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Ultimate Guide To Facebook And Instagram Marketing

Discover the power of Facebook and Instagram marketing through our concise guide. With just a few chapters, unlock the potential of these platforms and optimize your online presence to achieve your business goals. Despite your awareness of the target audience on Facebook and Instagram, frustration may arise from lackluster results, low engagement, and fleeting trends. Make the right choices and see a timely return on your investments with our guide.

At Llama Lead Gen, our former Facebook marketers have demystified these platforms. Having optimized pages across diverse industries, we now share invaluable insights, tips, and tricks. Explore our guide and case studies to transform foreign territory into a familiar landscape. Whether you're a marketing executive implementing multi-funnel strategies or a business leader eager to elevate your company, this resource strengthens your grasp on one of the most powerful marketing channels available.

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Elevate Your FB & IG Ads with Proven Strategies

Ready to take your Facebook and Instagram marketing to the next level? Our experienced team has the knowledge and tactics to help you achieve your goals. Schedule a call with us today.

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Chapter 1

An Introduction to Facebook and Instagram Marketing

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Chapter 4

Building Your Marketing Campaigns

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Chapter 2

Optimizing Your Profiles and Company Pages

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Chapter 5

How to Target Your Ads to Reach the Right Audience

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Chapter 3

Setting Up Your Ad Account

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Chapter 6

Now That You Have Successfully Set up Your Campaign(s), What Comes Next?

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Llama Lead Gen delivered outstanding results, including increased lead volume and quality, heightened brand awareness, and boosted online presence on Facebook and Instagram. They've not only benefitted my company but also played a pivotal role in winning new business and ensuring success for my clients. Working with them has been a fantastic experience, and I highly recommend their services to anyone!

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justin beegel

President @ Infographic World

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Chapter 1

An Introduction To Facebook And Instagram Marketing

  • What Is the benefit of using Facebook and Instagram compared to other social media platforms?

  • Facebook and Instagram marketing FAQs

  • What's the cost of advertising on Facebook and Instagram?

  • Is advertising on Facebook and Instagram worth it?

  • Why Facebook And Instagram are a better choice for your social media marketing

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Facebook and Instagram Marketing

What Is The Benefit Of Using Facebook And Instagram Compared To Other Social Media Platforms?

Facebook and Instagram are social media platforms that appeal to a wide net of people — this might explain why there are nearly three billion active users on the former and over one billion active users on the latter. While you can certainly befriend and follow more serious users who offer the kind of professional content you're likely to find on LinkedIn, these two platforms are, by and large, a place for normal, everyday people to interact with one another. Plus, with so many celebrities, public figures, and notable people to be found on Facebook and Instagram, there's undoubtedly appeal. Not to mention, just from the sheer volume of users, you have the ability to reach the largest target audience on Facebook and Instagram — it’s estimated that the average user spends about 2 hours a day on both platforms combined. 

 

Facebook and Instagram have an advantage over other platforms because of their incredibly visual nature. From gorgeous photos to personal videos to humorous GIFs, Facebook and Instagram thrive on their visual aids. Because of the billions of users on Facebook and Instagram worldwide, there's a very real chance for posts to garner hundreds of thousands of reactions and even more impressions.

What's The Cost Of Advertising On Facebook And Instagram?

The cost of advertising on Facebook and Instagram will vary based on a variety of factors. Typically, for ads run on Facebook, the cost per click (CPC) is $2 or less. This is significantly cheaper than almost every other social media platform except for Twitter, which usually costs $1 or less per click. Ultimately, though, it really depends on your campaign, objective, targeting, what you are promoting, your CTA, and how your ad copy and creatives are resonating with your audience. Looking at the cost of running ads on similar social media platforms — according to WebFX, YouTube's average CPC is ~ $3.21, LinkedIn's is ~ $5.26, Pinterest is ~ $1.50 — it's clear that Facebook's CPC is a clear advantage over almost every other option out there. Combined with its advanced targeting features, Facebook and Instagram advertising are a force to be reckoned with. 

