just because somebody likes ‘running’ as an interest, for example,
doesn’t mean they’re necessarily interested in purchasing running shoes at
the time.

There are exceptions to this rule, of course. Targeting based on hobbies, sports
fanaticism or passions where users are particularly interested in specific topics
may be enough to convert them right away. In general, though, with Core
Audience targeting, the users you reach will be ‘cold’ to your brand, making them
among the hardest to convert.
Narrowing down your Core Audience with multiple behaviors and interests (now
possible, thanks to Facebook’s conjunctive targeting feature) can help.
Take the example of fitness pro Mary E. Fernandez, who used Facebook Ads to
promote her pregnancy fitness program, Bumpstart.

Through Facebook Ads, Fernandez was able to add 532 new subscribers to her
list in 43 days, for a total cost of $227.05.
In her words, the most important factor contributing to her success was her
ability to leverage Facebook’s behavioural targeting features:
“Facebook allows you to target women or men, so

that part is simple. But how do you target pregnant
women? Well, on Facebook, pregnant women tend
to ‘like’ pages about pregnancy.
Thankfully, Facebook offers a targeting option for

that. Taking it one step further, you can also target
women who ‘like’ pages related to fitness.”
Another example from VeeRoll shows how Core Audiences can be combined
with Lookalike Audiences to achieve even greater results.
As part of their campaign, VeeRoll offered new subscribers a 30-day free trial
to the PRO version of their video ad marketing tool.
Their campaign on Facebook consisted of two phases, incorporating ‘cold’

interest-based targeted users, Lookalike Audiences based on existing email
subscribers and ‘warmer’ visitors who engaged with an earlier ad.

VeeRoll’s Anja Kicken describes how the two phases were structured in more
detail below:
At the end of the campaign, VeeRoll had attracted 122 new trial customers in two
weeks, with an ad spend of $2,500 – all thanks to the power of Facebook Ads’
targeting options.

Choosing Your Audience
Targeting Options
Knowing all of these audience targeting

options is one thing; building them into
an active campaign is another.

If you’re struggling to determine how and when to use each of these options,
consider the following list. Most businesses can use this sequence – prioritised
in order of effectiveness – to use Facebook Ads for growth:
Step #1 – Custom Audiences
First, base Custom Audiences off of existing customer data, including

emails and phone numbers
Second, build Custom Audiences off of retargeting data, including

website visitors and app users

Third, create Custom Audiences off of Facebook engagement data
Step #2 – Lookalike Audiences
First, create Lookalike Audiences off your customer data

Second, build Lookalike Audiences off your retargeting data
Third, try Lookalike Audiences based on your engagement data
Step #3 – Core Audiences
Build Core Audiences off of any demographic data you have, narrowing
your target audience as much as possible
You may not even need to use this many steps. You may, for example, find that
creating Custom and Lookalike Audiences based on your existing customer
data drives enough conversions to meet your advertising goals or uses all the
budget you have to allocate to Facebook Ads.
However, if you’ve taken the first step recommended here – building Custom
Audiences off your customer data – and want to take your campaigns further,
move on to the remaining steps in order to scale your results.

Tying Your Facebook
Ads to Your Sales Funnel
This is where your understanding of your

company’s sales funnel and the intent of
your audience members comes into play.

Proper audience targeting is a must when it comes to Facebook Ads, but it’s only
half the battle. In addition to determining who you should be reaching out to, you
also need to carefully consider what you’re telling them.
Take your general sales funnel, as pictured below:
Image Source: Sujan Patel
Let’s briefly break down each of these funnel stages before jumping into what
they mean for your Facebook Ads campaigns:
Exposure is all about general awareness – think of it as the first time

someone encounters your brand. This may happen on your site or on
another web property (yours or someone else’s).
Awareness involves prospects taking early actions to learn more about

your brand, such as visiting your website or reading your social media
posts.
Trust/credibility requires that you prove to prospects that you, your

products or your services have the capacity to meet their needs.
Consideration occurs when prospects think about purchasing from you

and become leads. They may reach out directly or start a free trial, but
they’ll still need help overcoming objections and differentiating your
brand as superior to your competitors’.

Your sales or conversions occur once you’ve answered your leads’
questions and convinced them of your brand’s credibility.
After sales, the advocacy funnel stage involves turning new customers
into brand advocates who like your offerings enough to refer other new
customers to you.
Finally, building relationships involves more than simple advocacy. It’s

about becoming more than a vendor to your customers and creating
relationships that exist outside of business and money.
For the purposes of Facebook Ads, we’re really only concerned about the
stages starting from awareness (we can skip exposure since, for the most part,
your Facebook Ads will be asking people to take action. In a sense, they’re
combining exposure and awareness into a single funnel stage – one that
involves both introducing your brand and encouraging new prospects to learn
more about it at the same time).
Let’s look at each of these stages in more detail:
Awareness
Targeting Options to Use
When you’re attempting to reach consumers who are unfamiliar with your
brand, but who may be good candidates for your products or services, you really
only have two targeting options:
Core Audiences
Lookalike Audiences based on your best-performing Custom Audiences.
Any customer data, retargeting or engagement data you have, upon which you
can build Custom Audiences, you’ll only have from people who are past the
awareness stage in your funnel.

What to Promote
Asking new prospects to make a purchase is akin to asking your first date to
marry you. Nobody wants to be rushed into a new relationship so quickly!
Instead, you’re better off with ad content that proves your value – ideally, content
that’s given away for free and that immediately sets your business apart from
others. This may include:
‘10X’ content (that is, content that’s 10 times better than anything the
competition has published)
Informative videos
Product reviews (though you’ll want to be careful to ensure that the

products you promote are ones your ad recipients are likely to be
interested in)
Remember the cardinal rule here as you’re planning your awareness ads:
value, value and more value.
In later sections of this guide, exposure and awareness ads are discussed
together, as they’re often quite similar in practice when it comes to Facebook
Ads.
Consideration
Because the consideration stage involves leads who have initiated some type
of engagement with your company, you’re able to use more targeted audience
segmentation options, including:
Custom Audiences, based on

Past customer purchases
Email list subscribers (from past lead magnets, free trial opt-ins, etc)

Website visits

App uses

Facebook engagements with your brand
Lookalike Audiences derived from these Custom Audiences
Using data from past customer purchases to create Custom Audiences can be
particularly powerful in this case. Although the people viewing your ads won’t
yet be customers-based on their funnel stage-setting up your targeting in this
way can help you catch the leads who are most likely to progress to making
sales.
Lookalike Ads are useful here as well because Facebook has matched the
audience with your existing customer data, making them more likely to convert
than any other non-Custom Audience.
What to Promote
The benefits promoted by ads at this stage should be geared towards moving
users towards an eventual purchase. Depending on how complex your sales
process is (or how resistant to advertising your audience is), this may take a
number of different forms:
‘10X’ content
Informative videos
Case studies that support the development of trust and credibility
Lead magnet ebooks
Product reviews or testimonials
Coupon codes

Conversion
If the goal of your paid Facebook Ads campaign is to drive actual conversions,
you’ll need to be especially tight with your audience targeting.
Remember what we talked about earlier.
People on Facebook aren’t there to shop. They’re there to relax, unwind and
connect with the people in their lives. Asking for a conversion – whether that’s
a sale, a trial subscription or something else – requires that you only reach out
to leads you believe are primed and ready to take action.
For this reason, you’ll want to limit your targeting to the following:
Custom Audiences based on past purchasers
Custom Audiences based on retargeting data that suggests leads have

made several visits to your website or used your app several times
Custom Audiences based on email engagement data that suggest leads

have increased their level of engagement with your brand above ‘the
norm’
Custom Audiences based on where prospects are at different stages of

the sales cycle within your sales CRM
Skip Core Audiences or Lookalike Audiences in this case, as you won’t be able to
ensure that they’ve had the necessary exposure to your brand to be receptive to
ads asking for a conversion.
You also won’t know whether or not they’re ready to buy, as you’ll have no
behavioral data to suggest that.

What to Promote
Tie your conversion ads to the specific products or services your data tells you
your leads are already interested in, including:
Free or paid trial subscriptions, targeted to leads who have already

viewed sign-up assets in your other ads or on your website
Prompts that drive ad clicks to landing pages where your sales team can
capture leads (generally, in exchange for some incentive)
Ads featuring the exact products users viewed on your e-commerce

website, via retargeting data
Advocacy
Understandably, advocacy ads should only be targeted to Facebook users who

have purchased from you (and to those you think are most likely to become
positive advocates for your brand).
There are a few ways you can use Custom Audiences to find these people:
Create a Custom Audience that includes your top 20% customers, based
on sales volume
Create Custom Audiences based on your own internal data of the

customers whose net promoter scores (NPSs) suggest they’ll be strong
advocates
Again, this isn’t a place to use Core Audiences or Lookalike Audiences, as it’s
only paying customers that are likely to become advocates for your company.

