Katrine Nikolajsen fromoffbeat mediahas seven simple tips for getting started with Facebook advertising.

Many businesses use Facebook advertising and it works. In this blog post, we'll give you a few tips on what advertising can offer and what mistakes to avoid when advertising.

Advertising is and will be the "new" thing

Facebook has gradually become a pay-to-play platform, where you have to have your wallet out of your pocket if you want to play along. Just 5-6 years ago, something as cheap as ordinary posts was enough to create a connection with the customer and link them to your webshop. Today, it has been proven that only 2% of your followers actually see your organic posts. Therefore, you are suddenly dependent on your followers interacting with your posts and thus achieving organic growth - otherwise they won't go far. Therefore, advertising is the safe way to go if you want to reach your potential target audience. We have prepared 7 tips for you to get advertising for your online shop up and running.

But before you read the 7 tips, I would recommend that you take a look atBusiness Managerin Facebook. This is where you need to advertise and manage your different channels if you want to get the most out of your marketing budget.

1) Zapier.com is a godsend for Facebook advertisers.with Zapier, it's possible to tie Facebook together with many other services that you use, such as an email service. By using Zapier, you automate tasks that you would otherwise have to do manually. So you save yourself a lot of work. In addition, you make sure that customers get the right adverts immediately, while they are still warm, and therefore have a greater potential for a sale. It's a tool that we would definitely recommend you look into before you start advertising. If you want to learn more about what Zapier can offer, you can read more here (Link: https://zapier.com/help/create/basics/learn-key-concepts-in-zapier)

2) Don't focus too much on the click price.this is a mistake many of us still make: We look way too much at what it costs to get a click on your webshop. But we do NOT look at what it costs to get some conversions - i.e. direct sales in the webshop. It's about making money, and not about getting a lot of referrals. Therefore, it can be fine to pay as much as DKK 20 for one click if it is related to a conversion / sale. This is not to say that clicks on the website are not important, as it naturally increases awareness of your products. As long as you remember what the ultimate goal is: sales on your webshop.

3) New sales vs re-sales.many people think that it is initially about creating new customers, so you can measure age, gender, interests, etc. But in many cases, it's actually repeat sales that give the biggest results. You should advertise to people who have already visited your webshop, Facebook page or similar. They already have a knowledge and an interest in you. When you start your Facebook advertising, those who already know about you are much more likely to shop with you. Therefore, start with your existing customers. Target your email list, current followers or recent visitors. Use all the data you can pull and then use that data to make new sales using look-a-like audiences that are similar to those who have already bought from you. Reselling is much more effective and should give you more bang for your advertising buck - so this is where you start. The rest will take care of itself.

Keep your existing customers coming back

4) Don't use the interest feature for advertising.many people make the mistake of using interests when they advertise. They reach out very broadly, and it can often look really good if you look at the click price, but you just reach out so broadly that you don't really reach anyone anyway. In some cases, it can be a good idea if you just make sure you have several criteria set.

5) Make split tests.many people think that they know in advance which ad type performs best. But the fact is that it is completely different from target group to target group and product to product. That's why Facebook has given you the opportunity to test different ad types in the same advert. For example, if you create a split advert with 3 different ad texts, Facebook will automatically start measuring which type of ad text performs best. You can then stop showing the advert that performs the worst. You can test everything from ad texts to images to landing pages and then measure by conversion. So always split test to get the most out of your ad spend - even if you're on a low budget.

6) Use emojies.many people might think that adding emojis can look unprofessional. But the fact is that emojis help to catch the eye of consumers. Therefore, use emojis that are relevant to your advert to capture users.

7) Make videos.videos are a sure-fire winner if you want your advert to perform well. So go ahead and shoot videos. Go the extra mile and only show something that will catch your eye when you scroll through Facebook and Instagram.
You'll also gain a lot if you have subtitles, because almost 90% of people watch videos on Facebook without sound.

Now I can only encourage you to do one thing: Jump in and use Facebook Business Manager and get your business set up if you haven't already. Inside the business settings in the Business Manager, you can set up your Facebook page, Instagram page, ad account and Facebook pixel to work together to maximise your access to data. So click around, try it out and practise. It's better to make mistakes and try things out than not to try anything at all in your marketing.