With almost 3 billion users and counting, Facebook is by far the largest social network today even when it comes to local business advertising.
Smart photographers can leverage the power of Facebook advertising to expand their businesses significantly. Facebook ads can play a significant role in the growth of a photography business.
When used correctly, these ads can be extremely effective and can generate fantastic returns on investment.
In this article, we will analyze the main nuances of Facebook advertising settings to help you find potential customers for your photo business through powerful Facebook ads for photographers.
Why Use Facebook Ads?
Today there are plenty of offline and online digital platforms where small businesses can pour the bulk of their investment in search of customers. Each channel has its advantages and disadvantages. Facebook has many advantages over other advertising methods,
Affordability tops the list of benefits of Facebook ads over other marketing channels.
With a cost per click of only $0.97, Facebook ads are way cheaper than LinkedIn and Instagram ads. You can launch a Facebook ads campaign for as little as $10 and drive tangible results. Yes, Twitter has the lowest CPC at $0.38, but it doesn’t have the wide reach and hyper-targeting options Facebook offers.
Facebook’s 2.9 billion users are 6x bigger than 400 million Twitter users.
Not to mention the exorbitant offline marketing channels like TV broadcasts, direct mail, newspapers, billboards, and magazines. Again, Facebook ads come out tops regarding pricing.
Let’s get into other benefits of Facebook ads for photographers.
Advantages Of Facebook Ads For Photographers
Why should you prioritize Facebook ads as a photographer?
Well, there are many benefits of using Facebook ads as part of your marketing strategy. Here are some of them:
Getting Started With Facebook Ads
To create and run advertising campaigns on Facebook, you need to create a Facebook business page first.
Your Facebook page can act as another channel to attract new customers. You can place your photos and other information about your services and publish posts on it.
The first thing to start with is to decide on the objectives of ads. You also need to decide on a daily budget. Also, add a photo and video materials to your advertisements. You manage all your advertising campaigns from the Facebook Ads Manager. Take a look at the dashboard.
When creating an advertisement, you can manage advertising at the level of three tabs:
Each of the tabs has its settings we will cover as we move along.
The Different Types Of Facebook Ads
There are several types of ads on Facebook, which we will consider in more detail.
Single Image Ad
A still, single image ad is one of the most common types of ads on Facebook. To achieve a positive result, you need to consider what they will show in the advertising images. The recommended format for images is 1080x1080 pixels, which makes it possible to display them on mobile devices.
It is also possible to add a title and description to the image and, depending on the chosen objective, a call to action button.
Here’s an example of an image ad type by SArnold Photo.
The image dominates the Facebook ad. There is minimal text copy.
Image ads are perfect for photographers.
Why?
Photography is about, well, images. So it plays into your hands as a photography business. You get to showcase your skill as you advertise. Besides your copy, your images themselves sell your work.
Video Ads
In most cases, users respond much better to video ads than to static images.
But for video ads to produce results, the videos should be interesting and informative.
We recommend you make videos 15 seconds long or less and also make videos in vertical format for better interaction with ads on mobile devices.
Below is an illustration of a video advert by Robbie Negrin, a wedding photography services provider.
On clicking the ad, users see a colorful reel of the best wedding photography pics in the photographer’s portfolio.
Most wedding photographers use videos to showcase their portfolios because they capture many shots in a few seconds.
Carousel Ads
The carousel ad format allows the advertiser to create a carousel of images or videos the viewer can navigate through by clicking on a set of arrows. This format is great for photographers who have multiple video files or images that might interest the user.
For a case study of a carousel Facebook ads, see the ones below.
Notice the next image on the carousel protruding on the right?
This campaign increased the company’s sales by a significant 50%, a testimony of the power of the visually appealing carousel format. Other notable successes of the campaign include a 11-point lift in ad recall and a 6-point lift in brand preference.
Many photographers dream of such conversions.
Slideshow Ads
Slideshow advertising is another great option for photographers.
Instead of a single image, you can place multiple images that will be displayed as a video sequence.
This is something between an image ad and a video ad.
Note that for this type of ad, all images must have the same aspect ratio.
See the arrow?
Users click it to view the photo on the next slide.
Slideshows are a fantastic way to show off your photography skills. Photographers can use them to show different angles of the same shot or a series of related photos.
Instant Experience
Instant ads are more difficult to set up, but with their help, you can give the audience a deeper understanding of the brand.
These ads open on full screen after users click them and can include an image, text, video, links, carousels, and other elements. Facebook offers advertiser templates for this type of ad.
Here’s an example of an instant experience ad by Lauren Bri Photography.
Instant experience ads communicate more than traditional commercials. The reason is simple. By combining copy, image, and video, an instant experience ad says more and packs more value than a regular ad.
Now that you understand the different ad types, let’s move on to campaign objectives.
The Different Types Of Ad Objectives
Before launching an ad, you need to understand what exactly you want to get from it.
Following this, it is necessary to set the right objective, which will allow you to use advertising effectively and not waste your budget. A successful Facebook advert always starts with a simple goal.
Now we will consider the objectives.
Here's a screenshot of the objectives settings window from the Facebook advertising account
Awareness Objectives
Awareness objectives are to make people aware your photography business exists and how it can serve them.
Awareness objectives have two aspects:
Brand awareness is the most suitable for a photo business because nobody can hire if they don't know your business exists.
Consideration Objectives
Consideration objectives urge people to think about your business and reach out for more information about what it does.
Here’s a quick overview of consideration objectives.
Conversion Objectives
Conversion objectives encourage potential customers interested in your photography services to pay for your service.
These are the options for conversion objectives:
After identifying the major goal for your Facebook ad, work on its placement.
Where Your Facebook Ad Can Be Seen
In addition to other features, Facebook ads lets you post ads in various places as you can see below.
