Facebook, despite all of its flaws, glitches and the headaches it gives digital marketers, still remains one of the most powerful digital advertising channels of all time. 66% of the entire UK population are Facebook users – that is 44.84 million that could be within the reach of your advertising efforts in 2022. 2021 may have been the year you spent time figuring out the Facebook ads platform and you may still be feeling overwhelmed by the process and how to find success. Maybe you have made a New Years Resolution to start on the Facebook ads platform in 2022. Whatever the reason, have a look at our checklist and make 2022 the year you find success in Facebook ads. Try out some of our simple and effective tactics for ad optimisation and positive results. 

1. Know Your Objectives & Set Your Goals

Before you even enter the Facebook ads platform you need to drill down on your marketing objectives and goals. Ask yourself – what am I trying to achieve for my business? Who am I trying to reach with my Facebook ads? What stage of the journey are my ideal target customers at? If you have a clear answer for all of these questions you will be more equipped to create a campaign that is successful for your business. Facebook has 11 ad objectives to choose from.

• Brand Awareness & Reach
• Traffic, Engagement, App Installs, Video Views, Lead Generation, Messages.
• Conversions, Catalogue Sales, Store Traffic 

By choosing the correct goal and objective you are giving Facebook a better opportunity to get the right results for your business. This tells Facebook what action you want users to take when they have seen your ad – leading to a stronger Facebook ad campaign. Be wary that not all campaigns have to be a conversion campaign. Pick a campaign objective that serves your business, the type of users you want to target and where they are in their customer journey with your business.

2. Set up Domain Verification, Pixel Tracking & Aggregated Event Measurement

The dynamic trio that are the essential elements of Facebook ads account set up now, particularly post iOS 14. These guys are the key components to managing reduced tracking capabilities in the post iOS 14 era. 

Domain verification if you haven’t heard already is simply a step towards ensuring only verified owners can edit the way their content appears on Facebook. Take the step to ensure you have established ownership of your domain before you move forward with Facebook ads in 2022.

Getting your Facebook pixel installed before you start your ad campaign is crucial for tracking performance from the beginning. Whilst the pixel is more limited in 2022 than pre iOS times with the amount of tracking information it can provide us, we can still utilise pixel tracking by using the valuable details it does give us.. So don’t throw in the towel with your pixel and continue to use it to help you target the users who are further down in your marketing funnel. 

Facebook created Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) to allow them to track Events for iOS 14 users that opted out while respecting their privacy options. The data you receive from these events can be used in ad campaigns for targeting and optimising. You will not be able to set up a conversion campaign without AEM in place.  

3. Don’t Neglect Custom And Lookalike Audiences

Whilst interest targeting remains a key component of Facebook ads in 2022, people tend to forget about custom and lookalike audiences within the platform. Interest targeting will allow you to target users who are interested in certain subjects, users at various stages of their lives and a variety of other topics. As part of Facebook’s attempts to streamline targeting on the platform, they are reducing their options for interest targeting. This makes more custom and lookalike audiences more prominent now than ever.

Lookalike audiences allow you to target users who are likely to be interested in your business because they share some similarity with your existing customers. Lookalike audiences are a great way in 2022 to potentially find a new audience without doing all the homework. 

Custom audiences should also not be forgotten about. They are created from sources available to you such as your Facebook or Instagram page, your website or even a customer list. Facebook is allowing you to target a group of users who have already interacted with your brand. Therefore a very powerful tool for targeting high defined groups of people who already have some kind of a relationship with your business.

Whilst lookalike audiences could be used for potential top of the funnel customers, custom audiences can be used to target the low hanging fruit at the bottom of the funnel. Custom audiences and lookalike audiences need to be a key part of your Facebook ads campaigns in 2022. 

4. Use High Quality Content In Your Ads

In 2021, the average person is estimated to encounter between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day. It’s all about the visuals. The need to have high quality content within your ads is more important than ever to be able to grab a user’s attention for long enough to make them stop scrolling. Do not be afraid to use a variation of content to grab your audience’s attention. Some users prefer to see image content, some prefer video content and others prefer carousel content. It is important to ensure you have appealed to your audience and the variety of users within that audience.

A recent study found that people watch 85% of Facebook videos without sound. This makes it even more vital that your video content is of high quality and will grab your viewers attention immediately. It is critical to be able to stop viewers from continuing to scroll down their newsfeeds. A simple and cost-effective way to do this is to add captions to make the video eye-catching enough to stop the scroll.  Great ideas showcased in high quality videos will help get your brand noticed by your audience without you having to spend too much. 71% of shoppers find Facebook video ads shown to them to be more relevant. Video content cannot be neglected in 2022 and needs to be a crucial element in your Facebook ads strategy.

Whilst video is seen as the most popular content on any social media platform in 2022, this does not mean it’s time to neglect your single image or carousel content. Image ads remain a great piece of content when trying to increase awareness of new products or services. Be sure to make your images high resolution and use less text – your image should tell the user what your ad is about without them having to read anything. 

5. Key Metrics When It Comes To Analysing Your Data

Your data is like the secret sauce to your ads campaign and audiences – it will tell you what ads your audiences like and don’t like, which ones they are converting on, which ones they are seeing way more often than they should and which ones they are scrolling by. It would be unrealistic to assume the hard work is over once the campaigns are running, you will want to nurture those campaigns and the audiences you are targeting to find success that is right for you and your business. Some of the important metrics we like to look at when analysing our ad campaign efforts are:

• Click Through Rate (CTR) – the number of clicks  that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad was shown. Presented as an overall percentage. Aim for 2% or higher for an engaging ad that is well-targeted. 
• Frequency – tells you how often on average a single person will see your ad during your date range
• Return On Ad Spend (ROAS – if you are an ecommerce business) – tells you the profitability of your ads with revenue divided by spend. A 3x ROAS is often noted as the industry average for overall performance.
• Clicks – the number of times your ad has been clicked. Note that this is a click on your ad and not necessarily a click to your landing page. 
• Cost Per Click (CPC) – the average amount you pay per click. This can fluctuate depending on micro and macro factors. 

It is important to do some research and find out what the benchmark average is in each of these metrics for your particular industry. With a benchmark you can then decide if your ads are working for your audience or if it is time to shake things up. 

6. Stay Focused On The Whole Picture

With iOS 14.5 still playing havoc with data and most business owners and digital marketers struggling to see the whole picture on the Facebook ads dashboard – don’t neglect other platforms such as your Google Analytics, Shopify or WooCommerce data. These platforms will be able to present a fuller picture of the impact of your advertising efforts.

2021 was considered a year of doom, gloom and panic for anyone using the Facebook ads platform. With all things considered in this checklist, 2022 can be the year you achieve success with Facebook ads for your business.