Social network advertising will likely be the primary source of attendees for your webinar, so knowing the best practices concerning the type and placement of your ads is very important. In particular, Facebook offers a significant level of customization with respect to your ads, meaning that an informed user can make the most of its tools by optimizing his ads with specific advertising purposes in mind. This guide will give you some advice and useful tips to properly craft a high-converting and intriguing advertising experience using Facebook ads.
First off, before designing your ad, ask yourself what exactly you wish to gain fromit. If you are hosting a webinar, you will likely have a landing page to collect user information and fees for registered attendees, right? It follows that the specific purpose of your ad will not only be to inform users about your webinar and make them eager to learn more about it, but also to specifically redirect them to your landing page.
Note: incidentally, you can have a crude estimate of the effectiveness of your ad simply by measuring the difference in user traffic on your landing page before and after the ad went up. Remember to correct for exponential effects when you do this (in later stages, ad or no ad, word of mouth will do some work for you, so some visits will not entirely depend on your ad).
If your purpose is to get users to go to your landing page, you should optimize your Facebook ad to do just that. Taking a look at Facebook’s ad guide, the most useful templates for you to choose (on the menu to the left) will be ones incentivizing “Clicks to Website”, “Website Conversions” and especially “Lead Generation”. You will notice that all three of these templates feature very similar, Facebook post-like layouts. Let’s break them down:
- A comment at the top, in which your account or page talks about the content of the ad briefly. Try to be less formal here, as if you were a normal user telling others about an interesting discovery online. For instance: “Unsure about how to get your online business started? Check out this online marketing webinar!”
Recommended length: <20 words
- An appealing and relevant image, occupying most of the ad space. The image should refer to the topic of your talk. Remember to make it eye-catching but not too abstract or archetypal, or your ad will seem less interesting as a result.
Recommended size: 1200x628px
Recommended aspect ratio: 1.9:1
- A headline for your ad. In a very brief form, try to convey the content and appeal of your event to users. For example: “Advanced online marketing webinar”
Recommended length: 5-8 words
- A short description of your product. In a couple of sentences, try to summarize important points about your talk and spark user interest to check out more information about it on your landing page. Remember that you are not giving details here, just trying to catchattention. It is usually a good idea to include a call to action here, redirecting viewers to your landing page, where they can find out more information and sign up.
Recommended length: <30 words
- Links back to your landing page and website. Usually, this takes the form of a website URL to the bottom left and a “Learn More” button to the bottom right, (essentially a link to your landing page, or wherever else you prefer to send users to).
How Much Does This Cost?
This is entirely your call. When you set up your ad, Facebook will ask you who you wish to target it to (we mentioned earlier that “Website Conversions” or “Lead Generation” templates are your best bets here). Additionally, you will be asked what your advertising budget is, and whether you prefer to pay a lump-sum “Lifetime” budget which will be used up as time goes on, or a “Daily” budget. Both of these values can be as low or high as you wish (of course, the number of times your ad will be displayed to users will depend on your budget).
Ultimately, Facebook ads can be very useful at bringing more users to your landing page, and to increase your webinar’s visibility. Use them wisely though: don’t overdo it, as people may think that you need a lot of ads to make up for poor quality. Additionally, make sure you have already properly set up your landing page to further convert the visits into registrations for your event. Check out our guide on how to create a great landing page here.
