“Facebook has 2.60 billion monthly active users (2020). If that number doesn’t blow you away, it also has 1.73 billion users that are visiting the social networking site on a daily basis”
- Maryam Mohsin, Oberlo
With the advancement of technologies, Facebook emerges as a dominating digital marketing platform when people find a way to digitalise marketing ways. First thing first, why Facebook?
There are many more reasons for you to choose Facebook as an amazing platform for digital marketing. Considering the most powerful tool on Facebook, Facebook Ad, let’s talk a bit more about that and we will start with Facebook Ad funnel as one of the most powerful marketing funnels amongst growth marketing strategies.
Have you ever wondered why there was so low ROI (Return of Investment) in Facebook Ad? Why you could not see the results from Facebook ads? You might be doing wrong in Facebook ad and you know what, here is a fabulous strategy customised for you in Facebook ad creation, which is Facebook Ad funnel.
Facebook Ad Funnel
Facebook Ad funnel is a conversion funnel marketing strategy which you can utilise in Facebook marketing to convert Facebook users to your customers via several marketing touchpoints throughout the user’s journey. This funnel is powerful enough to convert a total stranger to your loyal customer!
Let’s have a closer look at that.
As you can see from the diagram above, the funnel is actually segmented into 3 parts:
- Top of Funnel (TF)
- Middle of Funnel (MF)
- Bottom of Funnel (BF)
Starting from the TF (where you show your ad to the widest range of audience), some of the interested audience will move on to the next stage which is MF (this is where retargeting interested audience start to take place) and lastly the audience that is about to convert will move to BF and finally be converted. The shape of the funnel implies the gradual reduction of the number of audience from TF all the way to BF.
Enough for the theory part, now, you might be thinking, which stage I am now at and where should I start?
No worries, we will go step by step from the beginning of creating Facebook Page.
Step 1: Facebook Page
In order to apply the Facebook Ad funnel in Facebook Ad, you must have an ad account and to obtain an ad account, you need to have a Facebook page. Here is a guide on how to create a Facebook page for your business brand if you yet have one.
After obtaining the Facebook page, take some time to optimize your Facebook page to increase page view and trust-worthiness of your Facebook page.
So, now, I assume that you have created a Facebook page and optimized it to your best. What you can do next is that you are strongly recommended to obtain page likes (to increase your page trustworthiness in order for users to trust you and feel secured to make purchases) before going into Facebook Ads to increase the effectiveness of your ads. (p.s. page likes are not a prerequisite of creating Facebook ads)
(optional) Ways you can obtain page likes are :
- Use the invite button to invite people to like your page
- Create an engaging post
- Using Facebook ad campaign (refer to Step 2 if you do not have Facebook Ad account)
Please bear in mind that you are supposed to maintain this Facebook page perhaps by posting. Pick up some good practices about Facebook posting to get the most out of your page posts.
Step 2: Facebook Ad Account
In order to create Facebook Ads, you need to have a Facebook Ad account. You are highly recommended to create a Business Manager for your Facebook page to ease with future processes when your business grows. Here is how to create a Business Manager and Facebook Ad account.
Step 3: Facebook Ad Creation
Step 1: Go to Business Manager and select the hamburger icon and go to Ads Manager
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Step 2: Click on Create Ad
Step 3: Select the campaign and proceed to ad creation settings
Step 4: Application of Facebook Ad Funnel
When you first start with Facebook Ad creation, you must have no idea what to do and how to plan along to obtain customers via Facebook ads. This is where Facebook Ad Funnel comes to play its role.
We will be explaining this Facebook Ad Funnel in depth and provide you with a complete step by step guide to apply this funnel practically in real life.
Speaking of which, as a reminder, the Facebook Ad Funnel is separated into Top of Funnel (TF), Middle of Funnel (MF) and Bottom of Funnel (BF).
Once you are ready to create your own Facebook Ad Funnel, you should start from TF, followed by MF and finally BF.
