Learn the Lingo

Here are a few key terms you should know before you buy a Facebook ad. Some are exclusive to the social networking site, but others are relevant to other types of online and print ads.

Bid: Facebook ads are unique in that they work on an auction-based bidding system. You’re competing against other advertisers who want to reach the same target demographic for that ad space. Facebook will give you a suggested bid range, then ask you for your max bid; we recommend your bid be within that suggested range. For a prime demographic during a peak time (like women ages 30 to 40 on Mother’s Day), the suggested bid will be much higher than usual.
Click Through Rate (CTR):  CTR refers to the number of times viewers click on your ad, divided by the number of impressions (the number of times your ad is shown). If your ad is shown 100 times and is clicked on 5 times, your CTR is 0.05 or 5%.

Cost Per Click (CPC): This means you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. This is the way to go for Facebook ads in which your goal is to get new clients. The other type of campaign, cost per thousand impressions (CPM), is when you pay based on the number of people who view your ad, which is fine for raising awareness but not ideal when you want people to take action (i.e., call for a nail appointment).

Campaign: An ad campaign is a group of ads that share the same theme. If your salon has several locations, it would make sense to make these groups based on location: “downtown” “East suburb,” “West suburb,” for example. On Facebook, all of the ads in a campaign share the same daily budget and schedule, but the individual ads have separate bids and targeting. You can pull reports on a campaign via the Ads Manager and see how that group of ads is performing.
Daily Budget: The amount you’ve indicated you’re willing to spend on that campaign per day. (Facebook won’t charge you more than your daily budget on a given day.) One nail salon owner told us her daily budget is $15, and her Facebook ads more than pay for themselves with new clients.

Daily Spend Limit: Think of this like a credit limit on a credit card. It is the most money Facebook will allow you to spend in one day. Like a credit limit, your daily spend limit will increase as you make successful payments. (Or you can request a spend limit increase, though approval is at Facebook’s discretion.) 

Ads Manager: One of the best things about Facebook ads is all of the real-time stats provided via the Ads Manager. The Ads Manager is part of your Facebook account and it shows you info like how many clicks your ad got, compares your different ads side-by-side in a line graph, tracks what types of users are taking action on your ads, lets you pause and restart your ad, and more. This is all vital information for creating effective ads and tweaking existing ads to get a better response.

Next page: The Ad Itself and Targeting

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The Ad Itself

Facebook ads consist of five major components. They are:

1. Title — You have up to 25 characters for the ad title. The most obvious choice may be the best: your salon name.

2. Image — If you offer eye-catching nails, be it funky handpainted nail art or Minx, this is the place to show it off. Upload a horizontal image to make the best use of the space. Facebook will automatically resize your image to a maximum size of 110 x 80 pixels.

3. Body Text — You have up to 135 characters to elaborate. If you’re offering a discounted price on a service, give it an end date to create immediacy. Include your business phone number here.

4. Social Context — If your destination URL is a Facebook fan page, then the “Like” icon will appear here, letting viewers easily become your salon’s Facebook fan.

 

Destination URL:
If the user clicks anywhere on your ad, she will be taken to this URL. The ideal destination URL is your salon’s online appointment booking website. If you don’t have one, link it to your salon’s website homepage or your salon’s Facebook page. (If you’re linking to a Facebook page, the URL text won’t show up as a separate line.)

 

Targeting

You can really drill down to specifics when it comes to what demographic you want to view your ad. In most cases, we recommend targeting the same types of people who already frequent your salon. For instance, do you have fervent “How I Met Your Mother” TV show fans who come to your salon every Monday night to watch it on your flatscreen TVs? Just type “How I Met Your Mother” into the “Likes & Interests” section of the ad targeting page, then use your ad text to tell the potential client you’ve “saved [her] a seat” on Mondays. The other great thing about targeting is Facebook will tell you the estimated reach of your ad, as you narrow down the fields.


Next page: Successful Ad Wording and a Facebook Advertiser's Checklist

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Successful Wording

These ads got salon owners the results they wanted.

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[Title] Nails by Lori
[Destination URL] Facebook page for Nails by Lori
[Image] nail art
[Body Text] Ask me how you can get $10 off a full set.
Advertiser Lori Pendergraft says all of the new clients told her it was the nail art that first attracted them and then the $10 off a full set that made them make the call.

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[Title] Black Girls Do Nails Too!
[Destination URL] nailcabaret.com
[Image] nail art
[Body Text] Black Girls Do Nails Too! We offer Minx, Shellac, & custom glitter acrylic styles as well.
Advertiser Topaz Woodruff says she prefers not to mention a discount in her Facebook ad because she targets an upscale clientele that’s not looking for discounts. But when someone calls and says she saw Woodruff’s ad on Facebook, Woodruff typically gives the new client $5 off her first visit.

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[Title] Kelly’s Tips n’ Toes
[Destination URL] Facebook page for Kelly’s Tips n’ Toes
[Image] nail art
[Body Text] Leduc, Alberta certified nail tech (1999) using the Amore and Nailbasics gel systems. Accepting new clients. Call 780-986-9381.
Advertiser Kelly Jones says it worked well for her to have users click through and land on her salon Facebook fan page. “On a fan page you can have virtually everything you want, as in information for hours, price lists, location, all of the photos you want to post. Your future clients can ask you questions, message you for appointments, and choose which design/color of nails they’d like.”

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Facebook Advertiser's Checklist

Revise your ad copy and photos every few days by swapping old images for new ones or changing your ad title.

Use a colorful image that stands out against Facebook’s blue and white pages. Tailor the image to the demographic you are targeting.

Include words in your ad copy that you also have included in your keyword targeting to create a more relevant experience for the viewer.

Your ad contains three components: copy, image, and targeting. Mix and match different combinations to see which results in the highest performance. For example, create three ads with the same copy and targeting, but use a different image in each ad to see which image yields the best performance.

Keywords on Facebook differ from keywords on other online ad platforms. Keywords are real interests and activities your customers like to do. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and find different ways to reach them. Don’t always go for the obvious keywords.

— Adapted from: http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/facebookads/top10_adcreativetips_10.7.pdf

 

Need a more basic introduction, including how to set up your salon’s Facebook page? Visit www.nailsmag.com/socialnetworkingfortechs.

 

Tweaking the Wording

NAILS got Tiffani Douglas, a marketing expert, nail tech, and author of Social Media Marketing: A Guide for Beauty Professionals (available at www.tiffanis-beautyparlor.com) to offer her improvement suggestions for some Facebook ads that the respective salon owners deemed unsuccessful.

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[Title] Is It Time for a Pedicure?
[Destination URL] salon website homepage
[Image] 3 women getting pedicures
[Body Text] Mention VIP Code: “UNWIND” when you call to book your appointment and take 50% off your Classic Pedicure. [salon phone number here]
The advertiser says: “We bid clicks limiting to $50/day. It ran for 4 days. We got maybe 300 clicks but only one customer call. I bid within the range of the suggested bid. I targeted to customers within 10 miles of the salon zip code who are females. Out of 300 customers, one came in. Two made an appointment and never showed up.”
Douglas’ advice: “I would have had my graphic designer create a landing page where potential clients could purchase online and offered them an added incentive. ‘Book now and receive a complimentary shampoo, style, or polish change.’ And I would have expanded my radius: What about people who live outside that area and work close to the salon?”

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[Title] Young Nails Educator Wollongong-Southcoast
[Destination URL] Facebook page for her salon
[Image] glitter toes with Young Nails logo
[Body Text] $99 special. Full French set, Glitter toes and a Spray tan. [salon phone number here]
The advertiser says: “In a 50 km. radius, the ad displayed 104,000 times, but I only got 12 clicks/likes. Not one phone call.”
Douglas’ advice: “She didn’t study her clientele and put together a package that would appeal to the same person. When I see this ad, I see three different demographics. One may be a career woman for the French full set, second a teen for glitter toes (and what is that really — she needed to be more specific), third a college girl, mid-20s, who’s still very much into trends. A better package may have been full French set, spa pedicure, and option of a spray tan or massage or wax.”  (We also recommend the advertiser choose to pay per click next time, not per impressions. — NAILS Eds.)

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[Title] Nails by Lori
[Destination URL] Facebook page for Nails by Lori
[Image] nail photo
[Body Text] September special. Grab a friend and come in for 2 full sets of acrylic nails for $65.
The advertiser says: This is the same Nails by Lori who also shared a successful Facebook ad for her nail business, so she suspects the problem here must be the wording since the other ad got a much larger response.
Douglas’ advice: “In this ad, she offered them something; in the successful ad (‘Ask me how to get $10 off a full set’), she commanded them to take action. Social media marketing is all about shared or two-way communication. She offered an exchange of information to her potential clients in the successful ad. Here, she used a traditional advertising technique, shouting to the masses, which does not work in social media marketing.” (As in her successful ad, this ad would likely be more successful if only targeting one person — this ad puts the burden on the potential client to not only come into the salon herself, but to also recruit a friend to come with her. — NAILS Eds.)

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Special thanks to the following social media experts for providing background information for this article:

> Kathleen Turpell
Imaginal Marketing Group wordofmouse.immarketinggroup.com

> Tiffani Douglas
Tiffani’s Beauty Parlor
www.tiffanis-beautyparlor.com

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