Intro
This article is for those who want to gain a better technical understanding of Facebook ads and how they’re used to get leads for home improvement companies.
Facebook is an enormous social network with over 175 million users in the United States alone. According to this article, around 7 in 10 adults in the United States are on Facebook.
Facebook's ads platform allows you to “buy” views - meaning, your ad will be shown to relevant Facebook users while they are using the platform. With the right targeting, messaging, and use of images, it becomes a powerful lead generation tool.
Facebook Personal Profiles
To sign up for Facebook, you create a personal profile. This profile will have your name, photo, and whatever personal details you choose to share.
You can’t run ads from a personal profile. You need a business page to run ads. However, you need a personal profile before you can create business pages.
Your personal profile then acts like a login to those business pages. When you’re logged into your personal profile, you’ll be able to run ads, write posts, and do other admin tasks from business pages that you have access to.
Business Pages
Business pages represent brands. For example, if your company is called ABC Remodels, you would create a business page called ABC Remodels. (You wouldn’t make a personal profile and call it ABC remodels.)
Business pages are a great way to share photos of your work, and can function similarly to a business website. Homeowners can make sure you’re a legitimate company by looking at your activity. Your customers can also leave reviews.
Ad Accounts
Facebook ad accounts give you robust tools to run ads. You can choose who your ads will be shown to, what platforms your ads will show on, and create the ads themselves.
When you create an ad, you determine what page to run the ad from. If you run the ad from the “ABC Remodels” page, then Facebook users who see the ad will see that it’s from “ABC Remodels.”
Business Managers
Business Managers are like a box that contains other assets on Facebook. Inside a single business manager you can have several business pages, ad accounts, and other items. You can also add other business managers as partners so that they can work on your pages and ad accounts.
Targeting
Facebook allows you to target users within a certain mile radius, zip codes, county, state, etc. You can also choose what types of people see your ads. For example, you can tell Facebook to only show ads to married women over 30 years old.
Showing Ads Based on Activity
Facebook has an algorithm (a system to determine who to show ads to) that does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. For example, if you’re running an ad to advertise kitchen remodeling, Facebook will try to show it to users who have shown an interest in kitchen remodeling.
Sometimes, segmenting your audience by age, gender, and other traits can help. But since Facebook’s algorithm does a great job at getting your ad in front of the right users, sometimes leaving your targeting set to a broad audience is best.
Leads
There are several different ways to get leads through Facebook. Here are a few different ways:
External Landing Pages
You can get leads by setting up a landing page (a simple website) that asks people for their contact information. You set up the Facebook ad so that when users click “Learn More” or “Get Quote,” they are sent to the page to fill out their information.
When the lead submits their info, the landing page essentially tells Facebook that a “conversion” happened. This can be done through what’s called a Facebook Pixel or through an API. Facebook then tracks that conversion back to the ad that was responsible for it, so advertisers know which ads are working.
Lead Forms
Lead forms are like built in landing pages. Rather than users having to navigate to a separate landing page, they can fill out their information right on the Facebook platform.
You can also set up lead forms to ask users for specific information like “how soon are you looking to get started?” and “tell us a little bit about your project.” This can help you produce high quality leads.
Messages
Another way to get leads is by encouraging users to send your business page a message. Facebook will automatically message them back on behalf of your page to ask for their contact details.
Billing
Facebook ads aren’t a pay per lead program. You are paying Facebook to show your ads to users who fit your criteria. You give Facebook a budget and Facebook spends your budget as efficiently as possible.
When your budget is spent on Facebook, they build up a balance of what you owe them. And once your balance reaches a certain threshold, they bill you.
If your budget is $50 a day, and your threshold is $600, your ads will run for 12 days and then you’ll be billed $600. Then your balance will be reset to $0.
The threshold starts out at just a few dollars. After a few successful credit card charges, Facebook increases the threshold so that you get billed less often in higher amounts.
Summary
Facebook ads are a great way to generate leads for home improvement companies. While search engine marketing is dependent on your customers finding you, Facebook ads find your customers.
Service Allies specializes in running paid Facebook ads. If you’re interested in working with us, please reach out.
