Using Facebook’s Ads to Generate Leads – Update

In one of last month’s TechTips I wrote about why I think every agency should consider adding Facebook advertising to their marketing mix. As is often the case with Facebook, some things have changed. The Facebook team is putting a lot of time and energy into developing and enhancing their advertising platform. It is their main source of revenue.

Last month, I mentioned you could use the demographic and behavioral targeting to have your ad displayed to homeowners with a certain valued home, including their expiration month. Unfortunately, the ability to target a specific home value and the expiration month is no longer available. I discovered this option was removed as I was recording a training session on Facebook targeting.

Multi-Product Ads

Facebook has added a new type of ad: the multi-product ad. This new ad format allows you to display from three to five specific products or images within a single ad. Each product or image has its own description and a link that takes people to your landing page.

It is currently only available within the news feed for both mobile and desktop. Mobile users can swipe to get more information about a specific product, while desktop users can move between images by clicking on the left or right arrows.

This might be useful if you are promoting multiple types of insurance products that are commonly combined – auto plus home with additional discounts.

Facebook Ads Keyword Search Tool

As I mentioned several times, there are a large number of ways to target a specific audience. An interesting tool I discovered allows you to do a meta search of the various search term options using a specific targeted term(s).

There is currently no cost for using this tool. I highly recommend taking a few minutes to view the how-to video to make sure you understand how to best maximize the information the tool provides.

One Agent’s Experiment

An agency on Long Island has been actively creating a Facebook presence. Their agency page has about 5,800 likes. Yet, they were seeing fewer engagements and fewer people were actually seeing their status updates.

They decided to try something new and began experimenting with paying Facebook to “boost” their updates. The results?
“Last night I posted on my local news page about the death of Leslie Gore, 60’s chanteuse. My page has 5,800 or so fans. But I noticed that it was not getting a lot of activity.

“So I randomly chose to ‘boost’ it for $20.So far, it has reached 15,160 people, gotten 210 likes and has 76 shares. With still $5.42 left on my $20. So this is one area where I might use it. Of course, it will be better once I have the post on that page which allows them to request a quote.”

For those of you who would like more information on why your agency needs to add Facebook advertising to your marketing mix and how the platform actually works, I have created a three-video series explaining the details. There is no cost or obligation. I hope you will sign up. And be sure to let me know what you think.

Click here for instant access to the free Facebook Advertising video series.

Have you begun to experiment with Facebook ads? If so, what has been your experience so far? If not, why not? Let me know.