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A variety of Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns we ran for a healthcare client. We achieved low CPCs for each campaign: like/follow, lead gen, video.

In comparison, on Instagram, the CPC is about $3.56. This is more than three times the cost of running ads on Facebook, but this has everything to do with the types of ads you run on each platform (which we'll get into more in Chapter Three) and the frequency of those ads on each platform. In our experience, we get our CPCs on both Facebook and Instagram to $2 or less. 

 

With Facebook, your reach is 3x that of Instagram because there are simply more people on the platform. Although your ads might be shown more on Facebook, Instagram tends to have higher CTRs (around 0.88%, according to Adstage) because of its target demographic. This is where demographics come into play. Does your audience skew younger or older? You might want to run on Facebook if older and Instagram if younger.

Is Advertising On Facebook And Instagram Worth It?

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram is not only worth it, but a necessity (nowadays) for most businesses to market their products or services. Your assumption might be that Facebook would be a less successful place to run ads just because of the competition. In reality, though, this couldn't be further from the truth. Many advertisers have seen a return on investment (ROI) of anywhere from 4-8x as much as they put into their campaign. A massive ROI like that is absolutely worth it, not to mention research that backs up a higher clickthrough rate, conversion rate, and a significantly lower cost-per-conversion as well.

 

From significant increases in followers to improved purchasing intent to a huge reach to the simple fact that ads are more subtle and less invasive on the platform in general, Instagram ads make up for being a bit pricier with their unparalleled results. Simply put, these two platforms are without a doubt worth your ad spend if you are a business trying to market your products or services online.

Why Facebook And Instagram Are A Better Choice For Your Social Media Marketing

Setting aside the massive amount of daily active users on Facebook and Instagram, these two platforms are a better choice for your social media marketing because of the sheer amount of targeting options. Facebook has loads of data points on each of its users -- what groups you are a part of, everything in your profile, your interests, etc. So it’s no surprise that you can target by just about any of these facets. 

 

Facebook has users of all ages but is particularly popular among older users — great news for advertisers who have struggled to appeal to this demographic. It’s not only a platform for an older demographic, however, it’s also a great platform if your business sells to consumers. Check out a successful ad campaign we ran for one of our clients who is a moving company, trying to get more people to use their moving service. 

 

As for Instagram, the platform caters to consumers on the go — because the social media platform was built specifically for mobile devices, there's a treasure trove of different ads that can be placed directly into the potential buyer's hands with very little effort. The swipe up feature, in particular, is a great way for advertisers to showcase their products or services in an unobtrusive manner since users can skip these ads if they’d like. 

Facebook Audience Editor

Targeting within Facebook Ads Manager; you can target by Demographics, Interests, and Behaviors. 

To learn how to optimize your company's Facebook and Instagram profiles and pages, continue on to Chapter Two. You know marketing on Facebook and Instagram is important but you haven’t cracked the code yet. Whether you’re new to advertising, have run campaigns but with lackluster results, or are looking for an expert team to optimize your Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns, we can help you reach your marketing goals.

 

Our team comprises ex-LinkedIn and ex-Facebook marketers, so we understand how to get you the most bang for your buck. Get in touch with our experts today so we can assist you as quickly and as easily as possible.

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Thanks to Llama Lead Gen's initial campaign, OneV has become proficient in Facebook ads, doubling our social media following and engaging 100,000+ individuals. Their efforts also contributed to a 30% increase in our subscriber list.

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allen feliz

Co-Founder & Executive Director @ One Nation Every Vote

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Optimizing Your Profiles and Company Pages
Chapter 2

Optimizing Your Profiles And Company Pages

  • Tips for optimizing your profiles

  • How to set up professional company pages

  • Tips for optimizing your company pages

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Tips For Optimizing Your Profiles

Before you set up your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns, it’s important for you to optimize your profiles and company pages. People tend to make quick judgments, especially considering the breakneck pace of social media, so you only have a few seconds to impress potential customers before it's too late.

