Plan your Google Display Strategy using Facebook Ads...

Yeah, it sounds strange, but you can actually learn a lot from Facebook Ads and take those learnings and apply them to your Google Display Campaign. Not to mention that running a Facebook Ads campaign is like throwing yourself into a Nascar Race Track, meaning that you can run a test and within a hour or two, and know which ads perform better before you continue spending the ad dollars.
In this post, I will focus on a few targeting options within Facebook Ads that can be applied to your Google Display efforts.

Leveraging Facebook Ad’s Targeting Abilities :
The targeting abilities alone in Facebook are superior to that of Google’s current demographic options. In Facebook, you can create multiple tests based on the a few of the following options:

#1 Age Segmentation
In Adwords you have the ability to exclude certain age groups just as in Facebook. However, Facebook provides actual audience circulation numbers which can be helpful for future strategies. For example, you could do an Age segmentation test targeting different Age Groups with different messaging and photos. These tests can run at the same time and you can see the best performers very quickly.

#2 Battle of the Sexes
Instead of spending thousands of dollars in Google, why not take advantage of Facebook Ads, where you get basically find whether Men or Women convert better. Since Facebook’s Algorithm is extremely fast, you can see results within hours with a set daily budget. By doing some simple multivariate testing in Facebook Ads where you provide different CTA’s and Photos, you will have a better idea on what to try next with Adwords Display.

#3 Geo targeting
This option seems redundant, but in actuality it does have it’s benefits in FB Ads. The reason is based upon the Audience Volume of the specific States or Regions. Even though Facebook has a different audience and frankly “NOT EVERYONE IS ON FACEBOOK”, it does provide a little insight into the “savvy ness” of the visitors.

#4 Likes & Interests
This is an interesting targeting ability which can help provide the advertiser identify different interests and promote their products/services based on those interests. For example, what if a Facebook advertiser wanted to test if their 4×4 Offroading DVDs would get any traction “no pun intended” with Females who are already fans of Cars.com, REI, Cabelas, etc… Furthermore, if this test revealed that it did indeed increase conversions, then the Advertiser would then have better insight on how to target specific sites in the Google Display Network.

#5 Relationships
Now, you may think I am pulling this one “out of my a%$”, but there is value in understanding the different in relationships and applying it to Adwords. In this case, one strategy would be to test Married Females who are looking for an anniversary gift for their husbands. You could create and test various products, CTA, Age segments and Landing Pages that perform better. Once that has been identified, you can take those winners and apply them to a Display Campaign in which you target Females and specific ages only.

How to effectively and efficiently implement these Facebook Tests:
After performing countless Facebook Ads tests in the past, I have to give “KUDOS” to Acquisio’s Facebook platform as they have built a phenomenal product that honestly made it so much easier on myself to build out these various tests in such a short period of time. If i had to identify one major “bell and whistle” it would have to be their ability Mass Copy all campaigns and Ads and update all of the targeting options within a few clicks. The reason for this choice is that you cannot do that in the current Facebook Ads interface. If you are using Facebook Ads, I would recommend trying Acquisio’s platform.

Read more about Acquisio’s Facebook Ads Platform

In Conclusion:
Facebook Ads has had a reputation of being a poor performing platform with lots of cost and little conversions. (Which is why they decided to pull their conversion tracking, but bringing it back slowly to specific users). However, if you start digging into different strategies in Facebook you can actually apply what you learn into your Adwords Display Campaign. Moreover, if you consider the speed at which FB Ads run, you can have a good sample size in hours, not weeks. In this Semgeek’s opinion, I believe that FB Ads deserves more attention from an advertisers budget not so much for ROAS%, but for it’s uncanny ability to help predict what will work best in other search engine platforms.

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