First and foremost, any business can get started with Facebook Advertising, regardless of their available ad spend. You have complete control over how much you bid and how you get charged. For example, depending on your chosen ad format, you might pay per click (PPC), per thousand impressions or per page like.

There are no minimum spend limits. So you can test the water initially, and then slowly grow your ad spend over time as you start to see what works. Then, once you have a proven set of ads that you know convert well and have good ROI, you can increase your ad spend as your available budget increases.

With any form of online advertising, the key to success is A/B testing. This is where you run multiple different ads, each being a variation on one another. You can then examine the results from each campaign and compare to see which one is most successful. Over time, you get closer and closer to an ad format and audience that reaps the most returns.

Well, Facebook Ads Manager has its own advanced reporting system that makes this easy to achieve. Each campaign is broken down into Ad Sets. These Ad Sets are then further broken down into individual Ads. As such, reporting is simple and easy to analyse. For example, you might have an Ad Set that is targeting a certain demographic.

Within that, you have multiple types of ads running (more on that below), each different in their own way. One might be offering a discount, another a free trial and another might simply use different wording or imagery. Once they have each been running for a few days, you can then compare the results side by side.

There are a number of ad formats for you to choose from. Each one can be customised to any extent you wish. These include:

You can, therefore, decide which one best suits the message you are trying to get across. Facebook lead ads are proving increasingly effective as they autofill with customer data based on what the user has registered on their Facebook profile. This makes the process of generating leads much smoother as there is less for the customer to have to fill out.

One reason you may have strayed away from advertising online before is the limitations in how appealing your ads look. Many companies don’t want their brands displayed all over the web in awkward styles alongside content that doesn’t match up with what they are offering. Well, Facebook Ads are high converting, largely because of how clean and professional they look.

They slot nicely into the style and design of Facebook, and most ads don’t stick out like a sore thumb. Instead, they give you the chance to offer practical and insightful information to users. For example, instead of simply having a banner essentially saying “buy my stuff”, you could opt for an informative five-minute video that offers unique insight into your chosen industry.

For example, you might post “5 top tips to help make your cheeks glow brighter”. After viewing the informative video, the user could be taken to a sign-up sheet where they can subscribe to your newsletter and become a follower of your site. Or, it could take them to an exclusive offer for money off your beauty products.

Perhaps the biggest benefit Facebook Advertising offers is the extent to which you can segment and target Facebook users. This is because Facebook holds an incredibly detailed amount of information about each of its users, including their likes, dislikes, location, gender, age demographic etc. In turn, this offers you almost limitless audience customisation.

For example, if you know your target audience is middle-aged women living in Northern Australia, you can immediately hone in on this exact audience and prevent anyone but these people from seeing your ads. You can then customise further by including only those that like certain things or whose occupation is within a certain field.

Remarketing is one of the hottest marketing trends, as it allows you to showcase your ads exclusively to those who have already seen your brand. This is achieved through the use of the advanced Facebook Pixel. You simply install some code on your site; whenever someone enters your site and looks around, Facebook is able to store this data.

Then, when you send out your next ad, you can choose to showcase an exclusive limited time offer that you know the viewers are likely to take notice of. This is because they’ve already been exposed to your brand so must be interested in what it is you offer. Facebook remarketing alone is the reason you should get started with Facebook Advertising.

If you’re not yet making use of Facebook Advertising, now is the time to start. There is still plenty of room for new businesses to enter this arena and start scaling their operations.