 

Don’t even think about beginning an ad campaign before checking to make sure that:

  • Your business and/or brand's profile and cover photos are up-to-date and that you are using the highest quality resolutions

  • Your bio, slogan, address, and your contact info are all current and reflect the most recent information available

  • Any and all unprofessional content or irrelevant information is nowhere to be found on the profile, in the comments, or anywhere else on the company page 

  • Links to your website, your products, and your other social media accounts on different platforms can be easily accessed without having to dig (To note: Instagram only allows you to have one link out in your profile. You can use services like LinkTree or ContactInBio to add multiple link out’s on your Instagram profile.) 

Optimized Facebook Page Example

A Facebook company page we manage, optimized using all of our tips above.

How To Set Up Professional Company Pages

If you don't already have a Facebook or an Instagram for your company or brand, fear not! If your parents can set up an account, then so can you. 

  1. On Facebook, navigate to Pages and then click create 

  2. Choose between a business/brand page or a community/public figure page (more than likely the former.) 

  3. Enter your business information — things like your business name, the category that describes your business, your address, and so on 

  4. Add a profile picture, a cover photo, and any other featured images you'd like to pin to your page

  5. Customize your URL to make your page more easily discoverable 

  6. Edit your description section to give users a more detailed look at your business 

  7. Add any other relevant or missing information, and then click publish

Creating a Facebook Page Example

Instagram is even easier: 

  1. Download the app, then tap sign up (if you already have an Instagram account, you can start at step #4) 

  2. Instagram gives you the option to sign up with Facebook, which you can do with your business page to link the two

  3. Make your username the same (or as close as possible) to the name you used on your Facebook page. This will make it easier for people to find you and recognize your business. 

  4. Go to Settings and tap switch to a business account 

  5. Enter the information it asks you for, and then you're ready to start posting and advertising

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Tips For Optimizing Your Company Pages

 

  • Invite people to like your page or follow you. This can be done by linking the contacts on your phone or computer to your account, which will then pull up everyone with an account. This way, you can have some followers before you even make your first post.

  • Always use the highest quality images and videos when crafting a post. Low-quality images and videos will reflect poorly on you more than anything else.

  • Choose more than one category for your business (as long as they're still relevant to your brand). This will help spread awareness across multiple areas.

  • Choose a voice and stick with it. Whether it's funny, casual, serious or factual, this will help personify your page.

Instagram business page optimization examples

An Instagram page we manage for one of our eCommerce clients. Each post is consistent and true to the brand.

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Setting Up Your Ad Account
Chapter 3

Setting Up Your Ad Accounts

  • How to set up your ads manager account

  • How to navigate your ads manager account

  • What ad types do Facebook and Instagram support?

Illustration for setting up your ad acounts

How To Set Up Your Ads Manager Account

Now that you've got your Facebook and Instagram accounts set up, it's time to start thinking about establishing an Ads Manager account so that you can begin your company's ad campaigns. 

  1. On Facebook, it's as simple as heading to business.facebook.com and selecting Create Account. 

  2. From there, you'll enter your business's name, select the Facebook account you'd like to link your Ad Manager account to, and then input your name and work email address. 

  3. Once you're in, you'll open Business Manager Settings and click Ad Accounts under People and Assets. 

  4. Then, select Add New Ad Accounts and hit Create a New Add Account. 

  5. Enter your payment info and you're all set to begin growing your campaign.

Creating a new Facebook & Instagram ad account screenshot example

For Instagram: you're actually going to use Facebook Ads Manager, just like with your Facebook ads account. 

  1. To link your Instagram account to your Facebook Ad Manager account, simply go to Business Settings, click on Accounts, then hit Instagram Accounts, then click Add. 

  2. Enter the Instagram account login, and you're good to go.

Screenshot example of connecting Facebook and Instagram account

You can now start advertising from both your Facebook and Instagram pages. 

