What is the Facebook Audience Network?
In a nutshell, Facebook Audience Network is an advertising network for placing ads off Facebook, but it’s manageable through a regular Facebook account. This unique platform allows advertisers to target users who visit regular sites and use mobile apps other than those owned and operated by Facebook and Instagram.
By using this network, advertisers can still enjoy the powerful Facebook ad reach of 2.2 billion users. This being said, if you own a small business with products to promote, you can create ads targeting Facebook users who use other platforms.
What Are the Benefits of the Facebook Audience Network?
As an advertising platform, Facebook Audience Network is flexible in sizes and formats. You can choose to use still images or videos. The native ads can be seamlessly integrated to fit the site design, which promises better user experience and higher performance.
Even though those ads aren’t published on Facebook or Instagram, advertisers still benefit from their massive captive audience and laser-sharp targeting capabilities. Your ads will enjoy extended reach on various sites, apps, games, and even certain digital TVs.
Also, advertisers love Facebook Audience Network because the costs involved are much lower than other placements. For instance, the average cost is $0.10, instead of $0.20 for Facebook mobile newsfeeds and more than $0.70 for Instagram ads.
How Do You Get Started with Facebook Audience Network?
First, you’ll need to have an active Facebook account, which will be used as the account responsible for placing ads through the Ads Manager. You can use your existing Facebook account for convenience and charge the ads to your credit card. And, to give a peace of mind, you can set up a limit of daily ad expenses, as low as a few dollars.
Overall, the ad set-up time would only require a few minutes, but you’d need to understand how to set things up, so you can create ads with high ROI. Thus, it’s recommended to take free online classes at Facebook Blueprint. Take as many classes as possible to better understand how to get started with Facebook ads, targeting audiences, Instagram ads, and advanced buying options. You can also take the paid certification exam, which isn’t mandatory.
How Do You Place Ads on Facebook Audience Network?
The first step is clicking “Create Ad” in the Ads Manager. Next, select one of the Audience Network objectives and go to your ad set. Choose the device type in which the ad should show and click the drop-down to select the ad option: native, banner, interstitial, or video ads.
After that, you can add your budget, schedule, and ad creative. The final step is clicking “Confirm” to finish the ad placement. More comprehensive steps can be read directly from Facebook Business.
15 What Types of Ads Are Available on Facebook Audience Network?
There are five types of ads that you can use to promote your business: banner ads, native ads, interstitial, and two types of video ads. You can learn more on how to size each of those ads correctly.
Banner ads show up at the bottom of a screen. Native ads appear in an article. Interstitial ads take up a full page above or below an article. In-stream video ads show up in streaming videos. And rewarded videos are ads for gaming where users receive in-game rewards for watching the video ads.
What’s the Proven Strategy To Be Successful?
Understand the latest trends in digital marketing, so your ads would have an even higher chance to perform really well. According to a recent study, there are six digital marketing trends in 2018, which focus on brand over product, authentic connection, social change causes, getting personal, social validation, influencer validation, and multi-channel.
In short, today, people prefer to feeling good about a brand or a product rather than being sold or pushed to buy. This being said, you’d need to focus on creating a positive user experience (UX) with the overall feel of the ad. Thus, how your ad is designed would make a difference in the performance, in addition to the targeted audiences.
How Do You Measure Ad Performance?
You can find the analytics and reports in the Ads Manager. Start by selecting All Campaigns, All Ad Sets, or All Ads that you wish to review. Select Columns > Customize Columns. Choose the metrics you want to see. Click Breakdown and select Platform. Facebook has the complete steps to help advertisers.
If the ads didn’t perform well, consider troubleshooting them to find out what might be causing it and what you can do to remedy. Facebook has a list performance issues and how to fix them.
In conclusion, now small businesses have the unprecedented tool to capitalize the massive reach and laser-sharp targeting Facebook offers outside its own platform. The cost is relatively low compared to other types of Facebook (and Instagram) ads. With the right strategies, you can expect to enjoy a favorable ad ROI.
Jennifer Xue