Here are some jargons we will be using:
- Cold audience: Facebook users who do not know your brand at all
- Warm audience: Users who know your brand at some basic level and are quite interested in the products or services you provide.
- Hot audience: Users who know your brand well , including the products or services you provide and are very close to be converted into your customers.
The above diagram shows the buyer’s journey in making a decision in buying a product. By considering each stage, the Facebook Ad Funnel aims to convert Facebook users by targeting a wide range of cold audience in TF at first in Facebook ads to raise brand awareness in them (Awareness Stage) and slowly retargets those warm audience in MF (interest indicated by engaging or responding to the ads in TF) who will be in Consideration Stage and finally bring the hot audience to BF and convert them eventually in Decision Stage. In short, every level in Facebook Ad Funnel corresponds to every stage in buyer’s journey.
- Top of Funnel = Awareness Stage
- Middle of Funnel = Consideration Stage
- Bottom of Funnel = Decision Stage
In line with the Facebook Ad Funnel, the cold audience needs 6-8 touchpoints in order to know your brand well and purchase your product. You will be able to fulfill these touchpoints to the Facebook ad targeted audience throughout this Facebook Ad Funnel and finally convert them to your customers after they feel they know your brand well enough to purchase your products.
- Top of Funnel (TF)
In order to create Facebook Ad Funnel, you will be starting with TF. The objective of this TF is to introduce your brand to the widest range of Facebook users to look for users who engage or respond to your ads and retarget them in MF as they are more likely to convert.
In this stage, please bear in mind that, as mentioned, the targeted cold audience in this stage DOES NOT know your brand AT ALL, so it will be too fast to try to sell them your products in this stage. The chance they convert on the first time is extremely slim and you will just be wasting your money on that.
The best way to do this is just to let the audience realise that your brand exists in a very casual way. Remember, the audience is just going to Facebook to socialise, NOT TO BUY THINGS, so if you introduce your brand in a very casual way, then most likely they will stop by and have a look to fulfill your first touchpoint.
TF Recommended Facebook Ad Campaigns
- Video Views (strongly recommended)
- This is the best way to introduce your brand, videos are eye-catching to humans and it is just human instinct to look at moving objects
- Traffic
- This is a good way to lead the audience to your web page and have the Facebook Pixel to track the activity and have the data for future custom audience use.
- Reach
- Brand Awareness
TF Recommended Ad Copies
- Video Ads (highly recommended)
A good video ad will be related to a casual setting to catch the audience's attention and show your brand in the video. Remember, they are not on Facebook to buy things, so just somehow mention about your brand in video in TF to make them aware of your brand.
Most people on Facebook watch videos on Facebook without sounds, so make sure your audience knows what the ad is about without needing to turn on the sound, hence it is important to either add subtitles in the video or make the video understandable without sound.
- Carousel Ads
Carousel ads are perfect to show multiple pictures about your brand to let the audience know more about your brand and some simple descriptions are able to be put under every picture you are using.
- Image Ads
A simple single image ad that stresses on the logo of the brand which catches the audience’s attention on the first look and makes it a perfect brand awareness advertisement.
What Are You Gonna Do?
After you select the desired campaign you want to launch, at the Ad Set level where you choose the audience, choose the widest range of audience, in which you can use:
- Page like custom audience
- Lookalike audience of custom audience you created
- Broad targeting without detailed targeting
Bear in mind, before creating the Facebook Ads, get your Facebook pixel installed in order to track activity of the audience on your ads and websites.
Meanwhile, A/B split test is essential to find out the most efficient ads so that you can use them in the future.
After leaving the ad for some time, you can proceed to MF with retargeting the warm audience by creating custom audience (who engaged and responded to your ads) and try to start a new funnel for different batches of audience (it can be done concurrently with creating another funnel at the same time).