Here are some places where Facebook displays your photography ads:
The News Feed
Your photography ads appear in the desktop Feed when people access the Facebook website on their computers or in the mobile Feed when people use the Facebook app on mobile devices. Here’s a sample of a video advert appearing on the Facebook news feed.
Even at its worst, this is a much better chance of connecting with an audience, especially considering the low cost involved when using email marketing.
The Right Column
Your wedding photography and other ads appear in the right column on Facebook when people browse Facebook on their desktops.
Instant Articles
Your ads appear in Instant Articles within the Facebook mobile app as seen from the advert below.
In-Stream Video
Your photography ads appear in Video on Demand and in a select group of approved 3rd party live streams on Facebook.
Below is a sample of an in-stream video ad placement.
Stories
Your vertical full-screen ads appear in people’s stories on Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and Messenger Stories.
Marketplace
Your ads appear on the Marketplace home page or when someone browses Marketplace on the Facebook app.
See the specimen below of a marketplace placement.
Audience Network
Your ads appear to your target people beyond the Facebook platform on highly engaged 3rd party sites. Your ads appear as native, banner, and interstitial ads on mobile devices.
Messenger Inbox
Your commercials appear in the home tab of Facebook Messenger like the one below that clicks straight to Messenger.
There are two types of ad placement selection: automatic and manual.
In automatic placements, Facebook places the ads for you where they think they can perform best. With manual placement, you manually place the ads where you want them to appear to gain the audience’s attention and exclude certain placements as you see fit.
For a photography business, manual placement is the best because it allows you to target the exact users you want to reach.
How To Set Up A Facebook Ad Campaign
In this section, we will look at how to set up ads on Facebook.
There are three tabs to help you do this:
Campaign Tab
In the campaign tab we:
In this example, we will select the traffic as our campaign objective.
Thereafter, we will then set a daily budget.
We recommend setting $10/day for the first time.
The reason is you are still learning the ropes of Facebook ads for photographers. You don’t want to set a sky-high budget and end up wasting your precious financial resources. Note that your daily ad spend varies depending on the bidding opportunities available that day.
Some days you can spend slightly more or less than your set budget.
It is also possible to set up a / b testing.
Ad Set Tab
In the ad set tab, you can configure:
The best part? Not only can you target a potential customer by location, but you can also target people’s interests. This way you cast your net wider and get more customers. Plus, interest-based targeting makes your Facebook ads more relevant. Just start typing the interests of your potential customers into this field and select the most suitable ones from the list.
From hobbies and activities, from business and industry to entertainment, from family and relationships to favorite food and drink, it’s all there. You can go as granular as you like in your search for more clients. For instance, if you are a wedding photographer, you can target newly engaged couples.
They set the detailed targeting option according to your business type.
Besides searching for your ideal client by interest, there are two other major categories you can use to drill down your potential clients:
For placements, we recommend you start advertising by checking the boxes for:
But you can also experiment with other placements that best suit your business. Here’s a screenshot of the Facebook placement selection interface.
Ads Tab
In this tab, that’s where you create an ad to reach potential clients.
Here, you can name your ad, and add a graphic and text.
On the right, there is a preview of the created ad. You get to sew what it looks like before you publish it. Once you are satisfied with your ad and are sure it will engage people who are genuinely interested in your photography services, go ahead and publish it.
Facebook Ad Best Practices
There are proven practices that drive high-performing Facebook ads for photographers.
Before posting an ad you need to make sure you adhere to some best practices, such as:
Measuring Facebook Ad Success
After the launch of your campaign, to profit from it, you must track its effectiveness.
Here are some of the key parameters provided in the ad manager for tracking.
Engagement
Engagement is the total number of Facebook ad-inspired actions people took on your Facebook Page and its posts.
This metric helps you see how people engaged with your Page and posts because of your ads, showing how relevant your Facebook ads were to the audience you are targeting.
Reach
Reach is simply the number of people who saw your ads at least once. Note that reach is different from impressions, which may include multiple views of your ads by the same people.
High reach figures show your Facebook ad is reaching the target users, while low figures may be a pointer your promotional message isn’t getting to the people you are targeting.
Impressions
Impressions are a popular metric in the online marketing industry. Impressions measure how often your ads were on screen for your target audience.
This metric is important because it shows you the potential reach of your Facebook ad. The higher the impressions, the higher the chances of people seeing your Facebook ads. However, note that impression is the number of times your advert is displayed, whether users engaged with it.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who saw your ad and clicked on it. It’s calculated by diving the total number of clicks on the Facebook ad by the impressions the ad got.
According to a study by Social Media Examiner, the average CTR for Facebook ads is 1%.
So, if you get above that, you are higher than average.
If a Facebook ad has a high CTR, it means users find it engaging. They are getting a lot of value from it, so you better replicate the approach you used on it on other sets.
Cost Per Action (CPA)
Cost per Action (CPA) applies if you have configured the Facebook pixel on your site and you can track conversions.
CPA is how much you pay when people take certain specified actions on your Facebook ad.
It’s useful if you want to control your ad spend by only paying for link clicks instead of wasting your financial resources on impressions. A high CPA shows that your Facebook ad copy engages readers and drives the exact exaction you desire.
Facebook Advertising
There you have it.
Your step-by-step guide to Facebook ads for photographers.
Use it to set up impactful Facebook ads that generate more sales for your photography business. The crucial thing is to dig into and understand the needs of a potential client and how you can meet them. Then you will influence the next order they place.
And don’t be afraid to test because it’s the only way to find the most effective advertising.
Facebook advertising is an excellent tool for promoting services not only in the field of photography but also in almost any other. So don’t stay behind while other industries are cashing in.
Enter the Facebook ads fray today and win big.
