Kathryn McMann, Welcome.
Based off the information and responses that you have given me to work with, here is the step-by-step plan that we would take.
Why this is important: So that the account is organised, reporting and optimising the campaigns will be less of a challenge in the future. Organising the ad account will also improve your handover workflow in the future.
Ideal Outcome:
You have the best Ad Account structure in place. The entire account follows a logical and accurate naming convention.
The Facebook Ad account should ideally follow the structure below:
Ad Account — Each business or brand should have one ad account.
Example:
Campaign — Create at least one new campaign for each business objective. Campaign #1: Increase Brand Awareness
Campaign #2: Lead Generation
Campaign #3: Sales Promo
Ad Set — Each ad set serves a specific audience or interest. Example:
Ad Set #1: Men who are interested in Nike.
Ad Set #1: Women who are interested in Nike.
Ad — Each ad serves a different marketing angle or headline. Example:
Ad #1: A $499 Parisian handbag for $59 - Check it out.
Ad #2: Handmade Parisian handbag built with love <3 - Check it out.
Check if the entire account follows a logical naming convention.
Having a solid naming convention helps you easily identify campaigns, ad sets and ads more easily which will save you time in the long run.
There isn’t a one size fits all naming convention, but generally a good naming convention will help you identify in a glance:
Campaign — What is the campaign about and its objective.
Adset — What is the target audience, device, and demographics.
Ad — What is the key messaging in this ad.
Why this is important: Your ad account may be under or over reporting if the tracking pixel is not set up properly.
Ideal Outcome:
Facebook pixel is firing in the right pages and sending the right data.
Destination URL’s UTM parameters are set up and are tracking properly.
Domain ownership verified.
Conversion events are set up, prioritized, and triggered accurately.
Make sure the Facebook Pixel is installed and firing correctly:
Install the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome plugin.
Compile a list of URLs of the website you’re auditing:
Home page
Landing pages
Sales pages
Other relevant pages
For each URL on the list
Check if the Facebook Pixel is installed and firing correctly.
Check if the conversion tracking is set up correctly.
Review UTM parameters:
Compile a list of all landing page URLs from your ads. You can export all the landing page URLs by;
Log in to Ads Manager
Select the campaign, click 'Reports', and then click 'Custom Reports'
On the right panel where you can customise pivot table, insert 'URL Parameters'
You can now view all the UTM Parameters for all the campaigns
Make sure all URLs include the appropriate UTM parameters, example:
utm_source=Facebook
utm_medium=ppc
utm_campaign=lead-generation
Why this is important: To identify suboptimal ad set targeting and find new audience opportunities to target.
Ideal Outcome:
Identify audiences to keep or remove based on performance.
Identify new cold or warm audiences to add to your strategy.
Request the customer persona deck from your marketing manager or the client for the current website.
Review the current audiences being targeted:
Are the audiences targeting the same demographic and interests as the customer persona?
If the audience targeting doesn’t reflect the customer persona, check how it is performing (I.e. If the objective is revenue, check the return on ad spend (ROAS)), even though the audiences might not match the customer personas they might be worth keeping if they’re hitting your performance KPIs.
If your KPI is the ROAS you can check it by heading to the current account ad set.
Refer to the column “Website Purchase ROAS” Check if the ad set audience reach is too broad or too narrow.
Head to the current account ad set.
Hover over the ad set name and click “Edit”
General rule of thumb for audience reach:
Cold Audience: 200,000 to 5,000,000 people potential reach. Warm Audience: Depends on the list/pixel used to create the warm audience targeting.
Review audience segmentation
Check if the current ad set or campaign structure differentiates targeting between cold and warm audiences. (Your ad sets should not mix cold and warm audiences)
Cold audience — Target people based on interest, demographics, location, and behaviour.
Warm audience — Target people who have previously interacted with your website or brand.
Note: You can check the audience targeting by referring to the audience section of the ad set setting.
If it’s a Cold AdSet make sure the targeting excludes existing customers so the ad budget is not wasted on them.
Note: Some ad sets DO NOT need to exclude customers. For example, a remarketing campaign to upsell would need to include existing customers in the targeting. It’s best to first check the name of the ad campaign to understand its objective before making significant changes to the ad set targeting.
Why this is important: To identify suboptimal ad copy and creatives, and to find new opportunities to improve on current ads.
Ideal Outcome:
Identify ads without distinct clear call to action
Identify redundant ad/creatives to remove.