How To Navigate Your Ads Manager Account

Now that you've completed the setup of your Ads Manager account for your company Facebook and Instagram accounts, you'll need to know how to navigate your Ad Manager account.

  1. To get to Ads Manager from your Facebook homepage, click the drop-down menu on the top right hand corner of your page and select Ad Manager. 

  2. From there, you'll be taken to the Ad Manager dashboard. You should see several tabs labeled Account Overview, Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads. Each of these tabs serves a unique purpose, which we'll explore more in Chapter Four. For now, familiarize yourself with where things are positioned and make sure you're comfortable with where everything is. You'll need to know these locations when we get to creating and growing your marketing campaigns.

Screenshot example of navigating Facebook Ads Manager

An eCommerce Facebook and Instagram advertising campaign we ran to promote a flavored water product.  

What Ad Types Do Facebook And Instagram Support?

Part of what makes Facebook and Instagram so beneficial to you from a marketing perspective is the immense amount of versatility each social media platform provides you. Unlike more traditional forms of digital advertising (i.e. banners on popular news publications), Facebook, for instance, gives you a handful of different and unique ad types that feel less like an ad (called native advertising). With all of these options, it’s important to note that you can run a single image, a carousel, or a video ad. 

 

For Facebook:

  • Desktop or Mobile News Feed (Sponsored Content or Sponsored/Promoted Posts) - your ad is embedded within a user's news feed, showing up in between other content the user sees (appears just like a status update or a photo upload would appear to the average user). The only difference is that it has a little ‘sponsored’ language. 

  • Stories - appear temporarily in between users' Stories.

  • Right-hand Column - specific to desktop users and akin to the traditional advertisement banner that you might see on other publications.

  • Marketplace - ads that show up in Facebook’s marketplace section.

  • Video Feeds - ads that show up in Facebook’s ‘watch’ section.

  • In-Stream Videos - your ad will show up in between videos on Facebook. 

  • Search Results - your ad will show up when you search for something on Facebook. 

  • Facebook Audience Network - spreads your ads across a whole slew of partner apps and websites that have agreed to work with Facebook Ads Manager accounts for promotional purposes. If you don’t want this, it’s an easy uncheck of a button. Furthermore, if you want to blacklist any particular sites, you can do that as well. 

  • Messenger - sends out your advertisements via Facebook's instant messaging platform. You can also run your ads on WhatsApp if you’d like. 

The same ad we ran in multiple variations: Sponsored Content (Desktop & Mobile), Instagram Feed, Instagram Stories, In-Article, and Audience Network. An eCommerce Facebook and Instagram advertising campaign we ran to promote a flavored water product.  

For Instagram:

  • Mobile News Feed (Sponsored Ads) - embedded within the user's feed (just like Facebook sponsored content) and can range from photos to videos to a swipeable carousel of images.

  • Stories - appear temporarily in between users' Stories.

  • Explore - your ads will show when you search in ‘explore’ mode in Instagram. 

  • IGTV Ads - will run before or after long-form Instagram TV content.

The same eCommerce Instagram ad campaign with different creative and copy.

​News Feed (Sponsored Content) is the standard placement when running an ad on Facebook or Instagram. If you select ‘Auto Placement’, Facebook and Instagram will place your ad among all of the above options. If you select ‘Manual Placement’, you can pick and choose where you want your ad to run. Some of your placements won’t be available to run given the objective you choose. i.e. If you are running a lead gen form campaign, you cannot run those ads on Facebook’s Right Column.

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Building Your Marketing Campaigns
Chapter 4

Building Your Marketing Campaigns

  • Choosing a goal and objective for your ad campaigns

  • How you should choose between image and video ads for your campaigns

  • How to decide on a budget for your ad campaigns

  • Monitor the performance of your ad campaigns

  • Utilize CTAs that convert

  • Drive better results with high-quality creatives for your ads

  • How to A/B test your ads

Illustration for building your Facebook & Instagram Marketing Campaigns
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We've partnered with Cassie, Llama Lead Gen’s Lead UX Designer, for 9+ months for our ad creatives. The workflow is seamless: we send requirements, receive designs within days, and get quick revisions if needed. Cassie's designs have been key to our top-performing campaigns. LLG excels in brand consistency, speed, and constructive feedback.

