How To Advertise Your Business on Facebook in 9 Simple Steps

Facebook ads allow you to target your audience with various ad types and placements based on interests, web activity, psychographics, and demographics. To advertise your business on Facebook effectively, create an account, add the Facebook tracking pixel to your site, and decide on your advertising goal. Then target your audience, set a budget, and create and run your ads. Get all the details in the steps below.

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Here are the nine steps to advertise your business on Facebook:

1. Create a Facebook Business Page & Advertising Account

To create a Facebook page, click on your profile icon in the top right corner, then click on “page” under Create.

Facebook ads in the newsfeed appear as if they’re posted from your business page. This provides an organic feel for your ad, creating an opportunity to educate people about your company and demonstrate why they should choose you. Whether in ads or organic posts, share your business information and photos in a way that’s both informative and interesting.

To advertise your business on Facebook, you’ll first want to create a Facebook business page. Make sure it’s optimized and aligned to your business’ brand as many who see your ad will check out your profile before deciding whether to visit your website or store. Your profile needs to include elements such as:

• Business information – Include details about what your business offers, where potential customers can find you online and in person, and what sets your business apart. Additional details like operating hours and how long you’ve been in business are also helpful information.
• Profile picture and cover photo – The images you post on your Facebook page should represent your business and the services and products you offer. Choose professional photos that share promotions, highlight team members, and reflect your brand.
• Objectives – Create your Facebook business page with an objective in mind, then create content that serves your objective. For example, your objective may be increasing the visibility of your new company. To meet that objective, you may choose to publish new content daily or launch a new poll every week.

For more guidance, check out our step-by-step article on how to create a Facebook business page.

2. Embed the Meta Tracking Pixel on Your Website

To optimize your Facebook advertising strategy, you will want to add the Meta tracking pixel to the code of your website. This improves ad performance tracking and allows you to run retargeting ads (ads displayed to people who have visited your site when they are on other sites in the Meta advertising network).

Example showing how to set up a Meta Pixel

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Choose which type of code you want to embed to add a Meta tracking pixel to your site.

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Follow the instructions for how to add a Meta Pixel for your type of website, or embed code manually.

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Create and set up your Meta Pixel by going to the Ad Center and following the prompts for completing the Pixel setup.

Create the Tracking Pixel

Add the Pixel to Your Website Code

Choose the Events You Want To Track

Finish Pixel Setup

Successfully completing all of these steps can be overwhelming. Thankfully, the Facebook Pixel Helper makes adding the Facebook pixel to your website even easier. It will check whether the pixels are embedded correctly and confirm they are active.

3. Choose an Advertising Objective

Decide how to create a Facebook ad or boosted post.

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Choose an advertising objective.

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After installing the Facebook pixel, click the option to create a new Facebook ad. You’ll have choices for automated ads, manually creating ads, and boosting posts. If your Instagram account is connected, you’ll also have the option to boost an Instagram post.

Boosted posts are organic posts that you have already published. You “boost” their reach by paying to have Facebook place your posts in the news feed of individuals that match your target audience. It’s a great way to use social media advertising to gain more engagement with high-performing or important posts.

If you choose automated ads, Facebook will ask a series of questions to set up your ad. Examples include whether people visit your business’ physical location, if you have a website, and whether people can buy from your website or book appointments there. It will also ask whether you get leads through your website and whether you want people to contact you (and how).

Based on your answers and selection of ad creatives, it will build an ad campaign for you that you can then edit and launch. Most often, though, you will want to build your Facebook ads from scratch. To do so, follow the remaining steps below.

4. Create a Targeted Audience for Your Ads

An example of how to set up a target audience for Facebook ads.

After you have selected your ad objective, create a targeted audience for your ad campaign. Create customer personas that describe your ideal customers and choose a target audience around those elements. This is critical to your Facebook ad campaign success as far as your ability to effectively reach your target audience, bring them to your website, and convert them into paying customers.

Identify Your Ideal Customer

Create a targeted audience based on the characteristics of your ideal customer types. These could include demographics like age, education level, industries, and marital status, or psychographics like hobbies, spending habits, and personal values. If you’re unsure who your ideal customer is, use our customer profile template to create profiles for your preferred clientele.

