It’s been years of domination across the social space and still Facebook is causing speculation over how best to run ads within its feed. As marketers, we can theorise and determine our hearts away, but the last few years have given us at least a bit more of an insight into how best to deal with this method of advertising.

In some cases, professionals will preach that weekends are best, or that industry is the only indicator on when to run Facebook ads. Unfortunately, things aren’t so black and white—just like everything else in digital marketing. It requires thorough insight, research and user behaviour analysis to assess exactly how engagement is occurring. It comes down to allocating the right time and effort into gaining this kind of knowledge.

Organic vs. paid ads

First of all, there’s no flawless way to ensure all users see yours posts. The algorithms behind Facebook are far more complicated than just simply showing the most recent updates. In simple terms, posts aren’t equal to each other.

Since 2009, the News Feed has been driving marketers into crazy analysis and brainstorms on how to have an epiphany that outsmarts the algorithms behind this platform. Previously, there was an actual algorithm formulated to limit how much brand content was exposed to users in their feeds—the nifty “Edge Rank”.

Typically, organic posts only appear in feeds to those who have already actually ‘liked’ your page. If they haven’t, they won’t see that actual post unless they go hunting for it.

Facebook ads, however, make their way into feeds who are from those that aren’t directly linked to your page through having liked it. That means that sometimes ads appear that aren’t actually all that relevant to that particular user.

Whilst some see this as a form of “bribing” their way into feeds, its also just another way that we can cut through the noise when they is so much competition competing for time and space on the platform.

Time doesn’t matter if you don’t know your audience

You could be following all the right alleged guidelines for running a Facebook ad, and still get zero traction. That’s most likely because you’re targeting the wrong audience altogether. If you’ve managed to hit the nail on the head with pinpointing your demographic, you’ll find the engagement results reflect these efforts.

But for the sake of this post, let’s assume you do know who exactly to target…

So, when do you need to run the ads?

There’s no hard and fast rule book for this but there are ways to hone in on proper targeting. To figure this out, ensure you’ve got a complete understanding of what your business objectives are, how your industry works and who your actual customer is.

Get analytical and pinpoint what day of the week your ideal customer is most active online. Then, think about when their pay cycle runs, if there are any holidays coming up that will affect their social networking usage and whether they’re even active on Facebook at all. There’s a whole lot of behavioural elements you’ll need to pinpoint about your demographic, and it pays to spend some time on this. Use Facebook Analytics and Google Analytics to track how your users are behaving and what content they’re likely to engage with, then structure this into your strategy.  Also consider what time of the week or month you gain the most email sign-ups—this will all play a role.

Measure then measure again

If you’ve managed to identify the best approach for your paid ads, that’s great, but maintaining its effectiveness is a whole other story. Social usage climbs up and then decreases rapidly, all at the drop of the hat, so it’s important to keep your thumb on the pulse.

Not sure how you can get started on your Facebook ads? Get in touch with the Webcentral team on 1300 663 995 to speak to one of our performance media specialists.