If you’re an advertiser on Facebook, then mark 1st September 2014 in your diary. On that day, a lot changes. In this article I’ll discuss how to prepare for the change, and how to make sure you stay ahead of your competition.
Until recently, Facebook ads worked based on a campaigns and ads structure. Around 3 months ago, this changed with the introduction of ad sets that sat between campaigns and ads, in a similar way to ad groups within AdWords. In this model, ad sets relate to a campaign objective such as page likes, or website clicks. Within each ad set, each advert could have a separate creative and different targeting. In essence, you could set campaigns up how you wanted, within just a few limitations.
As of September 1st, targeting can only be set at an ad set level, meaning that you will set up ad sets by audience, rather than by creative types. Here’s a handy explainer diagram from Facebook on the change:
As you can see, this makes targeting more structured as you will target at the ad set level.
The key downside of this is that if you’re setting your ads up correctly, by having multiple ad sets you will most likely have the same creative in multiple ad sets, each with different targeting. If you then find then one creative version isn’t working, you may have to trawl through various ad sets in order to pause these versions.
The key question for advertisers is how to get ahead of these changes and make sure you react to them better than your competition. Well, the first place to start is in amending your campaigns before the switch to ensure there are no issues. Set up your campaigns by ad objective, and your ad sets by audience, leaving you with different ad creatives in each ad set.
Secondly, if this is all sounding a little confusing, consider getting some training from the likes of Explode Training who offer a Social Media Advertising course covering all of these issues.
Remember with social media advertising, the platform is set up for you to test and learn. Don’t be afraid of the changes. Embrace the change and see if there is a way that you can gain a competitive advantage by adapting quicker than your competitors and leveraging the platform to your benefit.
Best of luck!