4 FREE FACEBOOK RESOURCES SMALL BUSINESSES CAN USE TO MAKE BETTER ADS


If you’re like me, you’re always looking for a new tool or trick to help you make any part of your digital marketing easier and more effective. Fortunately, we are not alone, and Facebook realizes that.

Facebook has invested in building a vast library of resources for marketers just like us. These are particularly nice for the small business owner who has a limited budget and time to learn the finer points of what has become a very vast advertising platform.

Below you’ll find a list of four resources that will help you create better visuals, know more about your audience and solve all of your advertising problems, quickly.

  1. Free Shutterstock Photos
    Choosing a stunning image for your Facebook ads is important, and if you’ve ever bought stock photography you know it can be expensive. The perfect photo you are looking for always seems to be of the ‘premium’ variety (aka: the expensive ones). Thankfully Facebook has a solution. Advertisers on Facebook have the opportunity to access Shutterstock’s vast library of stock photos… at no cost.

You can access the Shutterstock library in the same place you normally access your image library, but choose “Stock Images” from the top menu. Enter your keywords in the search box and choose your perfect image!

Shutterstock Library on Facebook

  1. Facebook Grid Tool
    If your business likes to add text or branding to your Facebook ads, you are likely aware of the “20% Rule.”

Facebook’s 20% Rule is that only 20% of your image may include text. In order to help you ensure the ads you have designed are approved, the Facebook Grid Tool was created. You can use this tool to help you determine if your images contain too much text or not based on the 20% rule.

To use the the grid tool, upload your image and use the grid system to highlight your text on the image. The grid tool will calculate the percentage of your image covered by text based on the number of grids you select.

An example of an Acceptable Facebook Ad with Text:
Acceptable Facebook Image with Text

An example of an Unacceptable Facebook Ad with Text:
Unacceptable Facebook Ad Image with Text

  1. Audience Insights
    As a business owner or marketer, you likely have a pretty good idea of who your target audience is. However, sometimes the traits you use to describe your audience might not align perfectly with the targeting options in Facebook.

Enter, Facebook Audience Insights, a great way for you to find common traits among the fans of your page.

Facebook Audience insights will aggregate all of the information from the fans of your Facebook page and compile the information in easy to digest graphs based on different characteristics. While some of this information is available in your Facebook Page Insights, Audience Insights takes this information to the next level.

To start using Audience Insights, enter the name of your page in the dialog box shown below:

Facebook Audience Insights Sidebar

**Please note your page must have 1,000 fans in order to pull audience insights on your page.

Once you have entered your page name, you’ll be able to view:
Enhanced demographic information
Common page likes
Detailed explanation of the locations of your fans
Facebook activity and behavior trends
Details about the household composition and income of your fans
Information about the spending habits of your fans
Some of my favorite reports to include in your Facebook Ad targeting:
Relationship and Education Report
Facebook Audience Insights – Relationship and Education

Job Title & Industry Reports
Facebook Audience Insights – Job Title and Industry Reports

Purchase Behavior Trends
Facebook Audience Insights – Purchase Behavior Trends

Most of the information detailed in this report can be directly used as a targeting metric within Facebook Power Editor. Try adding this information into the Detailed Targeting Options while building your Ad Sets to add more layers into your targeting.

Detailed Facebook Advertising Targeting

  1. Business Support Chat
    Here’s a secret: even the most experienced Facebook Advertisers run into problems. One of my favorite new Facebook Resources is the Advertiser Support Live Chat. This resource will prove invaluable when you run into an issue you cannot fix yourself, or if you have a problem the normal Help Center cannot help you solve on your own.

You can access the Advertiser Support Center from the Tools menu of Ads Manager or Power Editor if you are a Business Manager account user.

Facebook Live Chat

However, if you’re like me, you’ll add the Facebook Advertising Resources to your bookmark bar in your browser to access it quickly and easily!

Staying Ahead of The Game
As you know, Facebook is always updating its platform and it is sometimes hard to stay on top of all the new tools, tricks and insights. Facebook realizes this and while they are updating their features, they are also continually updating their resources.

Fortunately, we are here to help you stay on top of your game as well. Check back with ARCH often to stay up-to-date with all of the new Facebook Ad Features and Resources.

Don’t want to have to worry about managing your ads yourself? ARCH offer’s a variety of different packages that include Facebook Ad Management so you can focus more on running your business and less on keeping up-to-date with Facebook’s platform.

Now it’s your turn: What resources do you use to stay up to date? Are there other Facebook tools you use to stay at the top of your game?