Should You Run Facebook Engagement Ads First?

In this article, I'm going to give the 3 big why you should run Facebook engagement campaigns first.

The short answer is yes! Times have changed because of improvements and updates in Facebook's machine learning algorithm, now it mainly affects the different quality of audiences.

When you select the engagement campaign, whether for post engagement or video views, Facebook is optimising its machine learning.

This is to find people who are more likely to engage through comments, shares or likes and even watching videos that you select.

Take this into account before running engagement ads

When you run a retargeting conversions campaign to these engagers, this can waste ad spend because they're generally people who just look, like, comment, and go to the next thing they see.

However, conversion campaigns with Facebook's machine learning are optimised to find people who are ready to either take you up on your lead or even pull out a credit card to purchase your offer.

With that said here are...

3 Reasons to run engagement ads on Facebook

#1 Are your prospects ready to buy?

Even though Facebook engagement is finding people who are only engagers.

Not every engager is equal when it comes to the likelihood of becoming a conversion.

You see, Sometimes before sending someone straight to a sales page, they might need more information or knowledge before they make a decision.

Maybe there still on the fence and don’t fully get why they would need what you have yet or maybe it's something new you're delivering and they need to see a demonstration or proof of what you have works.

So ask yourself…
before taking anyone straight to a sale offer, are they at the point that they're ready to buy?

Do they need more information before they buy?

Or even, do they know or TRUST you or your brand?

As most buyers require multiple touchpoints before making a sale.

A quick example of someone ready to buy...
Think about someone who's in the market for buying new shoes and all of sudden an ad on Facebook pops up with a special offer for a brand new pair of shoes!

They clearly know they need a new pair, and if you can give them a good offer then that’s all you might need.

But let’s say you're trying to sell some sort of course, do they first need to get over other hurdles before they're ready to buy from you?

Or do they need some information before they can make the right decision?

You need to decide from your research what level of awareness is your prospect at in relation to what you're selling.

#2 Do you have a small budget?

It's worth considering the size of your budget because conversion campaigns can get very expensive.

Especially if you send people to a sales page without having the proof of concept down.

Because trying to get your ad at the break-even point, can use your budget quickly to find this out.

And if you go for leads, even though it’s cheaper than purchases, again this can get more expensive than any engagement campaign.

Diagram showing multiple examples of facebook engagement ads related to a sales page

So what you can do for small budgets is this, take the idea of your sales page or leads, run multiple variation ads of this concept, and test which message gets the best response.

This will help you understand what your prospects are responding well to.

And can also give you good information when you run your conversions campaign and create the ads.

Now, here’s something else you can do…
You can take topics of the niche subject and create content around this to also see how people respond to it.

Because not only can you get proof of concept you can also retarget these people in a different way.

Facebook’s algorithm can determine when someone’s ready to take you up on an offer at the right time with this method.

#3 Social proof

When it comes to running engagement ads and social this depends on many factors, some businesses more than others require more social proofing especially if you’re a business that deals with high ticket prices.

Such as, a digital agency will need more social proofing because of bad experiences people may have had in past with other companies.

And running ad accounts without social proof can get expensive for clients needing more certainty to make an informed decision.

But saying that, it’s not true in all cases, there’s always going to be some people who’ll go directly to your offer.

But then there are lots of businesses that don’t require much social proof like a company selling jewelry or crystals.

They could possibly take their prospects straight to an offer without social proof.

Now, here’s something, you need to be aware of…
Because when you run engagement ads for social proofing you’re always going to get that one person who dislikes what you say or do.

Because since the engagement campaign for Facebook's machine learning is ONLY looking for people who engage and interact.

This could be someone who likes to clown around and dislike or make fun of things, or even someone whose vocal and likes to share their opinion negatively.

And this can in some cases make your page look less appealing.

But it’s not something that should put you off, I always say focus on the people you can help, and if a few emojis put people off then so be it, maybe there not the type of customer you want anyway and you can remove any comments that are false or untrue or simply facetious.

#4 Bonus tip: turning these engaged people into a lookalike for cold audiences

Turning engaged people into a lookalike for cold audiences is something that’s worked in the past, and some marketers say it doesn’t work as well as it used to.

But for me, every time I use my lookalike audience, it’s always had great results, and will continue to use them.

I invite you to try it out for yourself, as every business is different and what works for me might not work for you, and ultimately testing is the key to success with Facebook advertising.

Getting even more from your Facebook ads and engagement campaigns

Now that you know the reasons why you should use Facebook engagement campaigns, I recommend looking into how to increase your engagement ads performance, why your ads aren't converting and making sure you're targeting the right audience.

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