Facebook desktop right columns

Did you know that Facebook’s desktop right column placement can be very effective, as you can use it to run adverts? On average, right column ads get a much lower click-through rate than news feed adverts as they have a much cheaper click per impression.

Right column ads are letterbox shaped. The advert images should be made especially for this placement and the recommended size is 1200 x 628 pixels. You will need to try and draw people’s attention over to the advert as they will be mostly concentrated on the desktop news feed, which appears next to it. So use images that are likely to catch people’s eye like bright colours, high contrasts… You should also consider testing bright borders.

Testing your adsets

So what are you waiting for? Test out this new type of Facebook advertising to get a greater reach!

Moteefe – Let’s do business, together

When running Facebook ads it is important to guarantee that the most relevant comments are shown first – this can be done in the ‘Settings’ tab on your Facebook Fan Page. This is important because you can post a link to your product in the comments! When the most relevant comments are shown first, this link will appear at the top of the comments’ section and therefore is more visible to everyone.

When somebody comments on the post, we recommend that you engage with them as soon as you can, but don’t just drop a link to your product (although this can be done sparingly). The more engagement a post has, the better it is likely to do. Replying to comments is a great way to increase this engagement and keep in touch with your buyers.

Message the people that comment on your ads

You can directly message each person that comments on a post, through a ‘message button’ which appears below the comments. It’s important however not to spam commenters so don’t just send the same message to everyone. You can personalise the message by having a few draft replies written out and change a few words each time you use them, for instance, by just adding the name of the person you are talking to.

You also don’t have to send them a link to the product in the very first message! It’s much better to try and strike up an organic conversation with them first and build a relationship. This is a very powerful technique (it gets easier the more you try it) and with great power comes great responsibility, so don’t overdo it, use your messaging channels wisely!

The first 20 minutes 

The first 20 minutes after somebody has commented are the most critical and you should try to get your replies in within this timeframe. If you are managing multiple pages or running a substantial amount of traffic or running traffic to a location where they are most likely to be commenting while you are going to be away from the computer or even asleep, then we recommend hiring a virtual assistant to perform these duties for you.

It is critical to properly train these virtual assistants and keep an eye on what they are doing until you are confident that they are the correct fit for your page and your objectives.

So what are you waiting for? Head down to Facebook, make sure that the most relevant comments are shown first on your ads, post the link to your moteefe.com campaign and start having a more personal relationship with your buyers!

Moteefe – Let’s do business together

This post will be focused on retargeting – if you are running Facebook ads, this is an absolutely essential part of your winning strategy! There are several ways it can be done and today we will present one of them. If you’re not doing it yet you must start ASAP, as retargeting adverts gives the highest return on ad spend!

“Previously purchased” custom audience:

To retarget people you will need to create custom audiences within Facebook. The first audience to create should include everybody that has purchased your product in the last 180 days (you can also use 60 days). To do this you will need to go to the ‘Audiences‘ tab, which is under ‘Assets’ in Facebook Business Manager (they are all in the top drop-down menu).

You must have your product’s URL, which will look like this:

https://moteefe.com/test?color=white&product=men-s-t-shirt

You will only need to use this part to create the audience:

https://moteefe.com/test

Make sure you have the right Facebook ad account selected in the drop-down, underneath where it says ‘Audiences‘ on the left-hand side. You can share your custom audiences between ad accounts, but each set of audiences is associated with a single account to start with. In the ‘Audiences’ tab, click on the blue button which says ‘Create a Custom Audience‘.

A pop-up will appear called ‘Create a Custom Audience‘. On this pop-up select ‘Website‘, the top option on the left-hand side. From the drop-down select which pixel you would like to use (if you have multiple pixels within the ad account). Then if you click on ‘All website visitors‘ you will be able to select ‘Purchase‘, and then set the number of days you wish to include in this audience.

Now click ‘Refine by‘, the blue link under ‘View content‘, and select the top option ‘URL/parameter‘ – you can now paste your URL into the box. In this example I would use “https://moteefe.com/test”. Now name your audience – it’s important to use a good naming convention so that you can easily find these later. For purchases I normally use purchase, then product name, then the amount of days, so for this it would be: “Purchase Test 180“.

Now click ‘Create audience‘. Well done! You have just created a custom audience of everybody that has purchased this product in the last 180 days. Important: You can use this audience as an exclusion audience within an ad set, so that previous purchases will not view your retargeting advert.

“Previously viewed” custom audience:

The process is similar to the previous one. To create this audience click on ‘Create Audience‘, then in the ‘Create a Custom Audience‘ pop-up select ‘Website‘ and insert the pixel that you are using for your campaign. Click on ‘All website visitors‘ and in the drop-down menu select ‘View content‘, then enter the amount of days you wish to use. I suggest starting with 28 days.

Now click on ‘Refine by‘, in the drop-down select ‘URL/parameter‘, and paste your URL into the box – in this example the URL is “https://moteefe.com/test”. Now, using your naming convention, name the audience! I use VC + product name + amount of days – so it will be “VC Test 28 days“.

Note: Facebook will say that it is populating these audiences and that it will take 2 to 3 days to do so. However you can start using them straight away!

Now, if you go back to Facebook Ads Manager and create a new campaign, in the ad set menu ‘Custom Audiences‘, select your ‘View content 28 day audience‘. If you then click the blue exclude link underneath, then another box will appear and you can select your ‘Purchased (product name) 180 day audience‘. Facebook continuously updates these audiences.

Do not select any detailed targeting and it is best to run these adverts on all placements to begin with. You can run retargeting ads per placement for each campaign, so that would be one ad for your Instagram feed, one for the Facebook News Feed on mobile, one for the Facebook News Feed on desktop only and another for the Stories feed etc. Placements work best if you’re receiving a substantial amount of traffic and remember, you can set your budget as low as one dollar with these adverts so feel free to mix it up!

Retargeting ads that are using automatic placement should use a square image of around 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels, as Facebook now displays website conversion adverts in the News Feed with square images. Some advert accounts will allow you to select a separate image for each placement which can be helpful – if your account allows it, make a different image for each placement. Select them under the ‘Ad‘ tab.

TIP: If you create multiple custom audiences for the people that have viewed the product, you can tailor your advertising the following way:

1) Show people that have viewed it in the last day a similar or the same image used in your original advertising campaign without a discount

2) People who have viewed the product in the last three days can see a variation of the image with a 5% discount and so on…

You can try different offers with different audiences. The people who have viewed the product the longest time ago will get the biggest discount.

You can also exclude people that viewed it one day ago from the three day audience, so that they will not see the deeper discount. You do this by adding the one day into the ‘Exclude‘ section of the ad set. This is in the same place where you are excluding purchases.

Add to cart audiences:

Other custom audiences:

With some custom audiences, Facebook allows you to target people over the last 365 days. Here’s a list of other custom audiences that you should create and run ads to now:

• Everyone that has engaged with your Facebook page – make a separate audience for 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 60, 90, 180 and 365 days.

• Everyone that has engaged with your Instagram profile – make a separate audience for 1 ,3, 7, 14, 28, 60, 90, 180 and 365 days.

• That have liked your Facebook page

Congrats, you’ve successfully set up your custom audiences for retargeting! This is a big step, as retargeting is the most effective form of advertising! If you’re running Facebook ads, it’s critical to test and to get this right.

So what are you waiting for? Pick a campaign that you’ve launched at http://www.moteefe.com and get your retargeting adverts going right now! Good luck and as always, let us know how it goes!

Moteefe – Let’s do business together