How to Create a Simple Facebook Ad Funnel

All successful marketing campaigns start with a good strategy designed to give you the results you want. 

If you aren’t clear on the results you’re looking for…  and you aren’t implementing a carefully thought out strategy… you won’t be happy with the results. 

Does this look familiar…

You need more sales so you create a Facebook post about your product or service and then you boost it. Spend $20, $50 or even $100 and then you hope.  

This is the most common mistake I see people making with their Facebook advertising.

In fact, this isn’t really advertising at all. It’s more about Hope Marketing really.  Make a post, spend some money and hope.

There’s a better way.

Here’s a quick strategy to help you create a Facebook ad funnel that will actually get you the results you want.   

This Facebook Ad Funnel has 3 parts:

• Awareness
• Engagement/ Lead Generation
• Sales

Awareness is the first stage.  If people don’t know about your business, they can’t possibly buy from you. Here the goal is to generate awareness for your business, build brand recognition in the newsfeed and establish credibility and authority for your business

In the Awareness stage you use content like blog posts, video (especially video) and free lead gen pieces. In the Awareness phase, you’re working with a cold audience. They are highly unlikely to buy from you so this is the time to share value and generate goodwill. 

Engagement/Lead Generation is the second stage. We got their attention in the Awareness phase.  Now the goal is to get them to consider your products and services while moving them from Facebook and Instagram to your website. In the Engagement/ Lead Generation phase you can begin promoting some type of discount, offer, consultation, etc.  

Sales is the third step in this funnel.  They know who you are (Awareness). They’ve browsed your website and seen all that you have to offer. They may have signed up for your mailing list or subscribed to your lead magnet (Engagement/ Lead Generation). At this stage you’ll ask them to buy. Show social proof, offer testimonials, share product/service benefits to them and share your solution… give them something to purchase.  

The BIG QUESTION… How do I do all this? 

If you’re new to Facebook advertising OR you just know you’ve never been doing it correctly, the first thing I’ll recommend is to start an Awareness campaign.

At this stage you’ll share your blog posts and videos and run small ads (budgets may vary) to a cold audience.  A good way to get started is simply creating an Interest List in Ads Manager or targeting the people who already like your Facebook page. 

Next, you’ll want to make sure you have a Facebook pixel installed on your website. The Facebook pixel tags people who visit your website and perform different tasks there. It feeds them back to Ads Manager so you can use this audience in your Engagement/Lead Generation stage. 

I highly recommend using video in the Awareness phase.  Video is one of the most effective pieces of content right now. Of course your audience loves video but from an advertising perspective, the main benefit is that Facebook advertising allows you to  group people who have engaged with your videos and create an audience out of them. You’ll then be able to use this audience and move them into the Engagement/ Lead Generation Phase. 

While all of this is taking place… you can begin setting up for the Engagement/ Lead Generation Phase. In this phase, you can use some of the amazing Facebook Retargeting tools to target the people who have been engaging with your content. 

You can create Facebook custom audiences of people who have visited your website or who are on your mailing list. You can also create a Facebook engagement custom audience. 

Engagement audiences include people who have watched your videos, liked your Facebook page, filled out a lead form, engaged with your Instagram business profile, or have shown an interest in your Facebook event. 

Use the links I’ve shared above to create some custom audiences and then you’ll be able to use these audiences for Phase 2 Engagement/ Lead Generation. With these audiences in place, you’ll be able to run ads with promotions, discounts and consultations far more successfully and build your final Sales phase. 

With Awareness and Engagement/ Lead Generation firmly in place, it’s time for the final and most profitable phase… Sales. 

This will be your smallest audience of all.  It will be made up of the people who have visited your website and engaged with the content we mentioned in the previous phase but they haven’t converted to customers yet. By targeting people who have already engaged with your content and browsed your website, you’ll see more conversions.  You’ll see better conversion rates from your ad campaigns and the highest level of return on ad spend.

At this stage, you’ll want to reiterate the offer you positioned at Engagement/ Lead Generation stage but this time build social proof by using testimonials and establish urgency by using reminder based ads.  

Have you ever seen an ad that said something like, “Did you forget something?” and then they reminded you that you were looking at a particular page on their website but didn’t take action.  That’s a reminder ad. Those businesses are using this funnel.

Need help with your next campaign? Contact me here to discuss your business goals and see how we can assist you with your online marketing campaigns.