Social media ads are the cornerstone of your marketing strategy, and each platform offers outstanding tools to help you create, monitor, and analyze your ads. In fact, there are so many that we can’t even cover them all in one post!

We’re going to start with Facebook because it’s the most popular and widely used platform for social media marketing, and it has some really awesome tools! Facebook also owns Instagram, so the ad process is the same on both platforms.

Here are the things you need to consider when building the perfect Facebook or Instagram ad:

• Ad format- There is a wide variety of ad formats on Facebook. You can choose from video ads, photo ads, slideshow or carousel ads, canvas ads and dynamic ads. Your objectives and your product or service determines what format will work best for you.
• Objectives- Facebook gives you 13 objectives to choose from. You can choose reach, traffic, engagement, lead collection, and more. It’s important to identify your goals because your objectives determine how your Facebook campaign is run.
• Audience- Facebook is going to help you get your ad seen, but you have to decide exactly who you want to see it! They give you lots of custom audience options to help you target the best prospects. You can also create your own custom audience by matching your client files to current Facebook users.
• Budget- you can choose to pay per ad or set a campaign budget that’s spread across different ad sets and target audiences that are likely to deliver the best results.
• Analytics- There are 2 great ways to track your Facebook ad performance. Facebook Pixel allows you to track website traffic and visitor actions, as well as specific campaign stats. Your ad relevance score gives you a numerical indicator of how well your ad is being received by your audience.

Now, let’s switch gears for a minute and talk about advertising on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is most beneficial for those who are offering B2B services- coaching, consulting- things of that nature.

LinkedIn ads are a hot commodity. In fact, they’re so in demand that LinkedIn doesn’t even use a fixed price model- they want you to bid for your space, and that can get expensive!

Here’s what you need to know to advertise on LinkedIn:

• Format- There are 3 different formats you can choose from. You can create a text ad, sponsored content, or sponsored messages.
• Budget- The format you choose determines how you’ll pay. You can pay per click, per 1,000 impressions, or for every message sent. LinkedIn also allows you to set a total budget for a specific campaign, a daily budget for long-term ad campaigns, or just bid the highest amount you’re willing to spend for clicks, impressions, and sends.
• Analytics- LinkedIn helps you track your ad’s performance with conversion tracking. You pick the metrics you want to focus on, like email registration, or event signups, and measure your leads accordingly. They’ve also introduced some brand-new tools this year that really help you increase your brand awareness and connect with your audience.

LinkedIn can really help you expand your professional network and could potentially be a great investment for B2B businesses, but if you’d like something a little more affordable, let’s move on to Twitter Ads.

The coolest thing about Twitter is that it has no minimum advertising budget. You can spend as little or as much as you want, and that makes it a GREAT option for testing out different formats, target audiences and posting times.

Here’s what you need to know to create successful Twitter ads:

• Format- Twitter allows you to choose promoted tweets, promoted accounts, promoted trends or promoted moments. Your objectives help you choose the best format for your message.
• Budget and audience- You’ll have options to choose your daily budget or a total budget, and to choose your ad group and your ad placement. You can segment your audience by demographic features, locations, or specific interests, or you can ask Twitter to target people who are similar to your follower base.
• Bonus! If you choose Twitter Promote Mode, you can advertise without making any big decisions. You tweet as you normally would, and Twitter automatically promotes your tweets and brand profile. It’s easy, inexpensive (about $100 a month), and effective. Using Twitter Promote Mode ensures that your ad reaches on average 30,000 additional people- that’s a solid investment!

If you’d like to learn more about the top ad features of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, check out this week’s episode of Building Your Empire with SophieZo.