Selling with Facebook ads is possible and you can make money, but it’s not simple. There is a lot to understand and implement before you can make money. Facebook connects billions of people across the world, a fact that marketers are using to their benefit. In fact, millions of businesses around the world use Facebook to connect with customers and Facebook ads to make money from them.

The case for using Facebook ads 

Facebook has a massive audience

Facebook has 2.94 billion monthly active users and 1.96 billion users visiting the platform every day. This is a number that marketers simply can’t ignore. 

Leading social media platform

Facebook remains the leading social media platform. Not only does it have billions of users, those users basically live on Facebook. They spend an inordinate amount of their day on the social media platform.

Your competitors are already there

Many businesses are making money from Facebook ads. According to 2021 figures from Facebook, more than 200 million small businesses around the world use Facebook for business purposes. 

Brands are leveraging Facebook Page to increase their online presence and reach their customers. Facebook Page enables businesses to share their contact details and what they have to offer

Significant audience numbers for US merchants

Merchants based in the US can benefit from the huge popularity of Facebook in the country. It is the most popular social media platform among three-quarters of the population. That makes Facebook marketing a no-brainer for merchants focusing on the US consumer market.

Young adults are a major Facebook demographic

When you read about the popularity of Instagram and TikTok among youngsters you may be forgiven for thinking this demographic have abandoned Facebook. Not so. No less than 58 percent of Facebook users are under 35, so they are Millennials and members of Gen Z. 

For marketers, the salient point is to know what social media platforms their target audience is active on. The trick is to market through the right social media platforms and not waste time and money on platforms not frequented by their target audience.

Facebook users reach the platform through mobile, not desktop

This is an important point for marketers who must create content like a blog for their target audiences. All content, text, blogs, photos and videos must be optimized for mobile devices. According to a 2021 DataReport study, 98.3 percent of Facebook users access the social media platform via their mobile devices. A streamlined experience on mobile must be a core goal for marketers.

Facebook emerging as a discovery platform

Consumers are turning to Facebook to find products and services. According to one 2018 report, 78 percent of US consumers have found retail products to buy through Facebook. According to the report, more than half of those surveyed use Facebook to find products, reporting that they discovered new products on their Facebook news feed, Facebook Pages, and Groups.

Facebook is no longer just a place for social interaction – the platform has morphed into a serious product marketing opportunity for businesses and a product discovery platform for users.

Advertising on Facebook – how to make money with Facebook

Many businesses advertise on Facebook, but they don’t all see a remarkable return on investment. What makes a good Facebook ad campaign? Is it outstanding copy, is it mastering converting offers into conversions, or is it detailed targeting? All these strategies are so specialized that few people can do them all very well. 

Facebook ads are a way to make money, but it is far from straightforward. In this article, we highlight some strategies for earning money through Facebook advertisements.

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Facebook advertising strategies for marketers

Create a Facebook ad that offers a solution to a problem that you understand

You must create copy that convinces your audience that you understand their problem and feel for them because you have been in their shoes before. There is nothing like authentic empathy for creating trust. If you can establish authentic empathy, you will build a bond of trust with your audience, which is the basis for any business contract that involves the exchange of money.

Tell your audience how you experienced the problem and how it spurred you to find a solution. This solution works and that is what you want to introduce to them. Explain what it is and how it was developed, and how it has worked for you and others

Remember, the point of your marketing message is not for your prospects to understand you. Your marketing message must illustrate that you understand your target audience. If you can succeed in this, you’ll create an emotional bond, which is the holy grail of marketing. Why? People make their decisions based on emotions, not facts and logic. Aim for an emotional connection with your followers. 

Time spent on Facebook

Marketers need to know how much time their target audience spends on Facebook. After all, the more time people spend on this and other social media platforms, the higher the chances that they will come across a brand’s ads.

Facebook is a great aid to killing time. Think about being on a bus or train on your way to work, waiting in line, or eating by yourself in a restaurant – what do you do? You scroll through your Facebook feed. That’s what millions of people do, and that’s when they may spot your ad. Facebook is the first thing they do on waking up and the last thing they do before turning out the light.

