Now, let’s talk about which Facebook ad objectives make the most sense for local businesses. Some simply are not good choices if you’ve got a small audience to target. Brand Awareness is a good objective, particularly if you feel like your competitors have more brand recognition than you do or if you haven’t been in business for long. You should make sure that the ad you create is a compelling representation of your brand, including your brand’s personality, voice, and ethics.
Unless you have a large audience, the Reach objective is probably not ideal. The goal for that objective is to reach as many people as possible. Most small, local businesses should steer clear of this objective.
Traffic can be a good objective for small businesses who want to get more people to visit their websites. However, you should make sure that you have a well-designed landing page before you spend any money on traffic.
I also really like the Store Visits ad objective for local businesses. It’s arguably the most highly focused ad objective available. The key if you decide to use it is to make sure your location information is up-to-date. You’ll also need to target the ad to people who live within a small radius of your store. There’s no point in spending money to reach people who aren’t within easy distance. If you have an online store, then the Catalog Sales objective may be useful as well. It can help you show off your most popular products and get them in front of an audience. Again, targeting is going to be important. You should use this ad objective with an audience already familiar with your brand for the best results.
The Messages objective may be right for your company if you feel that you need one-on-one contact with customers to overcome their buying objections. However, you should only use this objective if you’re ready to monitor your messages and respond promptly when people write to you. A slow response time can undo any good you do with the ad itself. You may want to consider installing a chatbot in Facebook Messenger to send an immediate response.
Visiting your Facebook Ads Manager page will give you additional information and guidance as you create your ad. Remember, the ad objective you choose should be carefully selected to align with your business growth objectives for the best results.