Identify ads with mis-match landing page messaging.
Identify ads with low quality scores and action steps to improve.
CTA — Does each ad have a clear, distinct, and strong call to action?
Example:
Buy now and get 50% off
Limited time offer. Get your free ebook
Order a hand-made T-Shirt now.
Check if each ad has a unique marketing angle.
i.e Each ad can be differentiated via benefit, unique selling proposition (USP), pricing, audience etc.
Example:
Sign up for a free ebook today.
Sign up for a limited-copy ebook today.
Get this ebook for just $5.99.
Check if the ad messaging matches the landing page. For example, if the ad asks the user to sign up for a free ebook, then the landing page should reflect the same messaging.
Check the quality ranking score for each ad. There are 5 possible values for the quality ranking score:
Above Average
Average
Below Average (Bottom 35% of ads)
Below Average (Bottom 20% of ads)
Below Average (Bottom 10% of ads)
Ideally the quality score should be at least average. If the ad scores are below average, refer to Facebook guidelines on how to overcome low ad quality score.
Why this is important: This step is to help you identify low-performing ad campaigns, ad sets, or ads which you can then consolidate or optimize for better results.
Ideal Outcome:
Identify Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads with the lowest performance (high CPA, low ROAS, low conversions, etc)
Create a plan to lift results.
Review current Ad Spend distribution by sorting the campaigns by “Amount Spent” and identify the high-spending campaigns along with their return on ad spend (ROAS) or Cost per Action (CPA).
Usually you would like to see most of the budget going towards the most profitable campaigns. If you have campaigns that are not performing well but a considerable budget is being delivered it can indicate an opportunity for improvement.
Note: You should also perform this step at the Ad Set and Ad level (not just at the campaign level) to determine if the current budget has been optimally spent.
Review the current Cost per Result on Ad Sets. Which Ad Set brings you the lowest cost per conversion? Sort the Ad Sets by “Amount Spent” and determine which Ad Sets have the lowest cost per result and are making the most efficient use of the budget.
Action steps you can take based on your findings:
Reduce budget / pause Campaigns, AdSets or Ads that have a subpar performance.
Divert budget from Campaigns, Ad Sets or Ads that are not performing to ads that seem to be performing better.
Gradually increase the budget for Campaigns, Ad Sets, or Ads that seem to be performing above your target.
Consolidate Campaigns or Ad Sets that are performing well. You can do that by creating a new Campaign or Ad Set that incorporates the audiences, budget and distinct creative from the ones that you want to consolidate.
Alternatively, you can also run a split test on the best-performing Ad sets / Campaigns.
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Our team has completed a full review of your website, ad account and competitors around [niche] Here are some improvements and opportunities to pursue:
[xxxxxxxxx]
[xxxxxxxxx]
[xxxxxxxxx]
[xxxxxxxxx]
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The next few sections are in-depth analysis and findings for each of the improvements mentioned above.
- 02
Present your findings as succinctly as possible. What were the issues and why are they important to address?
Present a realistic solution and why it may work.
- 03
Here is where we will showcase the strategy (high-level) of your Facebook ads
What kind of landing pages and sales pages are needed?
Do you need a lead magnet (courses/high ticket etc...)
Who are you targeting?
Why are they important?
How will you track the customers journey?
How are you targeting customers at the top, middle & bottom of the funnel
Proposed ad spend at each stage of the funnel
- 04
Provide SMART goals for the client.
Examples:
Increase TOF sales by 50% in June
Increase sales conversion rate by 15% in the first 3 months
Increase brand exposure by growing 10,000 fans to the Facebook page
- 05
Provide clarity on what are exact deliverables the client can expect from your team.
Deliverables might include:
Project Planning and Management — How will your team plan and manage the project with the client
Analytics Setup — Which tracking codes will your team set up and for which platform.
Landing Page Creation — What landing page(s) will your team create.
Creatives — How will your team create/collaborate with the client to produce high-quality ad creatives.
Campaign Management — How will your team manage the ad campaign to produce results
Reporting — How frequent will your team report ad campaign results for the client and in what format.
- 06
- 01
Define your business objective; E.g: “We want to grow our email marketing list for our new handmade Parisian handbags brand by having leads convert on the ‘handbag buying handbook’ landing page.”
