Advertising on Facebook has become a core marketing strategy for thousands of businesses, non-profits, and entrepreneurs. In fact, according to WordStream Founder and CTO, Larry Kim, the number of advertisers using Facebook to reach new audiences has doubled during the past 18 months.
In today’s post, we’ll be taking a look at eight Facebook advertising tools, and outlining ways you can use them in your own campaigns. By the end of this post, hopefully you’ll have some ideas on how you can improve your Facebook ad campaigns, drive more leads and sales, and get more done in less time. Let’s get started!
Facebook Ad Tool #1: Facebook Ads Manager
The first Facebook ad tool in this round-up should come as no surprise. Facebook’s own Ads Manager is the first – and, for some advertisers, only – port of call for most Facebook advertisers.
Image via VentureBeat
Facebook Ads Manager is versatile and offers a great deal of information, from performance of specific campaigns over time (dependent on objective), a summary of the campaign itself including a given day’s total spend and campaign goal, and several other key data points that can be seen at-a-glance on Ads Manager’s dashboard.
How Much Does It Cost?
Facebook Ads Manager is free of charge.
Facebook Ad Tool #2: WordStream’s Free Facebook Ads Grader
Our free Facebook Ads Performance Grader offers a free and instant audit of your Facebook ad account to help you understand your performance and maximize your budget. Designed specifically for small businesses and agencies, it reveals where you’re missing opportunities to reach more people, drive more leads, and capture more conversions.
The easy-to-read report covers key areas such as:
- Our expert-identified, tried-and-true Facebook Fundamentals
- Audiences your ad sets should be targeting
- Placements and platforms you’ve got to use
- Potentially mismatched campaign objectives and account goals
- How frequently you’re working in your account
- Best (and worst!) performing ads in your account
- How your ad account stacks up against competitors in your industry
Sound good? Get your grade now!
How Much Does It Cost?
Our Facebook Ads Performance Grader is 100% free.
Facebook Ad Tool #3: Hootsuite
If you’ve ever experimented with social media scheduling, you’ve probably heard of Hootsuite, one of the most popular social media tools on the market. But did you know that Hootsuite also offers a range of tools and functionality specifically for Facebook advertisers?
Hootsuite is ideal for those new to advertising on Facebook. After some initial setup, Hootsuite allows users to completely automate their ad creation workflow. The software evaluates content from users’ Facebook pages to determine what content is performing strongly, then creates ads based on that content. It’s the perfect introduction to Facebook advertising, and one that lets users get their ads out to the right people, at the right time, with the right message.
How Much Does It Cost?
Hootsuite Ads’ Professional plan costs $9.99 per month if prepaid annually, or $14.99 per month on a monthly basis. Other plans – Team and Business – are available, as is Enterprise-level custom pricing.
Facebook Ad Tool #4: Driftrock
For mid-sized to larger businesses, customer relationship management (CRM) software can be a treasure trove of immensely valuable data. Platforms such as Salesforce are often pivotal to successful marketing campaigns, but getting that data into a workable format to use in Facebook advertising campaigns isn’t always straightforward. That’s where Driftrock comes in.
Driftrock allows users to connect the data in their CRM to their Facebook presence, combining the two to create highly targeted campaigns throughout the entirety of the customer lifecycle. In addition to this innovative technology, Driftrock also allows advertisers to specify unique “triggers” for their ads, allowing for timely and dynamic campaigns. Example parameters users can set include weather patterns for specific regions, the results of major sporting events, and dozens of other data feeds.
How Much Does It Cost?
Unfortunately, Driftrock does not list its pricing on its website, so you’ll have to contact Driftrock for a quote if you want to find out more.
Facebook Ad Tool #5: Qwaya
A proverbial Swiss army knife for Facebook advertisers, Qwaya has a built-in ad scheduler that also allows users to manually specify a set rotation of ads, a URL builder, full Google Analytics integration and support for multiple user profiles, split-testing functionality, ad templates, a super-handy campaign organizer, and support for Excel or CSV data export.
How Much Does It Cost?
Qwaya is available in three plans – Premium, Business, and Agency, priced at $149, $249, and $349 per month respectively. The Premium plan allows for a single user, the Business plan offers usage for five users, and the Agency plan is for up to 10 users.
Facebook Ad Tool #6: Pagemodo
Pagemodo isn’t exclusively a Facebook advertising tool – it offers other functionality besides Facebook tools, including support for Twitter ads – but for beginners, it’s a great first step toward more successful campaigns.
At the heart of Pagemodo is a streamlined, simplified approach to Facebook ads. One of Pagemodo’s coolest features is its ad builder. Users can choose from a selection of ad templates, use royalty-free imagery in their ads through Pagemodo’s built-in image library – a major bonus for new advertisers who may lack the resources of larger, more established teams.
Pagemodo also offers a simplified, yet no less powerful approach to audience targeting and segmentation, another common hurdle for those new to Facebook ads. The software’s analytics and performance measurement tools are similarly easy to use, making Pagemodo a great choice for businesses just beginning to experiment with advertising on Facebook.
How Much Does It Cost?
All three of Pagemodo’s plans – Basic, Pro, and Agency – are based on prepaid annual payments. The Basic package costs $6.25 per month ($75 billed annually), the Pro package costs $13.25 per month ($159 billed annually), and the Agency package costs $33.25 per month ($399 billed annually). Further savings are available if customers commit to a two-year agreement.
Facebook Ad Tool #7: KISSmetrics
It’s no secret that we’re big fans of KISSmetrics here at WordStream, but did you know that KISSmetrics can help you get even more mileage out of your Facebook campaigns?
KISSmetrics is something of an outlier in this round-up in that it doesn’t offer a standalone Facebook advertising tool as such. Rather, KISSmetrics can help you see the bigger picture by taking crucial data about your Facebook advertising performance and contextualizing it with wider trends and broader data points to give you invaluable insights into who’s interacting with your campaigns and how.
No Facebook ad campaign is an island, and even the most detailed campaign data may not be giving you the bird’s-eye view you need to make critical decisions about your advertising spend. KISSmetrics can help you make your ad budget go farther and your campaigns more effective.
How Much Does It Cost?
KISSmetrics plans begin at $299 per month for the Self-Starter package, ranging up to $700 per month for power users. Which plan is right for you is dependent on what KISSmetrics calls “Events,” which can be anything from a page visit to a content download.
Facebook Ad Tool #8: SocialStats
One of Facebook’s greatest strengths is the sheer breadth of demographics that advertisers can target. Facebook knows more about you than you might think – a lot more – and this information is almost literally invaluable to advertisers. To start really digging deeper into demographic data, try SocialStats by Social Ads Tool.
SocialStats is an iOS app that allows you to quickly identify potential valuable audience segments by analyzing demographic data based on user parameters. You can, for example, find out roughly how many people of a certain age range in a specified region are interested in consumer technology. This can be very helpful when constructing buyer personas, among other uses. Give it a shot and see if it can help your campaigns hit the mark.
How Much Does It Cost?
SocialStats is available for download free of charge on the iOS App Store.
Meet The Author
Dan Shewan
Originally from the U.K., Dan Shewan is a journalist and web content specialist who now lives and writes in New England. Dan’s work has appeared in a wide range of publications in print and online, including The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Pacific Standard magazine, The Independent, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and many other outlets.
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