Facebook Ads

As the largest social media platform in the world with a vast number of users, Facebook offers businesses the opportunity to reach a large target audience, promote products and services, and enhance brand recognition. However, not everyone fully understands how Facebook Ads operate or how to implement an effective campaign to attract the right audience, increase engagement, and boost sales. Understanding this, the article below from Ad Support will share valuable insights about this advertising tool!

Understanding Facebook Ads

When running Facebook Ads, businesses not only reach and attract many target customers but also achieve important results. These include finding high-quality leads, increasing engagement, driving traffic, improving brand awareness, and increasing app installs. Facebook provides optimized advertising tools to help businesses implement campaigns effectively, boosting sales and profits.

How Facebook Ads work

Facebook uses an auction process to determine which ads will be shown to the target audience. To achieve the best results, it’s essential to understand this process in order to make efficient use of the advertising budget.

Advertising auction process

Each time an ad is set up and has the opportunity to be shown to the target audience on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, the auction process begins. This process determines which target audience your ad will be displayed to. Typically, it ensures that your ad will reach and engage with people who are interested in your ad and need the products or services you are offering. This way, you will achieve the best results within your available budget.

Evaluating ad effectiveness

Once an ad is set up, it undergoes several stages: evaluation, distribution, and optimization. During the evaluation phase, Facebook’s auction system will assess factors such as the objective, budget, schedule, audience, and content. This process helps determine whether the quality of the ad aligns with the goals and target audience.

Next, Facebook’s system distributes and displays the ad to the people within the target audience you’ve set, while also searching for those who are most likely to interact with the business.

After some time, the system will optimize by narrowing the reach to those more likely to engage with the ad. In doing so, you’ll be able to achieve the best results within the allocated budget.

How is the winning ad determined in the auction?

If you want to determine the winning ad in the auction, choose the ad with the highest total value. The total value of an ad is a combination of three factors: bid, estimated action rate, and ad quality.

Benefits of running Facebook ads

By using Facebook Ads, you can enjoy the following benefits:

Reaching the right target audience

With its massive user base, Facebook Ads allows businesses to extend their reach to many target audiences. Ads appear not only on Facebook but also on Messenger and Instagram, increasing your content’s visibility and engagement. Facebook offers detailed targeting options such as age, interests, behaviors, etc., allowing you to reach your desired audience effectively and improve conversion rates.

Low advertising costs

Facebook is considered one of the most cost-effective advertising platforms. You can start running a campaign with just a few tens of dollars. Facebook Ads are usually priced based on CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPM (Cost Per Mille). Moreover, you can easily control your advertising budget and bids, and customize ads to achieve optimal performance with minimal costs.

High engagement and connectivity

Facebook is a platform with strong and rapid virality, providing high connectivity. When users interact with an ad, their friends on the Newsfeed will also see the ad, which helps increase reach, attract attention, and boost interaction with the target audience. Additionally, Facebook offers various tools such as comments and messages, allowing customers to easily interact with businesses, strengthen engagement, and build good relationships. Through this, businesses can gather customer feedback and adjust ads or marketing strategies accordingly.

Diverse and attractive ad formats

Not only does Facebook provide optimized advertising tools, but it also offers a wide range of ad formats, such as images, videos, carousels, and collections. These formats allow businesses to create visually appealing and creative ads that engage the target audience in unique and innovative ways.

Easy and accurate performance measurement

Measuring the effectiveness of your Facebook Ads campaigns is straightforward because the platform provides various tools that offer detailed reports on campaign performance. Key metrics such as views, high conversion rates, click-through rates (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), and return on ad spend (ROAS) help you evaluate your campaign’s success. Based on these detailed reports, you can assess the performance of your ads and make the necessary adjustments for better results.

Powerful remarketing capabilities

Facebook Ads is a powerful tool that provides crucial data for running effective Remarketing campaigns through the creation of custom audiences. You can create groups based on interactions with posts on your fan page, visits to your website, or app installs, for instance. To track conversion data from your ads, it’s recommended to set up and install Meta Pixel on your website. This helps optimize your conversion ads on Facebook, ensuring the best results and cost efficiency.

Facebook Advertising objectives

To have Facebook Ads campaigns, choosing the right advertising objective is very important. Facebook offers you many advertising objectives:

Sales objectives with options for: conversions, sales by category, and number of messages. Thanks to that, Facebook will help find people who are more likely to buy products and services.

With the goal of finding potential customers for the brand, it will include: messages, calls, registrations, and instant feedback forms.

In the interaction objective such as increasing the number of video views, Page likes, or event responses, it will be suitable for: messages, video views, and interactions with posts.

If the goal is traffic, it will send people to a certain destination: a website, application, or event on Facebook. It is suitable for advertising objectives: clicks on links or landing page views.

With the awareness objective, show your ad to people who are most likely to remember the ad: brand awareness and video views.

App ads are designed to get people who install and continue using your app. Here, choose app installs or in-app events as your objective.

Set your budget and schedule

If you want to be effective, you need to set a suitable budget and schedule. To increase your competitive advantage, you should set a budget for at least 7 days. At this time, the system will help you know how to better allocate your budget to distribute and display ads to people who are most interested and likely to act.

Daily budget and lifetime budget

You can set a daily advertising budget or a fixed budget for the entire campaign. The daily budget is the average amount you are willing to spend on an ad group or campaign each day. The lifetime budget is the amount you are willing to spend during the entire running time of the ad group or campaign.

How to allocate the budget

Regarding the advertising budget allocation strategy, you can choose at the campaign level or for ad groups.

Campaign budget Advantage

This is setting a budget that is distributed and optimized in real time across all your ad groups. This is also known as campaign budget optimization, which helps you get the most results at the lowest cost.

Ad group budget

This means setting a budget for each ad group. This is useful if you want to control the delivery of your ads. Or if your ad groups have different audience sizes.

Facebook Ads content

By using various ad formats, placements, and eye-catching images with compelling messages, you can diversify your ad content and enhance the effectiveness of your campaign.

Ad Placements

This refers to selecting where your ad will appear: Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram. To determine this, you need to consider your campaign objectives, ad type, and setup. It’s recommended to choose at least six ad placements because not all placements are suitable for every ad objective.

Ad Formats

You should use the latest formats along with a combined content strategy to increase your business’s competitiveness during the ad auction process.

Images and messages

Focus on designing high-quality images paired with persuasive messages to capture the attention of your target audience. This ensures that your ads are both relevant and effective in achieving optimal results in the auction. All content, images, and advertising messages must adhere to Facebook’s advertising policies and Community Standards.

Popular Facebook Ads formats

Each ad format and placement comes with specific design guidelines and technical requirements.

Image Ads

Using compelling and high-quality images is a great way to capture attention and drive people to visit your website or app. You can either use custom images or create stock-style ads to showcase your product features or tell your brand story.

Standard technical specifications for Facebook image ads include:

• Image format: JPG or PNG with aspect ratios ranging from 1.91:1 to 1:1 and a minimum resolution of 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• Text requirements: The main text can contain up to 125 characters, the title is 27 characters, and the description is also 27 characters.
• File size: Maximum 30MB, with a minimum image size of 600×600 pixels.
• Acceptable aspect ratio variance: 3%. You can use panoramic images or 360-degree photos in your Facebook ads for an interactive experience, depending on your objectives.

Video Ads

Video ads use sound and motion to highlight product features. You can either upload pre-made videos or create new ones using the Video Creation Tool in the Ads Manager.

Technical specifications for video ads:

• File types: MP4, MOV, or GIF
• Aspect ratio: 1:1 (for desktop or mobile) or 4:5 (for mobile only)
• Video settings: H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, interlaced scanning, and AAC stereo audio compression at 128kbps or higher.
• Minimum resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• Subtitles and sound: Video ads should include subtitles and sound.
• Text requirements: The main ad copy should not exceed 125 characters, while the title and description are limited to 27 characters each.
• Video length: Up to 241 minutes.
• File size: Maximum 4GB.
• Minimum size: 120 x 120 pixels.

Carousel Ads

Allows up to 10 images or videos to be displayed in the same ad, and each image or video has its own link. This type of ad is used to promote multiple products or highlight the outstanding features of a product.

Technical specifications of carousel ads include:

• Image file type is JPG or PNG, video file is MP4, MOV, or GIF with a ratio of 1:1 and a minimum resolution of 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• The requirements for text are that the main ad content is a maximum of 125 characters, the title is no more than 32 characters, the description is 18 characters, and the landing page URL is required.
• The number of carousel cards is from 2-10, the maximum image file size is 30 MB and the maximum video file is 4 GB.
• Video duration is no more than 241 minutes and the frame rate error is no more than 3%.

Collection Ads

By showing products in your catalog and customizing them for each person, the goal is to encourage people to shop. Collection Ads in the Facebook Newsfeed include a video, a cover photo, and three product images. When someone taps on the ad, they see an Instant Experience – a full-screen landing page that drives engagement and interest.

The specifications for collection ads are:

• Image format is JPG or PNG, video file is MP4, MOV, or GIF. With a 1:1 aspect ratio and a minimum resolution of 1080×1080 pixels.
• Text requirements with main ad copy no longer than 125 characters, headline up to 40 characters, and landing page URL and instant experience required.
• The maximum image file size is 30 MB, and the maximum video file size is 4 GB.

Facebook Ads creation guide

Create a new Facebook Ads campaign and select an advertising objective

To create a new campaign and select an advertising objective, go to Facebook Ads Manager, then click the (+) icon and select +Create Campaign. The campaign setup screen will appear, you can choose to buy Auction or Reserve, then click Continue.

Choosing an objective helps determine the results you want to achieve from your Facebook advertising campaign. To choose the right objective, you need to answer the question: “What results do you want to achieve from this ad?”. Facebook offers objectives including Sales, Brand Awareness, Engagement, Traffic, App Installs, and Leads. Choose the appropriate campaign objective and click Continue.

Setting up an advertising campaign

After selecting the target, the screen will display options for setting up the campaign including the Advantage+ campaign and the manual campaign. Now, select the manual campaign and click Continue. The Facebook Ads campaign setup screen will appear, and then you complete the required information including the campaign name, Ad category, and Budget. Then activate elements such as Advantage campaign budget, A/B test, and Reporting. Then, select Next to move on to setting up the Ad Group.

Set up Facebook Ads

In the Ad Group settings interface, name the Ad Group and select the conversion location and performance goal. The conversion location will include: a website, App, Message destinations (Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp), Instagram or Facebook,… Here you can activate the Dynamic creative status bar.

Set budget and schedule

By setting a budget, you can plan your advertising in advance. When setting a daily or lifetime budget, you need to choose the period you want to run the ad. This helps you control your spending so that it does not exceed the desired limit.

When you add more ad positions, the cost will not increase. Ads created using existing posts on your page or Fanpage will default to using multi-party advertising. To make the most of your budget, you should choose the Advantage+ ad position setting (automatic ad position). However, you can still choose the desired position.

Targeting Your Ads

Once you have set your budget and schedule, create your target audience. That means finding people who are most likely to engage with your ads.

How to create an ad audience

You will decide who and where your ads will be shown to. By creating a target audience based on the characteristics of the people who want to see your ads. Narrow down your audience by factors such as interests, gender, and location. At the same time, use ad targeting to find potential customers who are most likely to take action.

How to determine your target audience

First, create an ad audience and use tracking and measurement tools to know if your target audience is specific, too broad, or appropriate. With an audience size of 2 to 10 million people, Facebook’s ad distribution system is the most effective.

A larger target audience gives you more opportunities to deliver your ads, track results, and optimize your bids. You can look at the locations, ages, and genders of the people your ads are targeting. You can use interest-based targeting to narrow your audience. These can help you target your ads more effectively to people who are more likely to respond to your ads.

Determine which audience type is best for you

You can choose the most appropriate target audience to reach:

New customers with specific interests or from a specific location. Attract and find new customers by tailoring new audiences based on location, demographics, interests, and behaviors.

When choosing a custom audience, you can connect with and target people who have shown interest in your business. This includes: loyal customers in your customer list, people who have used your app, or visited and interacted with your website content.

Using a custom audience as a base, you can target ads to audiences similar to your current audience with Advantage Lookalike Audiences.

Select Ad Placements

Here you have 2 options including Advantage+ placements (recommended) and Manual placements. You can run ads on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network depending on your campaign goals. In addition, which ad placements you can use depends on the type of ad and the ad settings. Using multiple placements at the same time will increase the number of people who can see the ad and improve results. Once you have selected the ad placements, click Next to move to the Create Ad step.

Create a Facebook Ad Template

In the ad creation interface, name the ad and select the Fanpage or Instagram account running the ad in the Identity section. In the Ad Settings section, complete the selection of options including Creative Source, Format, and Ad Creative.

In the Destination section, you have 2 options including Website and Instant Experience. Normally, the Website option will be selected more. Enter the Website URL and Display link and select the options in the Browser add-ons section and the Tracking section.

If you choose Create an ad, select Single image/video, Carousel, or Collection. Alternatively, you can use the Creative Hub to create your ad using pre-designed templates.

