Print on Demand: Make Facebook Ads Work for YOU!

With billions of active users, it's no wonder that Facebook has become such an important marketing tool for businesses. If you want to generate more traffic to your print on demand store and increase sales (which of course you do!), then Facebook Ads is definitely the way to go.

In this edition of the Pivotal prints blog, we'll be sharing some top tips on how to set up and manage a Facebook Ads campaign.

If it's your first time using Facebook Ads, then you will first need to set up an ad account using Facebook Ads Manager. After you've done this, head to the settings menu, choose an ad account name and make sure that you've checked the box that confirms you're buying ads for business purposes. Fill in the form with the name and address of your business along with your VAT number. All that remains is to add a payment method and choose your ad budget.

Now it's time to start identifying and researching your audience. This step is absolutely critical to the success of your ad campaign: if the audience you choose isn't relevant enough, it will result in the ad not reaching the right people and will waste your precious budget.

First, head to Facebook Audience Insights. Then, you can start creating your chosen audience demographic based on things like location, age, gender, interests and more. Clicking on 'page likes' will show you a selection of other pages relevant to your defined audience.

When you've decided on these potential interests and on which product you're going to promote, you can choose from a number of ways to create the ad campaign. Though boosting posts is the easiest and most rapid way of promoting content, it isn't the most effective. On the other hand, Power Editor is complex and not particularly intuitive, especially for beginners. The Ads Create tool is therefore the best way to go for most people.

On the main page of Facebook Ads Manager, click 'Create Ad'. This will present you with a list of campaign objectives. Available objectives include brand awareness, traffic, engagement, lead generation and conversions. Bear in mind that the objective you choose cannot be changed at a later date so make sure that your chosen objective directly describes the primary purpose of your advertisement. You can then select a name for your chosen campaign and decide if you want to carry out A/B testing.

You can then decide on how ads will be placed. Though you can do this manually, it is recommended that you allow ads to be automatically placed as decided by the Facebook Ads algorithm, as this is designed to provide maximum value for your budget. If you're not sure on what schedule your ad should be displayed, choose the default setting that runs the ad continuously.

Now you can create the actual advert, either from scratch or by using an existing published post. You can use a single image or video or can choose the multiple images format to advertise a number of different products within a category. As many as six images can be used and this will result in up to six variations of the ad.

Then it's time to add a headline and description text. Note that headlines can be up to 25 characters and description text can be up to 90 characters. A link to your store can then be added, along with a call-to-action button such as 'Buy Now'.

It's now time to play the waiting game! Though it can be tempting to start optimising your ads straight away, it is best to give Facebook's algorithm time to start learning about your audience; a minimum of three days is recommended. You can access an array of different pieces of information relating to how your campaign is working in the 'Ads Reports' section of Facebook Ads manager.

No matter how good your ad campaign is, you need to be able to provide top-quality products and drop shipping services to your customers and that's where Pivotal Prints comes into the picture. We offer an extensive portfolio of products, each of which is a blank canvas just waiting to be customised using our world-class suite of cutting-edge printing equipment. Pivotal Prints also provide e-commerce store integration and swift, reliable drop shipping services.

Our team is always available to help you make the very most of your print on demand store, offering authoritative advice on all related topics. Find out more about our products and services on the Pivotal Prints website and do not hesitate to get in touch for further information and support. We'd also like to invite you to subscribe to our free newsletter and to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn.