If you’re a small business owner who has struggled in the past with getting started with Facebook Ads, you’re not alone. Handling your social media marketing, especially when it comes to something with as steep of a learning curve as Facebook Ads, requires time, energy, and a certain depth of knowledge. Not every business owner has what is needed to create, monitor, and update ads.

But if you don’t have an in-house ad team or the means to hire a professional contractor, you’ll have to add it to your list of must-do’s. Luckily, we’re here to help.

In this article, we’ll go over how to decide if Facebook Ads are right for your business, what you need to do to get started and when it’s time to hire an outside agency to take over for you. Let’s go!

Are Facebook Ads Right for Your Business?

There are plenty of reasons to harness the power of Facebook Ads for your small business. For starters, practically everyone is on the platform — it has more than 2.7 million active monthly users. There’s a relatively even split among genders, too:

Source: Statista

Facebook’s age demographics are also interesting. Seventy-nine percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 use Facebook, and the same percentage of people between 39 and 49 are on the platform. Plus, 68% of people between 50 and 64 use Facebook. That means that you can reach audiences in practically every age group.

Source: Statista

Aside from your audience (probably) being present on the platform, here are a few more reasons to consider using Facebook Ads:

  • All types of brands can succeed on Facebook. Because the platform is so popular, there isn’t a business type that’s left out. You can be a B2B or B2C company, cater to local customers only or have global reach, etc.
  • Organic reach will only go so far. There’s a ton of competition on Facebook, and you’ll find it hard for your content to compete if you don’t put some advertising behind it.
  • With Facebook Ads, you can target niche demographics. Your ads can reach people (or not reach people) based on all sorts of factors, like location, job title, online behavior, marital status, and more.
  • You can choose your budget. There’s no need to go above and beyond what you can reasonably contribute to advertising. Limit how much you spend per campaign or set a limit for how much you spend on all of your ad campaigns.

If you think Facebook Ads may be right for your small business, read on!

How to Get Started with Facebook Ads for Small Business

In this section, we’ll briefly go over the steps to getting started with Facebook Ads. While you’ll need to dig deeper to carry each step out, this will give you an overview of what to expect.

  1. Sign up for an ad account. You’ll do that in the Facebook Ads Manager. (If you don’t have one yet, you’ll need to set up a business Page, too.) In the Ads Manager, you’ll fill in business and payment info.
  2. Set your target audience. It takes a lot of time to figure out who your core audience is, so if you haven’t done audience research yet, this is the time to. When setting your target audience on Facebook, aim for a range of 50,000 to 100,000 people — that sounds like a lot, but you’ll need to get specific to narrow it down that much.
  3. Create your first campaign! This is going to be a long process the first time you do it. That’s OK, though — Facebook Ads are as effective as they are because they have a lot of options. During this step, you’ll do everything from choosing your ad’s goal to picking a format … and a lot more. This page has info on every part of the process.

One last thing: getting started is just the beginning (obviously). A huge part of running successful Facebook Ads is measuring and managing them. That means keeping an eye on how they’re performing, then making necessary changes to get even better results. Rinse, repeat.

Should You Hire a Facebook Advertising Agency?

We completely understand if you’re already overwhelmed. Even that three-step process outlined above has multiple sub-steps to dive into. If you’re wondering whether or not it’s a good idea to hire a Facebook advertising agency to take over for you, here are a few pros and cons to consider:

  • An agency won’t be nearly as familiar with or devoted to your brand as you are. On the other hand, they’re experts at their craft, and creating promotions on a brand’s behalf is what they do.
  • You have a lot more control when you’re in charge of your ads — you don’t have to worry that something is going to go up without your approval.
  • Agencies are used to juggling several clients and campaigns, and they can alleviate a lot of marketing work for you.
  • When you run your ads, everything is accessible to you while keeping information private and secure. With an agency, you’ll have to hand over access to your accounts.
  • Agencies often have software and tools that you don’t have, don’t know about, or can’t afford.

Wrapping Up

Choosing to handle Facebook Ads yourself (or even run them at all) or outsource the project to an agency is a personal decision. If your audience is on Facebook, that may be the easiest question to answer (with a resounding “yes, I’ll definitely advertise there!”). When it comes to who will handle the ads, though, give it some thought.

If you have the time, interest, and tech/marketing savvy to learn, create and manage Facebook Ads on your own, give it a shot. But if you’re already stretched thin, consider handing it over to the pros. What you spend on the agency may be less than what you could lose if you don’t set up your ads correctly.