If you are using an existing post, click Select post in the ad content section. When the next window appears, click Select the post you want to use to create your ad. You should find the post you want to promote in your page posts and use the post ID that appears in the ID column.

Single image or video ad format: When creating your ad, select Add an image or Add video to upload an image/video from the Media File drop-down menu. If you want to use an image to create a video, click the Edit drop-down menu and add a call-to-action button, text, title, and description.

In the carousel format: Select Add card to upload a new media file or choose from previously uploaded images/videos. Next, add the website URL along with the title, and description for each card in the carousel format. Finally, add a call to action button, main text, or description.

For the collection format: To create this type of ad, you need to create a product catalog first, then add the main text, and title.

Once you’ve created your ad, be sure to check it by clicking the Review button to preview and make any necessary edits. When you’re ready, click the Publish Campaign button to finalize and launch the campaign. Alternatively, you can click Close to save the ad and schedule it for a later time.

Track performance and adjust your ad campaign

Once your ad campaign is set up, it will go through a review process before it is shown to users. Once your ad is live, you can track performance and edit your campaign in Ads Manager. You’ll understand your ad performance metrics and test results so you can adjust your ad campaign as needed.

How to optimize Facebook Ads effectively

Simplify your account structure to improve ROI

At the beginning of each campaign, your ad set goes through a learning phase. Facebook’s delivery system searches for the most relevant audiences and locations for your ads.

By combining similar ad sets in campaigns or one campaign that targets all your customer files, you can optimize your ad spending while minimizing the time and budget needed during the learning phase.

Use Advantage+ automation tools

Automation solutions like Advantage+ shopping campaigns and Advantage+ app campaigns help optimize results. This creates powerful ad campaigns across audiences, budgets, placements, creatives, and conversion destinations.

If you want more control, automate just part of your campaign with Advantage+ placements, Advantage+ category ads, or Advantage custom audiences.

Diversifying ad content

Create ad content that effectively conveys your message to people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services. By using various ad formats, you can craft creative content that attracts and persuades your target audience to take action and convert.

Implement Conversion API

Use the Conversion API to establish a direct connection between high-quality advertising data and AI, helping businesses quickly connect with customers and shorten the purchase cycle.

Setting up Conversion API

You can integrate the Conversion API directly with code or by working with platform partners such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, BigCommerce, and others, as well as Conversion API gateways. Businesses that implement the Conversion API typically see a 13% improvement in cost per result.

Conversion Optimization API

Implementing Facebook Pixel increases the quality of event matching and removes duplicate events, leading to improved ad performance. Many businesses that optimize with the Conversion API have seen a 33% increase in purchase events.

Check and learn how to optimize ad performance

Selecting the right measurement methods helps you optimize your ad performance:

Learn A/B testing

A/B Testing allows you to compare two versions of an ad campaign by changing key variables: image, text, audience, or placement. During the testing process, you should use the same budget for both versions to ensure a fair comparison. This will allow you to identify which elements are improving campaign performance and make appropriate adjustments.

Compare ad performance using conversion uplift

By comparing conversions in the test and control groups, conversion uplift will help you identify which advertising efforts generate the highest return on investment (ROI).

Facebook Ads Ad Review Mechanism

The ad review process includes many steps when advertisers create ad content and submit it to Facebook for review. Based on the advertising policy, Facebook will review and approve whether the ads can run or not.

The ad review time will take place within 24 hours after you complete the installation and confirm the campaign initiation. After the ad is approved, it will be distributed immediately. However, in some cases, Facebook’s ad review process will take longer. While under review, the ad will be in the “Under Review” status.

Review factors when reviewing ads

Facebook’s ad review system will review whether the ads violate the policy or not. It includes the following factors:

Landing page content: Review the operating status of the landing page as well as whether the content is suitable for the ad content or not.

Advertising content: Review elements from images, text, and layout to advertising objectives to see if they meet the criteria in the policy stated above.

Business Asset Review

Facebook will review and evaluate whether the advertising account, Fanpage, or user account of the business, or advertiser. This is part of the advertising review process because Facebook will evaluate whether the account and the content on the account violate the policy.

Review results

If a violation is detected at any time during the review process, the ad will be rejected. At the same time, the business account or advertising content may be restricted. Low-quality ads may not violate Facebook’s policies, but the performance of the campaign will be affected.