What to Promote
Once you’ve identified your top customers for your advocacy ad campaigns,
consider any or all of the following promotion types:
Upsells or cross-sells to additional purchases
Pushes to join your referral program
Requests for reviews or testimonials
Be cautious when using this type of promotion. Given people’s natural tendency
to be suspicious of promotions in their social spaces, it’s best used when
you’re confident that the people who receive your messages will be receptive to
becoming advocates.
Relationship Building
With a relationship building campaign, you’ll use only Custom Audiences, as

you’ll be reaching out directly to your top advocates in the hopes of expanding
your relationship further.
What to Promote
Consider carefully what kinds of content might compel advocates to step up

to the plate and send even more referrals your way. Possible approaches could
include promoting:
Special ‘insider only’ coupon codes
Invitations to join private Facebook groups or other user forums
Invitations to live, in-person events with members of your company
As with the case of exposure and awareness, advocacy and relationship

building ads are combined in future discussion, as their aims and execution are
very similar in Facebook Ads.

Putting It All Together
The suggestions above should help

you see a clear path forward for your
Facebook Ads campaigns. But to make
things even easier to implement, let’s
break down a few funnel-specific
examples by industry types.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Companies
If you sell a SaaS subscription, your target conversion will likely be a free or
paid trial (though, in rare cases, you may be seeking a full purchase from day
one). Ads like the following could help move prospects through each of the
necessary funnel stages to achieve this goal.
Exposure/Awareness
Ad content to try:
‘10X’ content
Marketing videos
Ungated blog posts
Past positive customer reviews and/or testimonials
Media mentions on major news outlets
EX: Slack’s ad prompts brand exposure with an intriguing message:
Image Source: Wordstream

Consideration
Ad content to try:
‘10X’ content
Marketing videos
Case studies
Lead magnets
EX: Digital Marketer offers

access to a library of Facebook
Ad templates as a lead magnet:
Image Source: Digital Marketer
Conversion
Ad content to try:
Free trials

Paid trials

Paid subscriptions
Lead magnets
EX: Google’s Cloud Platform

offers an incentive to give the
program a try:
Image Source: Wordstream

Advocacy/Relationship Building
Ad content to try:
Upsells to higher packages or tiers of service
Pushes for referral program participation
Requests for feedback, reviews or testimonials
Referral marketing incentives (or better referral marketing terms for top
advocates)
Access to private Facebook groups or forums
Recognition of their ‘top user’ status
EX: Dropbox’s upgrade message encourages free subscribers to try a

professional plan:
Image Source: AdEspresso

Lead-Gen Businesses
A lead-gen business is any service-oriented business that’s using Facebook Ads
to find new clients. Doctors, lawyers or consultants, for instance, might use paid
ads to drive possible clients to on-site landing pages for future follow-up.
Exposure/Awareness
Ad content to try:
‘10X’ content
Marketing videos
Ungated blog posts
Ungated white papers or case studies
Past positive customer reviews and/or testimonials
EX: Amelia Lee’s ad for her Undercover Architect program includes a

conversion aspect (here, an “ask” that viewers download her free guide), but it
also includes a personal introduction designed to increase awareness among
viewers:
Image Source: Claire Pelletreau

Consideration
Ad content to try:
‘10X’ content
Marketing videos
Case studies
Lead magnets
EX: Melyssa Griffin’s Facebook

Ad invites prospective leads to
attend a webinar to promote
consideration of her brand:
Image Source: Social Media Examiner
Conversion
Ad content to try:
Pushes to lead-gen
landing pages

Pushes to webinars
EX: Luisa Zhou’s ad invites

viewers to learn more about her
‘Live Training for New Coaches’
program:
Image: SmartBlogger

Ad content to try:
Upsells to higher packages or tiers of service
Invitations to in-person events
Special referral marketing bonuses
Extra services not available to the general public
E-Commerce Sellers
As an e-commerce seller, your primary goal is to push product (or to get
prospects to a place where they’ll be receptive to your promotions). The
following ad types will be best suited to your purposes:
Exposure/Awareness
Product introductions
Positive reviews and/or testimonials from past customers
Product reviews
‘10X’ content
Influencer/experiential content
EX: Members-only men’s streetwear shopping club JackThreads used the ad on

the next page to drive awareness in order to increase email list opt-ins:

Image Source: Facebook
Consideration
Ad content to try:
Product reviews
Product comparisons
EX: STROPS, a Slovakian fashion e-commerce seller, split tested the two ads
below to encourage viewers to learn more about their Converse sneakers:
Image Source: ROIHunter

