Can you create the perfect campaign on Facebook? Is there a formula for success on Facebook?.. The short answer is no. But if your business has the right prerequisites, we can get close to a formula that will maximise the return on your advertising dollars before a promotional campaign. By the right prerequisites, it means that there is a market for your products, and that your business is competitive.

The following post is divided into two parts:

Part 1: Fundamental considerations you should make about your advertising.
Part 2: Specific advice for your promotional campaigns.

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Part 1

Step 1: Know your customer journey and its pitfalls

Fundamentally for advertising on Facebook, it is essential that on behalf of your company, you have an overview of what your customer journey looks like. By customer journey, we are referring to the segments in which you divide users depending on their psychological position in the customer journey. Here it is important to consider whether there may be specific reasons why users drop off along the way (pitfalls), and thereby do not complete the purchase on your webshop.

General pitfalls in customer journeys that we encounter:

• Unstructured division of messages – Are you meeting users with the ads that match where they are in the customer journey? Here you can consider whether you are communicating too many messages at the same time. Think about what the user should specifically take away after seeing your ad.
• Lack of urgency – Can you create more urgency around your ads? In this way, you not only capture the customers' attention, but you also get them to act here and now.
• Guide the customer in the direction you want them – In connection with the above point, you can beneficially have clear call-to-actions that naturally lead users to take the next action.
• Complicated checkout flow – Are you asking for unnecessary information? Does your checkout flow have unnecessarily many pages?
• Lack of information about usability – Do you visualise through your ads how your customers can enjoy your product?

Illustration of a typical customer journey for webshops:

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Step 2: Know your target groups and targeting options on Facebook

Be aware, in advance, which target groups are your "hot" target groups, i.e., which groups typically perform, and which historically have not given you a good return on your advertising dollars. If you run continuous advertising on Facebook and Instagram, then you have an extremely valuable data foundation for success before the big holidays and before your promotional campaigns.

When it comes to targeting on Facebook, you have countless options. Make sure you investigate relevant options under 'detailed targeting' in Ads Manager.

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For example, if you sell iPhone covers and want to tailor your ads only to reach users who access Facebook & Instagram via the specific iPhone model:

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Or if you sell curtains and you want to reach people who have recently moved:

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NOTE: If you have no active or historical data insight in your ad account but still want to run a larger promotional campaign? In that case, you significantly reduce the likelihood of getting the maximum benefit out of your campaigns, as you do not have a concrete insight into what works and what does not work for your webshop.

Remember to use exclusions, as this way you can ensure that you do not hit the same audience multiple times. Thus, you avoid showing users the wrong ads and thereby creating audience overlap, which creates internal competition between your ads.

Step 3: Use the right content‍

What is good content? Good content, or the right content, depends on where in the customer journey the users are. Is Facebook the first or last touch-point? Who is the target group? How well do they know your product already? etc.

However, here are some good guidelines that you can use when creating ads on Facebook & Instagram:

1. Make your message readable within 3-4 seconds.
   When Facebook counts video views on your ads, a video view is reported as soon as the user has seen 3 seconds of your video. Whether your video is 10 seconds or 2 minutes long. This also speaks to the whole "phenomenon" around people's gradually decreasing concentration ability due to social media, which actually does not result in poorer concentration abilities, but rather more distractions. With all the noise around your ads, it is therefore important that you make your ads easily readable.
   ‍Pro tip: Users on Facebook decode your ad in the following order: Image/video > headline > call-to-action > Body text > Sender.

1. Have a clear call-to-action.
   Successful ads on Facebook focus on achieving a single goal. Do not give users too many choices to consider. Guide them clearly in the direction you want them.
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2. Use video in the upper-funnel while static banners are sufficient in the lower-funnel.
   Video is a good tool on Facebook & Instagram that can more effectively showcase the advantages of your product, and generally tell more than static banners can. However, we find that static banners perform just as well as videos in the lower funnel. The reason is believed to be that users' familiarity with the product and sender is sufficient to lead them towards a purchase.
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3. Use psychological triggers in your ad text.
   In this context, I can recommend looking into "The 6 Principles of Persuasion" which deserves its own in-depth post. The 6 principles of persuasion can be listed as follows: Reciprocity, Commitment & Consistency, Social proof, Authority, Liking, Scarcity.

Part 2

Now for the fun part… Are you running promotional campaigns? Here are 3 concrete tips to maximise your benefit:

Teaser campaigns

About half a day before the sale starts, we recommend stirring up target groups a bit and creating some awareness around your webshop's sale. By running teaser campaigns, you expand your lower funnel target groups, and at the same time create the opportunity to achieve greater volume during the sale. You thereby increase awareness and create some excitement among customers, which you can take advantage of on the actual day(s).

The sale period itself

Carefully consider which offers you want to promote on the actual day(s), but also think about the timing. For example, you can be tactical and time the sale just after the typical payday, where more from your target group are potentially more ready to buy. In connection with your offers, it is sensible to avoid giving too large discounts, and thereby not lowering your average order too much. Alternative solutions to large discounts can, for example, be to offer free shipping, to give a free additional product to the first 100 buyers, or something completely different.

Final sprint

Intensify your advertising when there are a few hours left of the sale. You can create 'urgency' in the target group more easily by having dedicated ads for the last hours of your sale. You can ensure at the ad set level that your ads run according to the right schedule.

Bonus tip: Create an email sequence that runs continuously before, during, and at the end of your sale, reaching out to customers on your newsletter. This is a good way to reach the target group through multiple channels, and thereby increase the likelihood of being seen/heard.

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