Being the intern at Coloff Digital has been an incredible learning experience for me. I figured I would share what I learned about Facebook Ads, how to place them and all the cool functions that go with it! I will say I am still learning (there is a really helpful site, Facebook BluePrint, that I learned the most from and it’s FREE). So, here we gooo…

The Basics

The first thing I learned was the basics. The platform used to monitor the ads is called Facebook Ads Manager. It can be accessed from the sidebar of your Facebook page. I think the Ads Manager program is very user friendly and might be helpful to just play around on the there until you get the hang of it.

Next is how the ads actually get set up into different ad sets and campaigns, because unless you already know this doesn’t mean much. So here is the breakdown; “Campaign” is the first level. As Coloff Digital, we have this section broken done by companies we do business with and run digital advertisements for. The next level is the “Ad Set” which is where the different advertisement campaigns for each specific company are organized. We use this to target specific locations or parts of a market. Then the third level is the “Ad” level itself. This is where the graphics are for the different ads. As an example we might have 3 different advertisements running on a specific topic, so that is where you could see those 3 ads together.

*Side plug* Want to know how to schedule Facebook posts? Check this out!

The Creepy Part…

I also learned a lot about how much Facebook and online sites really know about us, based on what we click on and what we like. From a marketing point of view, this is great! We can be more specific and market to who we exactly want to market to. For instance, on Facebook there is the option to choose different characteristics about your target audience such as gender, age, income and more basic characteristics. But then it gets even more specific like a parent who likes the University of Iowa. So think about that next time you are seeing an advertisement for your favorite sports team…Facebook knows all (said in a creepy voice haha).

Placement

There are a couple different locations your Facebook ads can actually end up and you get to choose when setting up the ads.

• Facebook: in the news feed, videos, marketplace, and articles
• Instagram: in stories and the feed
• Audience Network: this one is still a little confusing to me but is essentially other apps and on other websites
• Messenger: this is the messaging app which is great for re-engagement

Let me know if this helped and what more you would like to know about! I could always do a part 2 🙂