Conversion
Ad content to try:
Product-specific dynamic retargeting ads
Product sales
Re-purchase ads (for products that run out)
Coupon codes
EX: Adrianna Papell’s ad gives a brief, visual overview of the company’s product
line:
Image Source: Hubspot

Ad content to try:
Upsells or cross-sells to related products
Special VIP-only coupon codes
Special referral marketing incentives
Invitations to in-person events, such as product launches, tradeshows,

etc.
EX: Shutterfly’s carousel-style ad presents viewers with multiple options,

increasing the odds that viewers will find at least one they like or that they’ll
increase the size of their order by purchasing more than one:
Image Source: OnlineMarketingTweaks
For complete instructions on how to set up this type of ad, check out Shopify’s
complete article.

Case Studies
For real-world examples of how

companies used the various stages of the
funnel to drive business growth through
Facebook Ads, check out the following
case studies.

Navid Moazzez
Marketer Andrew Hubbard partnered with Navid Moazzez to promote Moazzez’s
Virtual Summit Mastery program.
Before actually running promotions for the course, Hubbard carried out a
‘pre-launch’ series of Facebook ads to build up Moazzez’s subscriber list. When
the two were ready to promote Moazzez’s course, Hubbard organised his
Facebook Ads into groups targeting four types of warm traffic:
All of these audiences were sent through to a landing page for the course, using
the ad below:

In addition, Hubbard ran Facebook Ads to those who had completed the landing
page opt-in at various points in the sales process where urgency or scarcity
existed (for instance, ‘discounts expiring, bonuses expiring, price rises, live
workshops or webinars, and the cart closing’):
Upon the close of Moazzez’s shopping cart, Hubbard’s campaign had generated:
$36,449 in revenue on a $4,159 ad spend
726 new email subscribers
128 new Facebook page likes

Get 10K Fans
In early 2016, marketer Brian Moran used Facebook Ads to promote his $97
Retargeting Hacks Report, which was backed up by upsells to higher-tier
packages, additional training and payment plans.
As he structured his campaign, Moran created three separate targeting groups:
A Custom Audience built from his email list
A 1% Lookalike Audience based on his email Custom Audience
A Core Audience of cold, targeted leads
At the end of his campaign, Moran found that:
His Custom Audience produced 18 sales worth $3,496, based on an $1,800

ad spend
His Lookalike Audience drove 8 sales worth $1,546 on an $895 ad spend
His Core Audience led to $9,039 in revenue from 47 sales, based on a

spend of $5,153.33
In total, his campaign brought in $14,114 in sales on an ad spend of $8,240.17.

Design Pickle
Design Pickle, a new ‘design-
as-a-service’ firm offering
graphic design on a retainer
arrangement, used Facebook
Ads to overcome the hurdles
associated with bringing a
service-oriented new concept
to market.
The company ran a Facebook

ad to create awareness, offering
a free graphic design as a lead
generation strategy:
Leads who followed the link

– progressing through to the
‘Consideration’ stage – were
then directed to a landing page
and asked to fill out the
following form:
Not only did the form help

Design Pickle weed out
tire-kickers, it gave them plenty
of demographic data on which
to target future ads. Paired with
a retargeting campaign that
aimed to convert these leads,
the company was able to
generate $5,800 in monthly
recurring revenue with
Facebook Ads. Case Study Source: connect.io

Integrating
Facebook Ads with Your
Marketing Campaigns
Don’t build your campaigns in a vacuum.

Integrate them with the other marketing
activities you’ve scheduled for each stage
of your funnel to ensure your ads support
your overall marketing strategy.

1. Build email sequences for each stage of the sales funnel
Your Facebook Ads CTA may involve encouraging viewers to opt-in to your
email lists. If you do so (or if you want to use these sequences for other
marketing purposes), create different series with messages that are tailored to
the specific funnel stages your ads are tied to. Our Ultimate Guide to Email
Sequences gives a great overview on how to do this effectively.
2. Align your ads with other paid channels
Once you’ve gone to the effort of creating and testing different Facebook Ads,
use the assets you’ve created on other networks, as applicable, to maximise
their ROI. You could, for example, run the same retargeting ads you’ve built for
Facebook on the Google Display Network. Keep in mind, of course, that ads may
run differently on different networks. You could also use search retargeting for
each funnel stage. Use your Facebook Ads as a starting point, but don’t forget to
test and iterate as needed.
3. Start and stop your ads as people move between stages
Set up your ads so that your campaigns are automatically adjusted based on
how people interact with your site. For example, when somebody visits your
sales page, your ads should automatically change to start showing them
conversion ads.
4. Use landing pages to maximise the performance of your ad campaigns
Ultimately, the goal of your Facebook Ads campaigns is profitability. Creating

landing pages for each stage of the funnel will give you the maximum possible
return on your paid Facebook Ads investment.
Think holistically and watch for any indication by your customers that your ads
are inappropriately targeted. Your campaigns are living, breathing entities, and
it’s up to you to make the changes needed to make them successful.

