Getting Ready for Holiday Advertising on Facebook

The holiday season is traditionally a busy time for many businesses, and in recent years it has become more competitive when advertising on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Following COVID-19 where more people are ready and willing to buy online, advertising costs that may be low now are expected to increase, making it more expensive for businesses to advertise the longer they wait.

If you don’t want to waste your online advertising budget, there are a few things you can do now, that will get you ready and prepared to advertise online, without being left behind.

Streamline Campaign & Advertising Structure

To run an efficient advertising account, you need to have a simplified campaign and advertising structure. Often businesses will have multiple campaigns targeting the one audience, where one to two campaigns will target just as effectively. Fewer campaigns allow you to spend your advertising budget better and bring a stronger performance to your ads.

Advertising in More Places

One of the best ways to get the best cost per result (and often the cheapest) is to ensure your ads are placed as much as possible. We tend to recommend four placements at a minimum, helping you to streamline your campaign and budget spend. You should be placing your advertising where you reach your audience the most efficiently.

Spend Your Budget Effectively

Much like ensuring your advertising is placed efficiently, you need to spend your advertising budget efficiently. You’ll save time by not having to move and realign your budget, and you’ll be able to maximise the delivery of your advertising.

Advertising Sets

It is recommended that you should make at least two ads to reach your target audience. On Facebook, this gives the algorithms the best chance to test which ad is getting you the better results. You can run a variety of versions – two image ads, one image and one video and so on, but it is important to have two variations. When placing, you should be using the asset customisation settings so that you can customise your advertising better. By doing so, your ads will look the best they can.

Audience Numbers

Broad audiences do tend to perform better than smaller audiences, but this doesn’t mean you don’t need to set your targeting. While larger audiences will find a better target market, you still need to be specific in the audiences you want to target. Secondly, it is recommended to expand your targeting to allow for a more flexible audience. This allows Facebook to expand your detailed targeting when a potential conversion looks likely to occur.

Advertising Learning Phase

Each advertisement you place goes through what is known as a learning phase to ensure it is being delivered correctly, and effectively. Once an ad has reached 50+ conversions over 7 days, it exits this learning phase. Not meeting those conversion numbers? You might need to optimise your advertising for a conversion event that isn’t just purchases – events such as adding items to your cart or signing up to a trial rather than a full subscription.

Testing and Approval Time

You should have been testing your advertising well before the holiday season to ensure that your advertising is effective for your business. If you haven’t tested new ads, it is best to do this early or to look at reusing advertising that has already been successful.

Because more businesses look to advertise online at this time of the year, and particularly following COVID-19, you should allow for a little extra time for your advertising to be approved. You should be creating your advertising as far in advance as possible.

It is expected that more and more people will be shopping online this holiday season, and the closer it becomes to the end of the year, it is expected that advertising on social media sites will just become more expensive. Now is the time to get online and start reaching your audience with honest and informative ads.
Call us on 1300 376 466 or contact us here to have a chat about how we can set up a strategy for your business.