How To Run Facebook Ads: The Insurance Edition

How To Run Facebook Ads: The Insurance Edition:

In case you missed 15 Step Facebook Ad article here, I am doing an insurance agent revision for this. If you read my other article, feel free to jump right to step 6 where I get into the good stuff (all additions are in bold and italicized).

Why Facebook?

Facebook ads can be simple, but certainly not easy. There are a couple different ways to execute a post and even more formats to post. Everything from video, to carousel ads and beyond. Here’s my 2 cents on the subject…

Page Link Ads Remain Most Effective

Go to facebook.com/ads/manage/powereditor (must be accessed via chrome)

This is the full Facebook Ad Server (not the shortcut from your page)

OBJECTIVE

Step 1: Click Menu in Top Left Corner

Step 2: Select Ads Manager

Step 3: Click “Create Ad”

Step 4: Select Objective – We will use “Send people to a destination on or off Facebook” for now. I will do other posts in the future on App Installs and Conversions.

Step 5: Scroll down and press “Continue”

AD SETS

Step 6. Select Audience

Age
Gender
Location (Auto set to United States, select individual states if applicable)
* Detailed Targeting * this is the 2nd most important part. Select interests that align with your audience. Perhaps large competitors as well, for example I might target Geico or Progressive. You can also target by car ownership and home ownership type. As you know, the market for renter’s insurance has been on the up for some time now. The market for apartment renters hit an all-time high in 2016. According to Facebook, there are over 55 million home renters identified on Facebook.
* Custom Audience * this is the most important part. I will do a follow up post on how to generate custom audiences. But just know that you can nest “Interests” aka Detailed Targeting inside these custom audiences to enhance your scope.

Step 7: Edit Placement (Do not do automatic)

This is Facebook’s clever way of getting people to spend on Instagram ads, desktop ads or right hand rail ads even though News Feed Mobile ads are the best in most cases I have found. So deselect everything except Facebook, News Feed, Mobile.

Step 8: Set a budget (daily or lifetime)

For tests, I recommend lifetime with the date set to the current day at midnight. This will ensure your $10 budget spends out entirely by EOD so you can analyze in the morning and make decisions fast about which ad to continue running. This also ensures you do not forget about a test and spend money again on it tomorrow if it sucks.

Step 9: Scroll down and press “Continue” (leave everything else as is, I will do another post on bid ceilings. But for now leave it alone or your ad probably won’t spend).

Step 10: Create New Ad (you can use an existing post, but I want to show you the right way to make an ad so please stick with me).

Step 11: Select “Single Image” Post

Step 12: Edit your Image to 1200X628

Photoshop is well worth the money if you are serious about internet marketing LINK TO PHOTOSHOP
Use Preview on Mac or Paint on Windows to crop
Use this FREE Internet Marketing Ninjas Tool, these guys also provide you with the optimal sizing for popular social media platforms and SEO.

Step 13: Enter Website URL

Since we are doing this for website traffic, I recommend sending the user directly to the article we will tease with the ad. For conversions, we can discuss strategies in a future post.
I like to use a UTM link to track the traffic generated directly from Facebook. But if you are only trying to see which ad results in the most cost effective acquisition to site and are a little lazy like me, this can be avoided during the test phase. However, it is a good habit to get into.
HERE is a great article on how to use UTMs. I highly recommend visiting this after you are done with my article. Read it more than once as it will seem confusing at first but in reality is extremely simple.

Step 14: Headline and Text

Step 15: Select Call To Action Button – For this case we will use “Learn More” since we are driving traffic to something that the buyer might not currently have and therefore we need to educate them more on the subject before closing.

I would recommend including these 3 things on the landing page:

CREDIBILITY: What have you done for your clients? Why should they go through you and not GEICO / Progressive / Your competitors?
CALL TO ACTION: Either give them the opportunity to buy or provide you with their telephone number for you to close the sale. I might even recommend both because you will encounter different demographics of people; some may prefer buying directly online and others may feel more comfortable speaking with you / a rep over the phone.
INFORMATION ON RENTER’S INSURANCE: Do the simple math for them. Include a list of items that 80% of people will have in their apartments / homes and add up the cost of the goods (aim low) and justify the price of renter’s insurance. This is, in all likelihood, not an impulse buy, but you never know…especially with Facebook ads and their magic way of popping into your feed in a very, contextually accurate way.

If you enjoyed this post, please check out my next post on how to use multiple ad sets to optimize your Facebook ad costs.