Identify the funnel stage your audience is going to be when they see your ad; E.g: “Consideration / MOFU (Middle of Funnel)”
Define which KPI you’d like your Facebook Ad campaign to impact positively; E.g: “Number of leads generated on that landing page”
Have you already implemented a way to track the metric that you have defined? E.g: If you are driving traffic to a landing page where you’ll be collecting leads, do you have the standard events or custom conversions in place to measure the number of leads you’re getting?
If not:
Can the metric you’ve defined be tracked on your website? E.g: “Website Purchases”.
Does the metric you’ve defined not require tracking on your website? E.g: “Post engagement (Likes), Traffic (Clicks)”.
Make sure you at least have the Facebook Pixel running on your website. It will allow you to create more advanced campaigns in the future and it needs to be added before you start any Facebook campaign since you won’t be able to recover that lost data in the future.
Does the metric you’ve defined require tracking, but you’re not able to track it? E.g: you don’t have access to the website code
Rethink your metric and select one that is measurable by Facebook alone such as engagement, link clicks, video views, leads generated (if using Facebook Lead Ads and not your own landing page), etc.
Do not pick a “Conversions” objective in the next step if that is the case as you’ll not be able to optimise for those. E.g: “I want this Facebook Ad campaign to have an impact on my overall sales numbers, but since I don’t have tracking implemented, I’ll look at the number of engagements instead, more engagements should mean more sales.”
If yes - Move on to the next step;
Based on the funnel stage you’ve identified and the metric you’ve selected, pick one of the objectives available to you according to the image below:
Did you pick “Leads”?
If yes: Be aware that by doing that you won’t be using your own landing page
If not: Move forward to the next question;
Did you pick “Sales” instead? E.g: You’re looking for sales conversion on your site so you would pick a “Sales” as an objective and optimise it for sales.
Why: The funnel representation up there is a great starting point, but it should be used as a reference only. “Lead Magnet Download” could be a “MOFU / Consideration” goal but if you’re able to track that conversion and it passes the questions laid out below, you can take advantage of Facebook’s optimisation algorithm to better optimise your delivery for users that are more likely to perform that conversion. Important note: If you picked another objective (e.g. Engagement) because that’s actually the final KPI you’re looking for (e.g you’re an agency and the client specifically asked you to get engagement on their posts) it’s ok to keep that.
Is that sales conversion trackable with the Facebook Pixel?
If yes: Move forward to the next question.
If not: Keep the objective you had selected previously.
Does that conversion occur at least 100 times a month already without Facebook Ads?
If not: Go after a more commonly occurring objective on your website, if that’s still not possible, keep the original objective you selected previously.
E.g: “I’d like to optimise for purchases but I’m only getting 30 purchases per month right now. But I do have 120 Add-to-carts every month, so I can still use the conversion objective, but I’ll have to optimize for Add-to-carts for now.”\
If yes: Move to the next question.
Will you be able to achieve 50 conversions/week on that Ad Set?
Note: Those conversions need to be attributable to your ads to count towards those 50. E.g: “I’m using the conversions objective and optimising it to Add-to-carts, my budget is going to be $100/day which means that in 1 week I expect this AdSet to have around 150 Add-to-carts”
If not: Go after a more commonly occurring objective on your website, if that’s still not possible, keep the original objective you selected previously.
If yes: use a “Conversions” objective instead of the one you originally picked.
Is your objective “Lead Generation”? If yes you have 2 options:
You want to use your own landing page: Depending on the volume of leads you are/will be getting, go back to the previous step. You won’t be actually using the ‘Lead Generation’ objective. And will most likely be better suited with the ‘Conversions’ objective optimizing for “Lead” conversions.
You don’t have a landing page and don’t want to create one, or simply would rather use Facebook’s built-in form builder: Move forward with the “Lead Generation” objective.
That’s it, at this point you should have clearly defined which Facebook Ad Campaign objective is right for you!
- 02
Does the business you’re creating campaigns for own multiple distinct brands (e.g. a Jewelry Brand on www.parisian-handmade-jewelry.com and a Car Accessories Brand on www.joes-auto-garage.com)?
If yes
Create an Ad Account for each from inside Business Manager.
Remember: There is a 5 Ad Account limit per Business Manager, depending on ad spend you might be able to request additional accounts if needed. If you’re just starting, the number of Ad Accounts available to you might be limited.If not
Keep all your campaigns inside a single account.
Create at least one campaign for each business objective (e.g. campaign 1 = brand awareness)
Note: If you don’t know which Facebook Ad campaign objective to pick, please follow the previous instructions.
