Author Bio:
Craig Robinson works as Editor-in-chief for Qwaya – a Facebook Ad manager tool. He writes about topics like Facebook marketing and social online engagement between businesses and customers.
To understand Facebook’s Marketplace Ads system, you first have to understand Facebook. You will see that there isn’t much blanketing terminology on the site besides its Marketplace, which deals with four distinct categories of ads: Facebook Object, Page Post, Sponsored Story, and External Website ads. Of course, these ads all play together for the larger goal of boosting your business and your profits, but each much be handled individually.
Creating and Publishing Ads
Common sense in marketing would suggest that your first step in any campaign is thorough research of the market you’re looking to target. But since these steps are geared more toward individuals who already have a grasp on marketing, that step will be assumed. So the first step in this process is creating and publishing your ads.
You have two main options here when creating and posting your ads; you can go through Facebook’s self-service ad tool, which is simple enough to understand though not very feature-rich, or you can use a certified API management tool like Qwaya – a very feature-heavy, user-friendly management tool.
Now that you have a tool to help you create and publish ads, you need to decide which ad type you desire, either CPC ads (cost per click), or CPM ads (cost per thousand impressions). Obviously you may have a different goal in mind or want to approach things in a different way, but the market standard here is CPC – it’s simply a better option for conversions.
The Four Ad Types That Make Up the Marketplace
Sponsored Stories
These interactive ads are anything but traditional. These ads play well into the social context of Facebook, allowing users to like your ad and display it to their friends. However, these types of ads do require that you already have a fan base built. You can’t launch these from the start and expect results. For more tips on what to think about when it comes to Facebook sponsored stories, check out this article.
Page Post
A hybrid type of ad, a Page Post will help to drive engagement by transforming an element of your page into an ad. If you have videos, podcasts, photos, or any other type of element on your page, you can transform this into an ad that people can like and share. There are also limits on this type of ad: 120 characters if only text and 90 characters with an image.
External Website
This is the typical ad you find that drives traffic to an alternative site. This ad is usually placed on the right-hand side of the screen. Of course, there are limits to using this type of ad. You can enter a maximum of 25 characters in the title with 90 characters in the body, and the image can only be 99×72 pixels at the max.
Facebook Object
With this type of ad, you are basically driving traffic inside of the Facebook network. It is essentially an External Website ad, but instead of pushing traffic off of the site, you are advertising to other areas of Facebook. Also, the ad’s title will automatically be set as the name of your event, app, page, etc.
Understanding the parameters of the ads and where the different ad types go will help you to create and publish ads effectively. Using a tool like Qwaya, you can easily create and launch ad campaigns quickly and effectively.
8 Comments
Glenn Rogers
I find the sponsored stories very frustrating, you promote one for $20 and get 18,000 people see it and the same for another and you get 2,000 people see it.
If you don’t choose the location targeting in advance you cant change it later, I got dozens of comments in janguages I’d never even seen before because I neglected to target Australia only. Had to delete a lot of them as I have no idea what they’re saying.
Also you cant change anything once it’s posted you have to delete the whole thing and start again………
Mike Salway
I haven’t been able to find where to change the location targeting. How do you do that?
Glenn Rogers
It’s under options , BUT you must do this before you post the story/ad as you cant change it later.
Not sure exactly where you find it look top left and right and also at the foot of the post, seems to shift around, if you cant find it just log out and come back in.
Glenn Rogers
There’s a line of text at the foot of the text box above some links that says Ad Targeting or something similar, that’s actually a drop down, from there you can choose the country you want the ad delivered to.
The system is badly designed and not a bit user friendly.
PaulD
Ever heard of Google Translate ?
Glenn Rogers
Google translate doesnt handle Martian, some of these languages arent handled too well by Google.
There is a translation link where the language is recognised but sometimes it just isn’t
Glenn Rogers
I’m coming back to this as it’s driving me nuts –
To target your location –
Click on promote
There’s a target symbol on the left, click on it, above that is a link target location, click that, then type in the country or location you want then hit ENTER as there’s no save button, that should do it .
Simple isnt it ? said no one ever……
Glenn Rogers
I just tried it and it didnt save the location so now it’s being promoted all over the globe which is useless and I give up as I cant change it once it’s promoted without deleting the whole thing and starting over.