*Recap for TF
- Get Facebook pixel installed
- Run recommended ad campaigns
- Use wide range audience in ad set level
- Use the recommended ad copy
- In the meantime, do A/B split test
- Create custom audience and proceed to MF
b. Middle of Funnel (MF)
At this level, the targeted warm audience already has some basic understanding of your brand and you can start introducing them to some of your products, however, please do not do hard sales at this stage as they need to know more about your products first. The objective of this MF is to act as a transition from cold audience to hot audience and continue to give the audience touchpoints for your brand.
MF Recommended Facebook Ad Campaigns
- Traffic
- Engagement
- Conversion
MF Recommended Ad Copies
- Carousel Ads
- Image Ads
- Instant Experience Ads
Instant experience ad is full-screen ad on mobile devices and it allows you to even include the storefront in this kind of ad. It is best to be used in MF to let your audience know more about your products visually and the conversion is possible to happen here as well if you successfully give the audience what they need to know and what they need to obtain.
- Dynamic Creative Ads
Dynamic Creative ad is actually displayed identically with single image ad on Facebook. The only difference is that you are able to upload different ad materials in a single copy of ad setting. When this ad is ongoing, it helps you to find the elements of the materials which perform the best by random mixing and show them to the best audience who suit that particular ad well, but it should not replace A/B split test.
What Are You Gonna Do?
Proceeding to MF, since we have collected quite a few leads from perhaps TF, page likes, website traffic and audience engagement in Facebook posts, so we can proceed to creating custom audience and lookalike audience.
In MF, it is worth A/B testing the audience from different sources to find out which batch is a high-chance converting batch.
Remember to set the ad frequency to prevent ad fatigue occuring in targeted audiences from seeing the ads too frequently.
At this level, call-to-action buttons play a very important role in helping the audience to know more about the products during this consideration stage. Just have a logical thought, after several touchpoints, your audience will be in consideration stage, contemplating whether to buy your products, and if there is a call-to-action button to prompt them to know more about the products or services you provide, then there will be a high chance to convert the warm audience.
Tip: The Lead Generation campaign is usually very expensive, the cheaper way you can do is using the Traffic campaign to lead them to your landing page and get Facebook pixel to track their activity and get their information through the landing page.
*Recap for MF
- Create custom and lookalike audience
- Create recommended campaigns
- Split test the audience
- Set the ad frequency
- Choose the appropriate call-to-action buttons
c. Bottom of Funnel (BF)
Coming to this stage, the hot audiences will most likely just need a little touchpoint and drive to prompt them to make purchases, so the objective of this BF is to add last few touchpoints and prompt the hot audience to buy your products or services.
BF Recommended Facebook Ad Campaigns
- Conversion
- Catalog Sales
- Store Traffic
BF Recommended Ad Copies
- Carousel Ads
- Instant Experience Ads
- Image Ads
What Are You Gonna Do?
In this stage, you are going to prompt them to buy the products from you. It will be very useful to create an urgency eg. limited offer to prompt them to buy the products from you.
Call-to-action buttons are also important if they have any final questions to ask before they actually buy the products.
Undoubtedly, people like exclusiveness so much, it will be useful to make some exclusive offers or exclusive ad copies for the hot audience.
*Recap for BF
- Create custom and lookalike audience
- Create recommended campaigns
- Choose the appropriate call-to-action buttons
- Create urgency
- Create exclusiveness
Step 5: Post-purchase Loyal Customers
For the post-purchase customers, PLEASE DO NOT ABANDON THEM, they are one of your assets now. The loyal customers might even promote your brand to their friends and family and get you more customers.
So you can continue retargeting them, and this time, one thing differently that can be used is that you can simply use the Reach campaign to reach out to your customers who have already made purchases instead of Conversion which is relatively expensive.
And we would like to offer you a trick, in fact, you can create a custom audience of the purchased customers and start a new Facebook Ad funnel with the lookalike audience which is the MOST VALUABLE custom audience list you might have. The lookalike audience created and searched by Facebook will most likely have the same traits as your purchased customers and they are more likely to convert in that sense.
In conclusion, this Facebook Ad Funnel has helped a lot of growth marketers to succeed in their career as Facebook provides helpful tools and huge data for analysis.