If the business account and related assets (ad account, Page, or user account) are restricted, you cannot use that account or advertising content on this platform. However, when a user account is restricted from advertising on a business account, other members of that account can still advertise.

Ad Review

Ads are always subject to review and reconsideration or may be rejected or restricted for violating Facebook policies at any time.

Common errors when running Facebook ads

When you start running Facebook ads, you will make many common errors, such as the following:

Ads are rejected due to content that violates policies

This is one of the common errors when running ads on Facebook. Ads are not approved, flagged for violations, or suspended mainly due to content that violates policies. Using prohibited words or violating brand copyrights, containing obscene language, adult content, or racism. Or content that is a firm commitment, sensational or misleading, before-and-after comparison advertising errors. Ads with sensitive images, brand logos, or more than 20% text, …

Ads are approved but have no reach

Although the ad has been approved, the reach is low or too little. This comes from 2 reasons:

The audience size is too small

When running ads, you choose custom audiences and detailed targeting, causing the audience file to be limited to a narrow scale. Or choose to drop the pinned ad position past the deadline and choose detailed targeting.

Low bid when bidding lower than other auction houses

For bidding, there will be a difference between the types of charges including CPM, cost per interaction video view or message sending, and CPA. Advertisers need to clearly understand the types of costs to choose a reasonable bidding level.

Facebook Ads account disabled

This is the most common error that all advertisers often encounter when running ads, causing many people to have headaches and encounter many difficulties when implementing campaigns. The disabled advertising account comes from 2 main reasons:

Due to policy violations

Facebook Ads accounts are locked due to policy violations, which can be:

• Administrators use 2 personal Facebook accounts (Profiles).
• Creating ads that violate Facebook’s policies such as promoting products, services, and content that is prohibited or restricted. The ad content contains prohibited words violates trademark copyright, uses sensitive images, or has too much text, etc.
• The landing page has content that violates the policy or the link in the ad post does not work.
• The outstanding balance on the Facebook advertising account has not been paid or the payment has not been successful.
• The account frequently violates Facebook’s advertising policies and community standards. Have a history of unclean spending and payment activities.
• When violating the policy, the advertising account used to run ads will be disabled and you need to know how to appeal.

There is unusual activity

• You log in to your advertising account to deploy campaigns on multiple devices and strange network IPs.
• Abnormal card activity: you add a stolen card or a card that has been disabled by the bank as a payment method for your account.
• The payment scanning system has failed multiple times with the linked card.
• The account is linked to a disabled account.
• Log in to multiple personal Facebook accounts on the same device and browser.
• Setting up ads with too high a budget, editing ads continuously (suddenly increasing the budget, turning on and off the campaign continuously), or deleting the campaign are also unusual behaviors.

Payment method problem

This error comes from the following 2 main reasons:

The advertising account cannot add a Visa card

When you add a payment method to your advertising account and encounter this error, it is because:

You are using an unsupported card type: you have entered incorrect card information, there is no money in the card or the card has not been activated for international payment.

The payment method you are trying to add has been temporarily locked for security reasons. That means Facebook refuses to accept your card because the card number is on the list of banks that run advertising fraud.

Because your account is set to receive invoices after the ad is distributed, you cannot set a credit card as the main payment method. This error occurs because you added a card to Business Manager that is set as a postpaid account. Or it could be because the Visa card you added to your account has a low reputation and cannot be used for postpaid payments.

The bank has deducted the money when you deposit but your Facebook advertising account has not received it yet. You need to go to the Billing section to check or contact the Facebook team for dedicated support.

Payment account disabled

The main reason for this situation is that the advertising account violates Facebook’s advertising policy. Or you use a payment card that is not your own or a Visa card that has been added to many other advertising accounts.

Adding an advertising account that violates the policy to the Business Manager will affect the accounts in the system.

Fanpage is restricted or disabled

You use a Fanpage that violates community policy or share many posts with community groups in a short period of time. During the sweep, if Facebook detects it, your Fanpage will be restricted or disabled.

In addition, it also comes from reasons such as the administrator having 2 personal Facebook accounts to manage the page. The page name is confusing or the Fanpage posts sales posts with copyrighted brands, content that attracts interactions, and views. The Fanpage Admin account violates Facebook’s policy or the account’s reputation is low.

At this point, you have a better understanding of Facebook advertising as well as how to set up and optimize an effective campaign. Hopefully, the information we share above will help you develop your marketing and business activities to achieve the highest sales and profits!

Frequently Asked Questions