Facebook Automated Ads Help Small Businesses Meet Social Advertising Goals

This week, Facebook announced its new plan to help small businesses meet their Facebook and Instagram advertising goals. They recognize that small businesses can lack time and resources to advertise on social media, so they have created a new tool to make this process easier on them: Facebook Automated Ads.

"We know small business owners are strapped for time, which is why we're committed to building tools that save you time and enable you to focus on the parts of your business you love. Today, we're making it easier for you to manage and promote your business across our platforms through tools such as Automated Ads, appointments and new video editing tools." -Facebook Business

So how do Automated Ads work? It's simple.

What you do:

Visit your Facebook Business Manager profile and answer a few questions about your business and marketing goals.

What you get:

In return, Facebook will develop a customized marketing plan for you based on your business goals.

You don't have to give up complete control to Facebook if you don't want. You are allowed to have a say on a few things like ad copy, URL for your CTA, and some audience targeting criteria; but in general, you'll just have to fill out some general information, click next and Facebook will do the rest.

They will provide you with some options to choose from:

Multiple versions of your ad that will be A/B tested by Facebook once the campaign is active
Tailored audience targeting suggestions
A recommended budget based on your goals
Regular notifications about your ad's performance along with suggestions on how you can improve them

If you have a very strict budget, Facebook gives you the option to suggest a budget and will, in return, share the estimated ROI that you can expect from your ads.

Pro tip: AdEspresso suggests that you do not add URL parameters to the destination URL because parameters will be added automatically to the campaign. Plus, if you add your own parameters, the campaign builder will break. So save yourself some time and just add a bare link to your destination URL.

So if you're a small business not currently running Facebook or Instagram ads, you have no more excuses to not try it out. Go run some ads and reach more customers.