Can Facebook Ads Help Support Your Email Content?

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Key takeaways

• Use Facebook Ads to boost visibility for specific email campaigns rather than every send.
• Facebook Ads lets you sort impressions by age, location, interests and other metrics to match email profiles with Facebook demographics.
• Promote high-impact or time-sensitive email content: seasonal offers, events, major announcements, reminders and deadlines.
• Tailor ads to mobile and split desktop vs mobile campaigns, don’t use a one-size-fits-all creative.
• Prefer Facebook’s Power Editor over the consumer ad editor for finer control of ad content and settings.
• When used properly, Facebook Ads can reach a much larger share of a target audience than average online ads.

Introduction

While most blogs and industry thought leaders can’t talk enough about the power of Facebook when it comes to supporting an email campaign – and for good reason – few such community voices give the official advertising branch of this network the same amount of attention as the social management side of things. Unfortunately for brands like your own, this often leads to wasted potential and missed opportunities to connect with the people that truly want to enjoy your inbox content. With this in mind, let’s take a moment to talk a little more about the particulars of Facebook Ads, as well as how this system can revolutionize the outreach and awareness phases of your email marketing campaigns.

Understanding the Facebook Ad System

If you’re unfamiliar with Facebook Ads, it’s probably a good idea to lay down the basic framework of this system before delving into the more in-depth conversations surrounding content optimization and campaign management. As the official Facebook Ads page explains, this tool provides brands from industries across the web with instant access to premium ad spots (sometimes referred to as impressions.)

These impressions can be sorted by audience age, location, consumer interest, and other relevant metrics, thus providing you with the ability to match your current email marketing profiles with the related Facebook demographics. Additionally, you can also tailor these ads to mobile devices, thereby ensuring that your brand doesn’t take on the dubious distinction of serving up content that doesn’t work within the parameters of smartphones and tablets.

Does This Channel Really Live up to the Hype?

As great as all of this sounds, is it really worth the extra work and expense to add to your next email marketing campaign? According to Laura Donovan of Business 2 community, there are few assets that you can add to a marketing operation that are as powerful as the Facebook Ads system.

Aside from giving you access to the 1.4 billion members of the Facebook community – 900 million of which access the network on a daily basis – Donovan notes that 77 percent of adults use this platform to gather additional insight regarding purchases or offers. Outside of this compelling stat, there’s also the fact that Facebook Ads reach an astounding 89 percent of target viewers; something that is even more impressive when compared to the average online advertising ad that reaches only 38 percent of the desired audience. Simply put, when used properly, Facebook Ads can definitely give your email marketing operations – and specific offers – a healthy boost in visibility and impact.

Finding the Right Emails to Promote

Of course, just because this platform offers up a ton of potential, that doesn’t mean that you should dedicate a portion of every upcoming campaign budget to the world of Facebook ads. In fact, that kind of blanket approach is an easy way to overburden even the most flexible initiatives. The truth of the matter is that you’re much better off leveraging this tool on behalf of certain inbox content and campaigns.

Email content that covers seasonal offers and upcoming events fit this ideology, as do major announcements regarding your inbox subscription service or brand in general. If you don’t have major or exciting news to offer up to the Facebook community, but still have a desire to leverage the power held within this tool, promoting email content that covers friendly reminders or deadlines works as well.

Making the Most out of the Facebook Ad Approach

Now that we know how and why the system works, in addition to what content best fits this approach, it’s time to start talking about how to tweak the variables held within Facebook Ads and mold it to your next email campaign. As part of his review of this subject, Econsultancy’s Jeff Rajeck highlights a few key points to consider as you familiarize yourself with the Facebook Ads platform.

First, you’re better off using the power editor tool over the consumer-grade ad editor. Yes, this interface does require a little more practice to get all of the kinks out, but it provides you with far greater control over your ad content – something that is beyond important as you try to make the most out of this audience interaction.

From here, don’t be afraid to split up your desktop and mobile campaigns. Just like with your inbox content, trying to go the “one size fits all” route is an easy way to blow this golden opportunity. If you can combine these vital suggestions with the rest of what you’ve learned here, there’s no reason why your brand can’t stand toe-to-toe with other advertisers on Facebook as it continues to spread awareness for its latest email marketing initiative.

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