Optional: If you have more than 10 Ad Sets with significantly different audiences, create a new campaign for them:
Note: This step is optional but recommended, doing it allows you to more easily analyse these different groups, and gives you easier control over those Ad Sets as a whole allowing you to define budget caps for them all at once, pause or resume all of them at the campaign level, or enable “Campaign Budget Optimisation” for those Ad Sets only.
Split up different audience targeting groups into different ad sets based on:
Do you want to serve a specific audience a specific Ad? If so create a specific Ad Set for each.
E.g: “If the user is in France I want my ad to feature the Eiffel tower.” Ad Set #1 - France - Interest #1 (Eiffel Tower Ads); Ad Set #2 - United States - Interest #1 - (Other Ads)
Do you want to be able to understand which Interest / Demographic / Custom Audience / Lookalike Audience converts better by seeing a breakdown of each? If so, create a specific Ad Set for each.
E.g: “I wonder which audience is better: ‘Eiffel Tower’ or ‘Gustave Eiffel’.” Ad Set #1 - Eiffel Tower; Ad Set #2 - Gustave Eiffel
Ads Level:
Add the ads you want to be displayed to that specific audience (defined at the ad set level)
(Optional but recommended) If you want to test different ads, add multiple ads to your Ad Sets.
Test one hypothesis at a time with each ad, this way you will know what is it that makes that Ad perform better than the other. E.g: If you sell Parisian handbags and you’re wondering what makes people buy—if it’s the price or the fact that they are handmade. You could try:
Headline #A - “A $499 Parisian handbag for $59 - Check it out”
Headline #B - “Handmade Parisian handbag built with love <3 - Check it out”
Everything else (Image, Description, News Feed Description, etc) would stay the same This way, if Headline #A performs better, you can try starting from the fact that they are price sensitive and test something else on your next Ad (e.g: your image) while keeping all the other elements constant.
- 03
For each stage of the funnel, you will want to consider if it makes sense to drive:
Cold Traffic - Allows you to reach new audiences and scale your business.
Note: The content that you share with cold traffic is typically top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content—blog posts, podcasts, videos, etc. (There are rare cases when your middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) or bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content might work well with cold traffic, feel free to experiment with that if you are unsure.)
Warm/Hot Traffic (Remarketing) - Allows you to reach audiences that have already been to your website, and push them down the funnel.
Note: These audiences are usually cheaper to engage and closer to purchasing than cold traffic. Since these people are already familiar with your content, you might consider sending them MOFU (lead magnets, tripwires, downloadables, free trials) or BOFU (limited time offers, testimonials, coupons) content.
None - Sometimes you might not want to do anything at a specific stage of the funnel, and that’s alright.
Important: To better select the Facebook audiences to use, check out the targeting section!
Add Cold Traffic elements to your funnel: Cold Traffic usually performs better with TOFU content, this is especially true if your main offer is a premium-priced product. (There are rare instances when your MOFU or BOFU might work well with cold traffic, feel free to experiment with that if you are unsure.) So if you are unsure, start adding cold traffic to the first stages of your funnel.
Add Warm/Hot traffic elements to your funnel: For remarketing, ideally, you should use ads to push people through each stage of the funnel. But if the size of your audience is too small you might not be able to do that, if that is the case you might want to group a few of those within a single Ad Set instead.
Example: If any of the stages of your funnel has less than 100 people in the audience within the period that you’ll be targeting them, you will not be able to run an ad just for them. In that case, consider running an ad that targets people on a few other stages of your funnel as well until you reach an audience that is larger than 100 people (ideally, aim for 5,000 people or more while keeping the relevancy of your ad and audience).
- 04
Thanks for taking the time to read this far. Here is what myself and the team have created for you!
- 05
Platforms used for advertising: [e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads]
Monthly ad budget: [Insert budget]
Past campaign performance: [Summarise any high-performing or low-performing campaigns]
- 06
Increase investment in [Platform Name] ads targeting [specific audience segment] based on high engagement.
Launch A/B testing for different ad creatives and audience targeting.
Develop a retargeting campaign to capture users who visited the website but didn’t convert.
- 07
Allocate [percentage] of the ad budget to [brand awareness, lead generation, conversion-focused campaigns].
- 08
Set up and run 3 A/B testing ad campaigns for [Platform] by [specific date].
Create retargeting audiences for website visitors and cart abandoners.
Monitor and optimise ad performance weekly.
- 09
Access to the advertising platforms [Google, Facebook, LinkedIn]
Ad asset creatives finished