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Zselyke Kecskes

Senior Paid Media Strategist @ Relevize

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Choosing A Goal And Objective For Your Ad Campaigns

Now that you've familiarized yourself with your Ads Manager account, you are probably quite eager to begin advertising. However, there are a couple of things you need to do before you start running ads: choosing a goal and setting an objective. Thankfully, just like everything else in this process so far, Facebook and Instagram don't make it very hard to do this.

 

First and foremost, let's clarify: your goal is what you want to achieve with your ad campaign. Whether that's bringing in new customers (by way of generating leads), growing followers, and/or raising awareness of your business, this goal will help shape what your campaign objective will be. On that note, your campaign objective is the action you want consumers to take after they see your ads. Determining this objective helps you to better customize your campaign and, as a result, deliver the best ROI for your stated goal. 

 

Facebook Ads Manager gives you three buckets for your campaign objective: Awareness, Consideration, or Conversion. Awareness is exactly what it sounds like: these are top of the funnel activities such as making consumers aware of and knowledgeable about your company. Consideration is typically more mid-funnel activities such as: driving traffic to your website and/or landing pages, getting users to click your links, follow your page, and keep your name at the forefront of their minds when thinking of the goods or the services you provide. Conversion is lower-funnel marketing activities such as: downloading a piece of your content, buying your product, signing up for your newsletter, registering for your webinar, etc. For a more detailed breakdown of the type of campaign objectives you can choose:


Awareness

  • Brand Awareness - increase people's awareness of your business, brand, or service.

  • Reach - show your ad to as many people as possible in your target audience.

Consideration

  • Traffic - send people from Facebook to any URL you choose, such as your website's landing page, a blog post, app, etc.

  • Engagement - reach people more likely to engage with your post. Engagement includes likes, comments, and shares but can also include offers claimed from your page.

  • App Installs - send people to the store where they can download your business's app.

  • Video Views - share videos of your business with people on Facebook most likely to watch it.

  • Lead Generation - collect leads for your business. Create ads that collect info from people interested in your product, such as sign-ups for newsletters.

  • Messages - connect with people on Messenger, Instagram Direct, and WhatsApp. Communicate with potential or existing customers to encourage interest in your business.

Conversion

  • Conversions - encourage people to take a specific action on your business's site, such as having them to add items to a cart, download your app, register for your site, or make a purchase.

  • Catalog Sales - show products from your eCommerce store's catalog to generate sales.

  • Store Traffic - promote your brick-and-mortar business locations to people that are nearby.

How You Should Choose Between Image And Video Ads For Your Campaigns

Once you've chosen your goal and objective, you need to choose an ad type -- image, video, carousel, or text ads (for messenger campaigns). Facebook and Instagram are both optimized and ideal for both videos and images. Beyond what assets you already have, your decision should stem from your goals and objectives. There are certain ad types that will work better based on your format. For instance, if you're trying to raise awareness, then video ads work great.

Example of Facebook Image Ads for a Moving Company
Example of Facebook Video Ads for a Moving Company

A campaign we ran for a moving company where we ran both image and video assets.

How To Decide On A Budget For Ad Campaigns

Of everything we've discussed so far, budgeting just might be the most important. But, naturally, that begs the question: how do you decide on a budget for your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns? To get our answer, we're going to have to combine nearly every chapter into one exercise.

 

First, think back to your goals. Think about how you can convert those goals into tangible numbers (KPIs). Is it followers? Is it leads? Is it webinar registrants? Is it guide downloads? No matter your answer, translating that goal into an identifiable metric that you can track when you start to advertise is key to establishing a budget.

Screenshot Example of Facebook Ads Budgeting

A monthly budget tracker we use to plan our budgets for each campaign and platform and to reconcile our budget each month to keep our pacing and spending on track. 

Next, you’ll need to consider all the other channels you're planning to advertise on. Are you also running ads on LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter? Determine what chunk of your monthly ad spend is going elsewhere to get a better idea of what slice of the pie is left for Facebook and Instagram. Make a media plan and note your intended budget for each campaign. 

 

Once you've done this, think back to the numbers we went over in Chapter One. Since Facebook and Instagram ad costs tend to be lower than other platforms, you can allocate more to let’s say a LinkedIn than you’d have to for a Facebook or Instagram. 


For a detailed breakdown on this topic, check out our guide on How To Budget For Your Digital Marketing Campaigns.

Monitor The Performance Of Your Ad Campaigns

Now it’s time to monitor the performance of your ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. Ads Manager makes this extremely easy for you to do through reporting. If you’re looking to create more extensive dashboards, we use Google Data Studio and Supermetrics to connect our data, to make it more visual and for ease of telling a story (beyond just looking at the numbers).

Example of Ad Reporting Dashboard for Facebook Ads

An example of one of our reporting dashboards we created using Google Data Studio. It's completely customizable based on the metrics we want to see and pulls in and refreshes the numbers hourly. 

You can filter your campaigns by date, objective, or whatever else you might like to sort by in order to get to the campaign you're trying to monitor the performance of. You can also filter by a date range or compare two different date ranges to compare and contrast over two separate periods. For an idea of how your ad campaign is currently performing, set your date range to the last fourteen days. For a broader look at how things have been going over time, set the range anywhere from the past 30 to 90 days. We typically send reporting to our clients bi-weekly because anything less will be too soon to act on any changes we might be thinking of doing.

Facebook App Install Campaign Reporting Example

An example of how you can filter by campaign type, ad type, date range, etc. This is a reporting dashboard in Facebook Ads Manager from a client of ours who is promoting their health community app (on both iOS and Android). We registered over 900 app installs for them in a 2-month period.

Take a look at your CPC, CPL, leads, and social engagements. Are your goals being met? Is your campaign working toward your objective? If yes, then congrats! You're doing great. If no, then call on the experts -- our team is composed of ex-Facebook and ex-LinkedIn marketers who can guide you through your campaigns to set you up for success.

Utilize CTAs That Convert

One way to refocus your ad campaign and realign yourself with your goal and objective is by creating CTAs that convert. Including a call to action wherever possible will increase your likelihood of getting the clicks and views you need. The CTAs that typically perform the best are Download, View Now, See How, Sign Up, Register, Contact Us, and Schedule a Demo. Don’t overthink it — It’s not necessary to include a lengthy, wordy CTA. As a matter of fact, it might even be harmful.


Take it from us: utilizing CTAs that convert is how we generated nearly 3,000 qualified leads for a B2B SaaS company.

Drive Better Results With High-Quality Creatives for Your Ads

Your campaign will always perform better with the injection of high-quality, high-resolution images and/or videos. People want to engage with quality content. This in turn will help to drive better results for you and your company. The all-important CTA included prominently in your ad certainly helps, as well. These strategies generated over 50 confirmed bookings through Facebook and Instagram advertising for a nationwide moving company, and they can absolutely help you, too.

How To A/B Test Your Ads

A/B tests are a great way to isolate what’s working in your ad campaigns. You can A/B test just about anything, from targeting to testing out different ad copy to landing pages to lead forms to creatives to different CTAs in order to see which resonates the most. Create three or four different variations of each ad and swap out the one with the lowest engagement or performance metric with the version that's doing the best. For the most accurate results, let your A/B test run for at least a month to gain enough data points for you to make an informed decision.

Example of a Facebook App Install Campaign

We A/B tested creatives, ad type (carousel or video), and CTAs (download or install) in a campaign for a mobile music app promotion. We found that 'Install' garnered us more app installs, but 'Download' had a lower CPC.