Use Facebook Audience Insights to target your audience 

Facebook has created a tool called Facebook Audience Insights to help businesses connect with their target audiences. But to find that target audience, you need to have more granular information so you can share the right message at the right time using the right content.

Facebook Audience Insights can provide you with information about:

• People connected to your Page
• People in your Custom Audience
• People on Facebook

Under the Demographics tab, you can apply various settings on the left side of the page and view the results on the right. 

You can make choices for:

• Location
• Age and gender
• Interests
• Language
• Relationship status
• Education
• Job titles
• Politics and life events
• Page likes

Under Interests, you’ll find many choices, with many subchoices that make this a very interesting exercise that narrows down your target audience population considerably.

Page Likes help you discover what  Facebook pages are already connecting with your audience and how your audience reacts to these pages. Are they liking them? Go ahead with your investigation and click through some of those pages to understand what these marketers are doing.

You can narrow down your target audience even further by learning where people live and what language they speak and what devices they use

Developing a target audience takes time, but it’s well worth it because you know your message will reach people looking for what you are offering. If you have a thousand or more people in your audience, you have what you need to create a Facebook ad for them.

Offer a lead magnet

Lead magnets are a tried and tested marketing strategy. It’s based on the principle that offering something before asking for something is a good policy. Lead magnets can be ebooks, whitepapers, templates, training videos, webinars, product samples, and various downloadable digital assets.

To figure out what your lead magnet should be, consider the following:

• Is it something that can be used in a short time?
• Does it offer information or insights? It’s better to provide insights rather than mere information. Insights are far more useful.
• Does it contain an actionable solution?
• Is it an easy solution, would a child of eight be able to follow it?

Use custom and lookalike audiences

One of the best marketing features Facebook offers is the ability to really hone down to create a sharply defined target audience. Facebook extends this support with two additional audience targeting options.

With Facebook Custom Audiences, you can create different types of custom audiences for your campaigns. These include website visitors, previous customers, your app users, and more.

Lookalike Audiences

This is a brilliant Facebook feature. It enables marketers to target people with similar characteristics as their established target audience. This feature boosts businesses’ ability to make money with Facebook because it helps them reach an audience of people who are similar to their existing customers.

Consider paid subscriptions

This way to earn consistent income from a customer base was initiated by the software industry, which has switched from the licensing model to a web-based subscription model. This trend has bled into other sectors that recognize the sense of asking followers to pay a monthly fee to use their product indefinitely.

This model has migrated to Facebook as well. You can add subscriptions to your Page and so generate a consistent monthly income. Remember, you get this income, whether your customers buy from your or not, so you need to find a way to compensate them for their support. Many merchants offer access to exclusive products, content or discounts, etc.

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Don’t underestimate the importance of your Facebook landing page 

A Facebook landing page is the page that your prospect lands on after clicking on your Facebook ad. This is where your prospect will make a purchase, download a resource, or register for an event. 

For the most part, marketers tend to focus on creating a great ad, and if their ad attracts many clicks but meagre conversions, they assume that the fault is with the ad. Maybe they targeted the wrong audience or provided the wrong message. However, if the ad is garnering a lot of attention but has no conversions on the landing page, it’s time to consider if the problem doesn’t lie with the landing page.

If you have strong ads but landing pages that don’t convert, you are wasting your time and money.

Basically,  your landing page must

• make the same offer as your ad
• comply with Facebook’s advertising policies 
• be fully functional, loading correctly, with no technical issues
• not automatically redirect users to another site
• not automatically download anything 

Segment your campaigns according to geographic criteria

With Facebook advertising, you can segment your ad campaigns into specific geographic preferences. You can choose to target specific global regions, countries, states, counties, cities, different size cities and zip codes.

Splitting your campaigns into different geographic regions has various benefits.

• Let’s you focus on the best copy and ads for a specific region.
• You can target your ads more precisely, using local names in the ad copy to better resonate with that audience.
• With geographic segments, it’s easier to control your budget. 
• Should one region outperform others, you can adjust your ad spending to focus on that area. 
• Should an area underperform, you can stop promotions there.

Use video ads in your campaigns

Videos are one of the best ways to make money with Facebook ads. Video is big on Facebook – 500 million viewers watch 100 million hours of video content on Facebook daily. Also, 94 percent of Facebook advertising earnings come from mobile devices, and half of this sum comes from mobile-first video ads.

