Picture this: You’re scrolling through your Facebook News Feed, winding down from a hectic day, and you see the following image.

Well-designed and accurately targeted Facebook ads seem so natural when you’re scrolling through your Facebook News Feed. At Autoshop Solutions, we use Facebook ads for a number of our clients and have seen much success with them. That’s why we want to tell you about our favorite three and show you some real examples of how they work!

Goal: Increase My Facebook Fan Base

What You Need to Do: Promote your Page

Facebook Like ads allow you to promote your business page to potential customers using the many targeting options Facebook offers. After creating an ad, setting a budget and choosing who you’d like your ad to reach, Facebook will show your ad to those most likely to Like your page. The more fans you have on your Facebook page the more successful you will be at building your online community.

How It Works in Real Life

After starting the Social Connection program in July 2014, David’s Garage in Akron, OH promptly began using Facebook ads to increase the page’s fan base. By running Facebook ads that are targeted by location, we were able to increase the Facebook fan base by 1,575%. Because of these highly-targeted ads, about 70% of the fan base is located less than 10 miles from the shop, and over half of the fans are located in the city in which the shop is located.

Below is a screenshot (Fig. 1) of the consistent growth David’s Garage has experienced since starting Facebook Like ads.

Goal: Increase My Reach on Facebook

What You Need to Do: Boost your posts

Logically, a page with a larger fan base would mean the posts are shown to more people, right? Well, because of Facebook’s algorithm, this is only partially true. Your page’s fans all have an opportunity to see your posts, but if your posts aren’t receiving any engagement, Facebook will slowly lower your organic reach. This is when we like to boost posts. By boosting or promoting a post, Facebook shows that post to exponentially more people – those who Like your page and those you choose through targeting – than would see it organically. As more people see it, more people engage with your post through Likes, comments and shares. As with all Facebook ads, you can target these posts, so although anyone who Likes your page can see it, you can choose who you’d like to push it to. In addition, as people engage with your posts more, the organic reach will naturally increase, as Facebook sees your page’s posts as more relevant.

How It Works in Real Life

David’s Garage’s success with Facebook Like ads was promising, but the engagement on the page needed a tune-up, which is when they started putting some money behind posts. Below is an example of a post’s reach before they began boosting posts (Fig. 2), and a post that has just $10.00 promoting it (Fig. 3).

Goal: Increase Traffic from Facebook to My Website

What You Need to Do: Send people to your website

Last, but certainly not least, is the newest type of Facebook ad we’ve been having success with – Website Click Ads. When someone clicks your ad, they are taken directly to the part of the website you’re promoting. Again, you can target these ads, making sure you’re reaching the audience you want to reach. These ads also feature a Call-to-Action button encouraging people to click to learn more.

How It Works in Real Life

David’s Garage recently started running these ads. For $50.00, the shop received 139 clicks directly to the Schedule page. The cost per click was just $0.36. One of the benefits of Website Click Ads is that there are more locations they’re placed – mobile and desktop News Feeds, right-hand column, Instagram and in the Facebook audience network. They’re a great way to help people discover what services you offer by driving them directly back to your website. Below is an image of the most recent website click ad David’s Garage ran (Fig. 4). The carousel ad that is shown allows the advertiser to have multiple images with text featuring different details of the business, with all of the panels linking back to the page we want the customer to visit.

How Can You Try Them?

Facebook ads are a great tool, but you have to make sure you’re putting effort into the creation and management of these ads – a service included in all of our social programs at Autoshop Solutions! Quality content and images are vital for the success of these ads, as well as accurate targeting. If you’re interested in seeing how Facebook ads can help your shop’s business page, give us a call! We’d love to talk about it with you.