How To Advertise on Facebook

In the past couple of years, online advertising has become a boon to both publishers and marketers alike. Advertising networks like Google AdSense, Text Link Ads, and the like have opened up big possibilities in marketing products, services and brands online. All this without having to spend millions usually associated in broadcast and print advertising. And companies even get to target their ads more smartly.

Social networks like Facebook and Multiply currently monetize their traffic and network through advertising. Facebook prides itself in being able to provide good demographic and location-based information from among its user-base. This way, an advertiser is able to target ad campaigns adequately.

• Design your ad. The first step in advertising is designing your ad. If it's a text ad, then the copy is important, as this is what entices a reader into clicking the ad. Text ads have a limit of 25 characters for the title and 135 characters for the description.

  If it's an image ad, use eye-catching colors, but don't be too gaudy. Images have a maximum size of 110x80 pixels, and should have a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. These should be in the usual standard formats like JPG, PNG and GIF, but no animated GIFs are allowed.

• Choose the target URL. The first step also asks you for the target URL of the ad. This can be the home page of your company, or a specific product page. It is usually recommended that you use a specific landing page, instead of just the home page. This makes your ad more relevant, because the user lands on the product or service page. If you use a URL with an affiliate tracking mechanism, this will also come in handy for measuring the success of your campaign in terms of clickthroughs and conversions.
• Demographics. The next step involves narrowing down the target audience of your ad, according to different demographics. These include location, age, sex, keywords, education, and workplaces, and a few special demographics like civil status (or relationship status), languages and interests. The default demographic is individuals in your present location 18 years old and above. The screen will show an estimated number of members who currently fall under the demographics you have specified.
• Campaigns and pricing. The last screen involves defining how much you are willing to spend on the campaign, in terms of a daily budget. You also need to define the times of the day your ad will appear. You can also define whether to set up your ad as a cost-per-click ad or a cost-per-impression.

With cost-per click, you pay only when a user clicks on your ad. The maximum bid here will be the amount you are willing to pay per click. The higher the bid, the higher your ad's position will be, relative to other ads. Wit the cost-per-impression method, you define how much you are willing to pay for every 1,000 impressions.

At this point, you are also asked to give your ad campaign a name. When all the options have been set accordingly, you will now have to click the "Create" button, and your ad set-up will already be finished. Your ad expenditures will depend on the daily limit you have set, and this will also depend on whether you have set up cost per click or cost per thousand impressions.