According to one report, adding videos in an ad campaign results in a 34 percent increase in conversion rate, with video helping to generate leads for 84% of marketers.

What kind of videos should you make? 

Short videos work better, preferably not longer than 10 seconds. The first three seconds of a Facebook video ad are the most crucial. During that time you must hook your audience. People who have watched the video for that long have a high conversion rate. 

Consider doing live-streaming videos as they are very popular with Facebook users – they are four times more likely to watch live-stream videos than pre-recorded videos.

Interestingly, Facebook users prefer watching square videos, watching them 35% more frequently than landscape ones. Vertical ones are also popular, realizing  6-9 times more engagement than square videos. 

Videos have wide application possibilities. For instance, a Facebook ad can include a video in slideshows, stories, messenger, carousel ads, and instant experiences.

Note: Focus on the visuals, not the voice commentary. According to American Press Institute, 85% of all videos displayed on Facebook are watched with the sound off. In fact, 80% of Facebook users are annoyed with auto-playing video ads in their news feed. So, be sure to have a transcription with your video so your users can watch the video with the sound turned off.  

Use Facebook Live to market your business

Facebook Live is a Facebook feature used to broadcast real-time video to Facebook. Facebook Live is one of the best ways to connect with and build your audience and boost your brand’s visibility. It is also a highly effective tool for building social proof.

With Facebook Live, you can broadcast a live video to your audience through your company page or personal profile.

Facebook Live videos have many benefits for marketers. Compared to pre-recorded videos, Facebook Live videos

• Are watched longer
• Have greater reach
• Are better at engaging audiences 
• Offer the opportunity to answer customer questions in real-time

Businesses can save their Facebook Live broadcasts and post them to their regular stream, with all the likes and comments that popped up throughout the broadcast intact. This can serve as social proof for newcomers who happen upon the videos. 

Social proof creates trust with viewers, which can lead to sales, enabling businesses to make money with Facebook.

Two things to be aware of:

1. Facebook has updated its ranking algorithm to give preference to live videos streaming in real-time.
2. Also, the feature is not yet widely used for marketing, so it’s an ideal opportunity for brands to stand out from the competition.

Use Facebook Stories as a marketing strategy

Facebook Stories are short user-generated photos and videos that can be viewed up to two times and disappear after 24 hours. Snapchat is the originator of this hugely popular feature. 

Instagram followed with its equally popular Instagram Stories, and now we have Facebook Stories.

The feature has proved just as popular for Facebook and offers a huge opportunity for marketers. 62 percent of users indicate that they become more interested in a product or service once they have discovered it in Stories. According to Meta statistics, 50 percent of consumers want to discover new products through Facebook Stories and 58% say they’ve visited a brand’s website from a Story ad.

So, if you have been thinking that creating content that will disappear in 24 hours is a waste of time, think again. The above figures speak for themselves. Facebook Stories is an indispensable marketing opportunity for brands. 

Facebook Stories are significant for brands and marketers because:

• It is rising in popularity. On all the social media platforms that have the feature, Story users are increasing.

• Facebook Stories enjoy a prominent position on mobile and desktop. On mobile, it’s visible at the top of the Facebook app, so it’s the first thing a user sees when they open the app. 
• It’s a top-rate trust builder. Facebook Stories allow you to show the real you, unedited. The effect is the same for brands. It allows marketers to show unedited footage of who and what the brand is.
• Facebook lets you track who is viewing your Facebook Stories. This can be useful information for future audience-targeting projects.

Different Facebook advertisements

Facebook offers a wide range of Facebook ad formats to help you choose the best type for your marketing campaign. Making money from advertising on the social media platform is guaranteed if you use the right type of ad to match your goals.

Image ads

This is the most basic ad format on Facebook that can help you to earn money on the platform. It uses a single image to showcase what you have to offer. This type of ad can work for the type of service or product that has a strong visual impact. The image can be an illustration, photo or graphic art.

These Facebook ads can be used during any stage of the sales journey to introduce the product or service, or when you want to launch a new product. The single-image ad is limited compared to options like a carousel or slideshow ad, which allow more images.