Once you have this information, tailor your Facebook advertising campaign’s audience around that person. To do so, use the editing dashboard to choose locations, limit demographics, and isolate Facebook users with relevant interests. As you modify your audience, you can track the current audience size using the meter on the right side of the page.

Audience targeting options include:

• Demographics: This option lets you target your Facebook ads based on demographics like age, gender, relationship status, education, industry, workplace, and job titles.
• Location: If you have a brick-and-mortar business or provide services in certain geographic regions, choose the geographic areas you want your ads to target. Depending on the type of business you have, you may want to limit your audience to people who live in the area, were recently in the area, or people traveling in the area.
• Interests: Narrow your Facebook ad audience by targeting people based on their hobbies, favorite movies and bands, sports teams, and other interests that align with your brand.
• Connections: You can also limit your ad’s audience based on how Facebook users interact with your page, app, or events. This dropdown menu allows you to include or exclude people who already interact with parts of your Facebook presence; you can also target friends of people who like your page or use your app.
• Behaviors: Make sure your ads are visible to people with purchase behaviors, device usage, and other activities that make them more likely to become paying customers.

Facebook Ad Targeting Examples

To help you determine your ideal Facebook audience, we created examples of possible ad audiences for various business types. Here are three examples of ideal Facebook target audiences for different businesses:

Men’s clothing store: If you have a men’s clothing store that specializes in business casual dress, target your Facebook ads to show only to college-educated, single men between the ages of 35 and 40. You can also specify that they live within 10 miles of your store.

Yoga studio: If you want to advertise to college-age women who might visit your yoga studio, you can target your Facebook ads to show only to females who attend the university near your studio. You can also specify an interest in yoga based on Facebook’s knowledge of their interests and activity on social media.

Italian restaurant: If you want to advertise your Italian restaurant to busy moms, target your Facebook ads to display only to working females between the ages of 20 and 45 who have children. You can also specify they live or work within 10 miles of your restaurant to capture customers who might stop at the restaurant on the way home from work.

Review Your Ad’s Potential Reach

Once you enter your audience criteria, Facebook calculates the “potential reach” of your ad, displayed on the right-hand side of the audience selection screen. Potential reach is the estimated number of monthly active people on Facebook that match the audience you defined through the audience targeting selections. When using an awareness ad, cast a wide net to have a better chance of getting people that are interested enough to click on your link.

Facebook offers an abundance of audience criteria, including location, friends, interests, online behavior, and purchasing history. If you choose too many criteria, you’ll limit your ad reach and inundate the same small audience with your ads. If you don’t include enough criteria, the ad will display for people with no interest in your business. A potential reach of around 250,000 is a good starting number.

5. Set Ad Placement, Budget & Schedule

After choosing your ad’s audience, select “Edit Placements” to determine where and when you want your ad to display and how much to pay for that placement. Choose whether your ad displays on mobile, desktop, or both and whether it’s posted to Facebook, Instagram, or other social media marketing platforms and networks. Then, pick a budget and determine how long your ad will be and how many people see it daily.

Identify Preferred Device Type

Once you select “Edit Placements,” you can choose to have your ad show on mobile, desktop, or both. If you choose for your ad to show on both types (recommended), Facebook will allocate your ad budget automatically based on where they think the ad will perform best. If, for example, you are planning to promote your new app and are only interested in marketing to smartphone users, select “Mobile” only.

After tracking ad performance, you may find that one device converts better than the other. In this case, adjust future ads accordingly. Just remember most people use Facebook on their smartphones, so confirm your ad and website look good on a mobile device.

Choose Viewing Platforms

There are three platforms where you can display your ad: Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network, which consists of third-party apps and mobile websites. Under the “Platforms” section of Ad Manager, choose a platform based on your target audience or experiment with platforms to see which ones yield the most valuable engagement. Note, however, that this article focuses on Facebook-specific ads because we’re optimizing the ad based on how people use Facebook.

Set a Daily Budget

Your daily budget for Facebook ads has a minimum budget of just $5 per day. Increasing your daily budget increases the number of people who see your ad. For example, a $10-per-day budget could expose between 940 and 2,500 people to the content each day, depending on the preferred audience characteristics.