A properly executed marketing campaign takes time. Don't be discouraged if you aren't seeing immediate results with your Facebook and Instagram campaigns. In the first month, it’s best practice to build the marketing strategy, campaigns, ad sets, ad copy, creatives, and scoping out the target audience to set your business up for success. You’re likely not even launching the ad campaigns at this point in time. Come month 2, you’ll be launching your ad campaigns. It's important to look at what works and what doesn't so that you can optimize your ads with each passing month. At this pace, you'll be ready to launch your campaigns and run them for several months at a time (evergreen), optimizing each ad to your intended performance as you go, of course.


If you're satisfied with where your ad campaign is, read on to Chapter Five to learn how to target your ads. If you’d like to chat through your company’s Facebook and Instagram marketing goals and get the leads you have been missing out on, schedule a time to chat with us today.

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Facebook and Instagram: Ad Tartgeting 101
Chapter 5

How To Target Your Ads To Reach The Right Audience

  • What Is ad targeting?

  • Whom can you target with Facebook and Instagram ads

  • An overview of ad targeting options

  • How to use the targeting options within ads manager

Illustration for Facebook and Instagram Ads Targeting

What Is Ad Targeting?

Once your ad campaign is created, you’ll want to begin doing what's called targeting. Targeting is the who, what, when, where, and why of your ad campaign's viewership. Put simply, it’s the facets by which you can target on Facebook and Instagram. You can target people based on where they've listed their location, the kinds of pages they've liked on Facebook or the people they follow on Instagram, their age, their gender, the kinds of websites they've visited through Facebook and Instagram, and countless other options, as well. The best performance usually comes from a combination of all these targeting options.

Whom Can You Target With Facebook And Instagram Ads

Facebook Ads Manager allows you to target by a myriad of options: platform specific targeting, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences. Each one carries its own unique set of benefits for you and your business. Facebook specific targeting is broken down by demographics, interests, and behaviors. Custom audiences are anyone who has engaged with your business before, whether through Facebook or elsewhere (if you have a third party tracking pixel or you can upload any account based marketing lists you might have). Lookalike audiences are a new list of people with similar interests to your most loyal customers.

An Overview Of Ad Targeting Options

To use these targeting options within Facebook Ads Manager (the same as you’ll use for Instagram as well), you first need to choose who you want to target and then define the parameters of your targeting. If you opt for platform specific targeting (targeting via Facebook and Instagram targeting options), you’ll have to define what you want that core audience to be. Location is something you always have to choose and it’s usually best practice to expand your reach by choosing the US (if you’re a US based advertiser), unless you are trying to target locally. Beyond location, Facebook breaks down targeting into three main categories: demographics, interests, and behaviors. Here’s a breakdown of each:

Demographics

  • Education Level

  • Income

  • Life Events

  • Friends Of

  • Parents

Facebook Ads Targeting Example for a Moving Company

Interests

Reach specific audiences by targeting by their interests, activities, the pages they have liked and closely related topics. 

  • Anything from advertising to investment banking to body building. For a full breakdown, We created a Facebook and Instagram targeting questionnaire to help you get started in thinking about who you want to target. 

Example of Adding Facebook Ads Interests

Behaviors

Reach people based on purchase behavior or intent, device usage and more. Some behavior data is available for US audiences only.

  • Digital Activities

  • Politics

  • Multicultural Affinity

  • Travel

Example of Adding Facebook Ads Demographics

Remember that targeting works with boolean logic (‘AND’ and ‘OR’ statements), which means that you can narrow your audience by layering more facets on. Let’s take for example, you had wanted to target foodies in Washington D.C. for your food truck business. You can target by location (Washington D.C.) and even pair down to a certain radius (number of miles from Washington D.C.), as well as certain food related interests. You can even layer on interests specifically in food trucks and depending on what type of food you serve, interests in people who like that food type.

Example of Facebook Ads Location Targeting

It should be noted that you can target using the above criteria for both Facebook and Instagram and that it’s just a tick of a button to only target these people on Facebook or Instagram (if you had only wanted to run your campaign on either or). Look at your audience insights on Ads Manager for a better idea of the kinds of people who frequent your page and go from there.

