Getting started with Facebook Ads is easy. Anyone can create a post and promote that post for a few dollars. Doing so will often get you a few more views, even some likes, clicks and shares. I call this Level 1 Facebook Effectiveness.
If you apply some strategy before you run your first add you can even architect a situation where you can generate leads through the platform. Learning how to capture email address or phone number in return for a piece of content or offer is next level. I call this Level 2 Facebook Effectiveness.
Level 3 of Facebook Effectiveness is when you can generate a sale from a prospect that you found using the Facebook Ads platform. This is the holy grail for marketers. It is often elusive to many, but it shouldn’t be. Getting to Level 3 is just good old marketing best practice.
The key to making sales when running Facebook Ads is not so much what you do on the platform but what you do off the platform. For many businesses the sale is not made on Facebook. Facebook is used to capture a lead. Once you have a prospects details you can then take process off Facebook to complete it on the phone, in person or on a company website.
This means that there are two parts to the equation:
- Capturing the lead on Facebook
- Converting the lead into a sale off Facebook
Part 2 is where many businesses don’t get it right. They master Level 1 of Facebook Effectiveness and even get to Level 2 but when it comes to Level 3, closing the sale, their sales funnel lets them down. Without a rock solid way of turning leads into sales, you will waste the many opportunities Facebook Ads will present you to make the sale.
My advice from years of experience using Facebook Ads and similar pay per click platforms is to make sure you have a sales funnel that you know reliably converts prospects into sales. This funnel may use marketing automation emails, it may be totally phone based or it may be a combination of both.
Now what do you do if you don’t have a sales funnel that is optimised and tested to convert. Well, Facebook ads are the best way to test and optimise a funnel. They are cheap, the results are instantaneous and they are highly measurable. So, yes even if you don’t have a funnel that is perfect, you can still start with Facebook Ads, but make sure that your goals for the first stage of your campaigns is to optimise that funnel. This is the best use of your money and will ensure future success on the platform.
So in summary, you should put equal importance on your Facebook Ad campaigns and your sales funnel. They both work hand in hand and one is not more important than the other. Do this and you will start to create a predictable sales engine that will deliver new sales on a weekly basis to your business for a very low cost per sale.
Do you have an optimised sales funnel attached to your Facebook Ads campaigns? Have you ever generated leads only to waste the opportunities with a weak funnel? Let me know in the comments below.