Read more in our article on Facebook advertising costs.

Schedule the Ad

Scheduling is the answer on how to run ads on Facebook. You can run your ad continuously until your budget runs out or set a start and end date for the ad. Choose a schedule that fits your budget and ensures enough people have time to click on the ad before starting the next phase of your campaign.

In the screenshot below, the ad is set to run from Thursday to Sunday. It also limits the weekly budget to $35 and allows the reevaluation of the budget based on ad performance Monday.

6. Choose Your Facebook Advertising Format

After setting a budget and ad schedule, you will be prompted to pick your ad format. Facebook ads can be published as a single image, a carousel of several images, a video, or a slideshow. Choose an ad format that will blend in and display like a post from a friend. If your ad looks like the content your audience is used to seeing on their timeline, they are less likely to be turned off by it.

The four Facebook advertising formats are:

• Single image – This ad type is the simplest of all of the ones offered by Facebook, featuring a single image. Given its simplicity, it’s ideal for showcasing website posts or straightforward, brand-promoting articles. We’ll be using this example in the steps below.
• Single video – Videos are an extremely engaging way to share your brand with Facebook users, especially content like behind-the-scenes footage, employee interviews, or demos. If you have time to create video content, test video ads to see how your audience responds.
• Carousel – This is an ad with between two and 10 scrollable images or videos. When this type of ad appears in your news feed, it’s pretty obvious it’s an ad and not a post from a friend. Carousel ads work for promoting products but are not ideal for sharing an interesting article with your followers.
• Slideshow – Facebook slideshow ads feature a looping video of up to seven images. Try this format if you want to highlight many products and create an immersive experience for your followers.

7. Create & Upload Your Ad Content

Once you choose an ad format, add your advertisement copy and images/videos. You can either create these ad creative elements yourself or outsource them to an expert on Fiverr. Also, don’t forget to add compelling ad copy and a dynamic CTA.

Create & Add Image

For single-image ads, Facebook requires the image to be 1200 x 628 pixels. If you don’t have an image you know you want to use, consider sourcing one from a free stock image site like Pixabay or creating graphics for your ads with royalty-free images (and videos) and online editing tools on VistaCreate. You can also add text to your image, but remember that Facebook doesn’t allow ad images that are more than 30% covered with text.

Add Compelling Teaser Text

Next, add the text of your ad. Depending on your ad objectives, this typically includes an informative and compelling headline, along with a teaser for the article or site you’re advertising in the text box.

The text of your ad should be interesting but not detract from the ad or give away the point of the content you’re sharing. While there are different opinions about how much text should be included, most ads keep the word count below 20.

Choose a CTA Button

When finalizing your Facebook ad, you can choose to add a CTA button to attract Facebook users to your website, get them to contact you, or encourage another action. Make sure that whatever CTA you use aligns with the headline, text, and image. Also, be sure to enter the correct URL you want visitors to see when they click on the CTA button.

For more guidance, discover the best Facebook ad agencies to help you create your campaign.

8. Run Your Facebook Ad & Check Performance

Once you complete your ad, click “Confirm” to submit your ad for review. The Facebook team will check your ad content to be sure it meets all advertising guidelines. Typically, ads are reviewed and pushed live within 24 hours. Check to be sure your ad is live by visiting your Facebook Ad Manager dashboard; the status of all ads will be included there.

Check back every few days to make sure you received enough clicks to start running the next phase of your advertising campaign—a consideration ad. You need at least 20 people in your audience who interact with your awareness ad to successfully employ a consideration Facebook ad through retargeting.

9. Follow Up With Retargeting Ads

If you began your Facebook advertising for small business with ads intended to increase brand awareness, follow up with this audience through retargeting ads. Retargeting users who clicked on your ad is a great way to move them to the next stage of the sales funnel all the way to conversion (e.g., becoming a client or making a purchase).

In addition, for users who clicked on your ad and visited your website, you can run Google retargeting ads that keep your brand top of mind through display ads on any website monetized with Google Ads. Learn more about Facebook vs Google ads and which is better for your small business marketing strategy.