Using Facebook Ads to
Drive Business Growth
Setting up effective Facebook Ads

campaigns takes a bit of work, but in a
digital world where competition is
becoming stronger every day, it’s
more than worth it.

Ultimately, Facebook Ads are one of the best channels out there for business
growth these days, but you have to approach them differently from other
channels, especially considering that you’re approaching prospects, leads and
customers with marketing messages in what they perceive as a decidedly
non-commercial space.
Don’t let that deter you. Thanks to Facebook’s extensive audience targeting
options, the platform gives you the unique opportunity to both target users at all
stages of your sales funnel and to adjust the messages they receive as they move
through your sales process.
Think smart, and focus your efforts on the right areas to stand out. With the
information I’ve shared in this guide, Facebook Ads can be one of those areas.
Are you using Facebook Ads to drive business growth? Do you map your
campaigns to sales funnel stages? Either way, share more about your experience
and the tricks you’ve learned by leaving me a note.

About
the author
Alex Cleanthous is Co-Founder and Chief
Innovation Officer at Web Profits - a digital
agency with offices in the United States,
Singapore and Australia.
Alex co-founded Web Profits in

2006 with the belief that there’s
always a smarter and better way
to do things. As Chief Innovation
Officer he is constantly pushing
the boundaries for how digital
campaigns should be delivered.
As a growth marketer, Alex is

always on the lookout for smarter,
faster and more scalable ways to
drive maximum growth with
minimum spend.
Like many Internet professionals

today, Alex is self-taught and has
evolved his expertise in digital
marketing through his love of
learning and experimentation.

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How to Use

What I want to share with you is something vastly more

Armed with the practical knowledge you’ve picked up from

So why Facebook Ads?

Let’s talk specifics:

Image Source: Statista

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 3

Facebook offers a wealth of tools for brands hoping to reach Facebook

Facebook Ads’ matching algorithms leverage the latest in machine

The network’s broad reach and extensibility means that a tremendous

Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords

Google AdWords, for starters, is a search-based platform. When someone

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 4

On Facebook, people aren’t searching for anything in particular. In fact, they

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 5

On Google, you can identify buyer intent

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 6

Custom Audiences can be based on:

Your existing contact lists (email addresses and phone numbers)

Those who use your mobile app

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 7

For example, you could target:

Your existing customers (perhaps to offer a coupon code for a future

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 8

As an example, take the specific Custom Audiences marketer Paul Ramondo

JackThreads, a men’s streetwear shopping club featured in a Facebook case

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 9

As their email list grew, JackThreads used Custom Audiences, uploading

30% lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA) for new member sign-ups than on

500,000+ new members acquired through Facebook Ads

After Custom Audiences, Lookalike Audiences are the next-best-converting type

Lookalike Audiences based on those who have already watched your

Lookalike Audiences based on your email list subscribers

Lookalike Audiences based on those who have triggered a lead event

Lookalike Audiences based on those who already ‘Like’ your page

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 10

Higher-percentage matches (as high as 10%) pull broader audiences that

Understandably, higher-percentage matches will create larger groups of

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 11

“When Facebook creates lookalike audiences

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 12

To navigate these new requirements and optimise her ad spend, Kastner

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 13

Demographic targeting options

Interest-based audiences can be be controlled according to the interest

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 14

Behaviour targeting typically relies on data made available by third-party

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 15

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 16

“Facebook allows you to target women or men, so

Thankfully, Facebook offers a targeting option for

Their campaign on Facebook consisted of two phases, incorporating ‘cold’

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 17

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 18

Knowing all of these audience targeting

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK ADS TO DRIVE GROWTH 19

Step #1 – Custom Audiences

First, base Custom Audiences off of existing customer data, including

Second, build Custom Audiences off of retargeting data, including

Step #2 – Lookalike Audiences

First, create Lookalike Audiences off your customer data

Third, try Lookalike Audiences based on your engagement data