Example of Facebook and Instagram Ad Placement Settings

If you're in favor of targeting custom audiences, you can import your contact lists, app users, current prospect lists, and/or collect your site visitors to target these audiences as well. You can even put it to an A/B test to see which performs better: targeting by Facebook targets or your list uploads. You can also target lookalike audiences by creating a source audience of people you already have. Facebook will then match back a list of profiles that closely align with the list you had uploaded. Lookalike audiences get better over time as you run your ad campaign so we suggest running them a few months down the line so you can capitalize on Facebook’s optimizations.

Example of Facebook and Instagram Ads Custom Audience Settings

If you run into any trouble along the way, please feel free to give our experts a call.

How To Use The Targeting Options Within Ads Manager

These parameters should not be set at random. Each one needs to be carefully selected for a valid, clear-cut reason. Ask yourself:

  • What are the people who would be most interested in my goods or services interested in?

  • What are they researching and engaging with digitally (specifically on Facebook and Instagram)? 

 

If you're trying to get sign ups to your app centered around certain health related interests, think about the top 5-10 health related topics that people are reading and engaging with. Perhaps you’re selling kids hats, but your buyer is actually their parents (since the kids are too young to buy). What age would you need to cater your ads to? If you're selling anti-aging skincare products, would 18-24-year-olds be the right candidate, or would the 45+ crowd be more logical? If you're a coffee roaster, would someone who follows a popular tea brand be more likely to check out your place, or would the person who likes Starbucks and Dunkin' be better? These questions will help shape your targeting into a rock solid ad campaign that yields real results.


If done right, well-researched and strategic targeting can truly change the game for your ads. Take our Facebook and Instagram marketing campaign for a moving services company that increased social media following by +128% and registered 50+ bookings through best practice targeting.

What Comes Next?
Chapter 6

Now That You Have Successfully Set Up Your Campaign(s), What Comes Next?

  • What ROI can you expect from your Facebook and Instagram ads?

  • What is a good CPL?

  • How can I generate more leads for my business or clients on Facebook and Instagram?

Illustration for Facebook & Instagram Marketing Next Steps

What ROI Can You Expect From Your Facebook And Instagram Ads?

While there's no clear cut answer to what kind of ROI you can expect from your Facebook and Instagram ads, there are certainly plenty of examples of advertisers who have seen unimaginable ROI after a year of successful ad campaigns. This really depends upon your product or service offering, what your price point is, and how your ads perform and resonate with your target audience. See how we achieved steady sign-up growth and over 225 asset downloads through an expertly crafted B2B SaaS lead generation Facebook and Instagram marketing strategy.

What Is A Good CPL?

Your CPL (or cost per lead) ultimately depends on who your target audience is. If this sounds confusing, just think about it: engineers are going to be a much pricier audience than someone like a freelance journalist, so the former might be on the higher end ($200 CPL or more) while the latter would be on the lower end (closer to about $25 CPL). This is important to keep at the forefront of your mind when sorting out your monthly ad budgets and determining your company's performance expectations for your ad campaigns.


For an in-depth guide on budgeting, check out our guide on budgeting for digital advertising campaigns.

How Can I Generate More Leads For My Business Or Clients On Facebook And Instagram?

This is undoubtedly the question received most frequently when it comes to advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Most clients are looking for more leads, and, in their past efforts, have found Facebook and Instagram advertising to be too intimidating or too foreign to pursue as an advertising platform for lead generation fully. They might have even tried but with minimal results. However, with such a great value for CPL and such an immense number of active daily users, there's no denying the power and the influence of Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns. This is the main reason why we know it is the right choice for your business’s marketing efforts.


Llama Lead Gen exists to help you generate the leads your business and your clients need. Through our experts on Facebook and Instagram ads, we can help take your digital marketing efforts to the next level. Contact us today to get started.

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