How to Measure Facebook Advertising Success

Use Facebook core metrics like click-through-rate (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC) to determine ad success rates. Afterward, examine tracking and promotional codes to further determine ad conversion success. If you’re trying to increase sales, include a tracking number or promotional code or use Facebook’s conversion pixel to track user activity.

Core Metrics of Facebook Advertising for Small Businesses

To evaluate how well your Facebook ads are working, go to the right-hand side of your business page and click “Manage Ads.” From there, you can access the Ad Manager and view ad performance based on CTR, conversion rate, and CPC.

Facebook metrics to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of an ad include:

• Click-through-rate (CTR) – This is the number of people who clicked on your ad divided by the number of people who saw your ad. Focus on the CTR for ads meant to drive traffic to your website.
• Conversion rate – The conversion rate of your Facebook ad is the percentage of your audience that engages with your ad. This includes liking your page, contacting you through the ad, or clicking on your ad’s call to action.
• Cost-per-click (CPC) – This is how much you paid to get someone to click on your ad. For example, if 15 people click on your ad and your total ad cost was $15, your CPC is $1.
• Conversion pixel – If you have an ecommerce website, set up the Facebook pixel to track sales made on your site. This lets you see where your paying customers are coming from and whether the Facebook ad successfully converted your audience to sales.

According to Wordstream, the average CTR across all industries is 0.89%, with an average CPC of $1.68. If you’re not close to achieving results like these, switch up your content until you figure out what kind of ads your audience engages with more consistently.

Review Tracking Code Data

In addition to tracking the CTR and CPC for your Facebook ads, you should incorporate a tracking method into your conversion ads. If you have a real estate office or other business where you’re communicating with every customer directly, you can ask whether they learned about you through a specific ad. Alternatively, if you have an ecommerce website, you can use tools like tracking phone numbers and promotion codes to evaluate ad performance.

Methods to help determine conversion rates include:

• Tracking phone numbers – Use a phone number specific to your Facebook ads to determine whether someone called your business after seeing an ad. For example, if you own a restaurant, you can purchase a unique phone number from a virtual phone service like Grasshopper to track how many people who call in to make a reservation are calling because they saw your ad on Facebook.
• Promotion codes – If you are advertising a promotion in your conversion ad, provide a unique code for Facebook users to apply at checkout.
• Google-tracked events: You can create unique links and set event parameters in Google Analytics to track specific activities, including ads.

Tracking ad performance is extremely important because it lets you know whether your investment is paying off. Without monitoring CTR, CPC, and tracking conversion rates, you won’t know what ads work best for your business. Use tracking data to tweak your strategy or overhaul it completely to ensure maximum ROI.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How much does it cost to advertise using Facebook?

The cost of Facebook ads depends on the budget you set for an individual campaign or across all of the campaigns you’re running. The cost of individual campaigns will vary based on factors like the size of your audience and the length of the campaign. In general, the current average CPC is $0.50, while the cost-per-thousand-views (CPM) is at an average of $14.40. Visit our article to get more information about average Facebook ads costs for different industries.

Are Facebook ads worth it?

Simply put, yes. Facebook ads work, even for small business owners. In fact, 96% of marketing experts find that Facebook is the No. 1 social media platform for a solid return on investment or return on ad spend (ROAS). With more than 2.9 million users and over 22 billion ad clicks every year, Facebook is one of the best and most affordable social media marketing platforms for businesses of all sizes.

Is advertising on Facebook free?

Facebook’s advertising platform is a paid service, so you can’t employ traditional Facebook advertising for free. However, you can market your business on Facebook for free with your Facebook business page. For example, you can use your “About” section and profile pictures to share important information about your business and post engaging content and valuable promotions to attract and maintain followers.

Bottom Line — How To Advertise Your Business on Facebook

Facebook advertising is essential to your small business’s marketing and advertising approach. Used correctly, Facebook ads attract potential clients, earn their trust and loyalty, and convert them into paying customers. Optimize your Facebook ads by creating a targeted audience, increasing brand engagement with attention-grabbing content, and driving people to your website or storefront with conversion ads.

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