Video ads

With these Facebook ads, users use a single video to showcase their products, services, or brand. As mentioned earlier, using video in an ad campaign results in an increase in conversions and leads for marketers.

Using videos is much more useful than images as they let you do much more to promote your product or service, like product demos and tutorials.

Carousel ads

Because video ads are time-consuming and expensive to make, a carousel ad may be a better option for some businesses. Research has shown that carousel Facebook ads boost traffic to advertisers’ websites and improve click-through rates.

Carousel Facebook ads let you combine multiple videos or images into a single ad. They are very popular on Instagram and Facebook. Visitors can click through up to ten images or videos, increasing your chances for conversions.

You can use this strategy to:

• display a range of different products, giving each product its own landing page for the best results 
• display the features of a service
• showcase the rooms in a house
• showcase the various benefits of a product or service
• highlight reviews and testimonials

Instant Experience ads

This marketing solution lets your users engage with your promoted content on Facebook via their mobile devices. They use a carousel display of images, but in this case, users see a full-screen image that they can interact with by scrolling through or zooming into the images.  

To create these Facebook ads, you can use a template provided by Facebook or you can use the prebuilt sections in an order of your choice to build an ad that suits you. Five to seven images and videos per Instant Experience ad seems to be the optimal amount to ensure engagement.

This advertising type has been shown to be highly effective. Marketing agency Bobgun launched a set of Facebook Instant Experience ads for a client, which increased traffic to the website by 1,379.65 percent in just one month!

Collection ads

This is another ad type that you can include in your advertising campaign. These Facebook ads are limited to mobile devices. Users see a prominent primary video with four smaller product images below it. This format gives them a more immersive and informative experience.

Users can browse your store directly on their mobile devices, where they can immediately execute a buying action. You can hardly make it easier for your users. This is a perfect solution for large retailers that sell a large variety of products and services.

Slideshow ads

This is a handy marketing tool for people who don’t have access to a fast internet connection or those who lack video-making experience. They consist of 3-10 images or a single video that plays in a slideshow and use considerably less data than videos.

Paid social and paid search ads 

Both can help attract more consumers and sales to your business and help you earn money. What is the difference between the two and which one should you use for your business?

Paid social marketing or advertising is when businesses pay to place Facebook ads on social media platforms like Facebook. This digital advertising strategy allows them to pay to advertise to social media followers. Organic social media, on the other hand, is when a business posts content on social media just like everyone else for free. 

Advantages of paid social

• Wide variety of social media ad options on all social media platforms
• Great product discovery ploy
• Benefit from impulse buying tendencies by avid social media followers
• The most honed-down target audiences for personalized advertising
• Possibility to develop brand advocates
• Low average cost

Drawbacks

• People want to relax on social media. They don’t want advertisements there. 
• The many advertising options are confusing.
• It can be hard to know which social media platform you will find your audience on.
• The cost may add up quickly if you have too many Facebook ads, you targeted the wrong platform, or your content didn’t hit the mark.
• Paid social has a low click-through rate. Once on their preferred platform, users tend not to leave.
• The spectre of yet another social media change that will disrupt everything is always in the air. 

Paid search

With paid search, businesses pay to have their advertisements displayed at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs), which in most cases means Google. These are usually pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements that users see above organic search results.

Organic search is much more effective at driving website traffic than paid search. In fact, paid search only drives 10 percent of site traffic, while organic is responsible for 50 percent of website traffic, and social brings in five percent of website traffic.

One factor that contributes to paid search’s poor performance is that internet users know those spots were paid for; the ones directly below them have earned their top positions by providing value for customers, so consumers tend to support them. Users tend to skip paid ads. In fact, paid ads get 85 percent fewer clicks than organic links.

Final thoughts

Facebook advertising offers stellar opportunities for merchants to target their audiences so they can deliver the right marketing message to the right people at the right time. In addition, the platform offers a host of different advertisement opportunities, with a range of advertising types. 
The opportunities are there, but you have to be patient, study the ins and outs of advertising on Facebook and work hard at it consistently before you’ll be able to earn a reliable income. Consider, for instance, that you will need at least 10,000 followers before your business will qualify for  Facebook’s new monetization features like in-stream Facebook ads and fan subscription services.