How To Use Facebook Ads For Events
The Best Facebook Event Promotion Strategy
Let’s talk about how you can use Facebook ads for event promotion. Whether you are planning an online or offline event, this advertising strategy will definitely get you results.
But before I get into the actual strategy I would like you to understand that there is a lot of work required for implementing this strategy.
Getting people to come to an event is not easy.
You are asking people to take time out off their lives and their time is very valuable whether the event is free or paid.
As an event planner, you cannot just do the bare minimum because your event is free.
You really have to make it worth the while for your attendees.
So this strategy might require a lot of work but it will get you results and attract many attendees to your event.
But before we talk about Facebook ads, let me firstly show you how to create an event on Facebook.
How To Create An Event On Facebook
So those are the steps for creating a public Facebook event on your computer. You are basically looking to create something like the example below…
Before You Start Advertising
Before you start running event promotion ads on Facebook it is very important for you to have a clear picture of your desired results.
How many attendees do you want at your event?
Do you want attendees from a specific location?
What type of people do you want at the event?
These are questions that you need to answer before you even login to your Facebook Ads Manager.
Beginning with the end in mind will make everything easier for you.
Your entire event promotion strategy should be based on the desired results.
Facebook Ads Event Promotion Strategy
I am assuming that you are hosting a paid event but this strategy can still work for free events. In fact, it will actually get you more attendants if your event is free.
So here is a breakdown of the strategy:
Step 1: Create An Automated Webinar Funnel
This strategy will utilize the power of webinars to sell tickets for your event. Before people can trust you to come for a live event they have to see you as an authority in your industry.
Webinars are a great tool for pre-framing your audience and you don’t need to be a presentation wizard in order to get results.
Russell Brunson has created a perfect webinar script template that you can use to create an awesome presentation.
The idea here is to host an automated webinar that will teach your ideal attendee how to solve a problem related to your expertise.
So if you are a dog trainer and promoting a dog training event, your webinar title can be as simple as…How To Train Your Dog Without Using Treats.
Once you have delivered value inside the webinar you can then sell tickets to your event as an opportunity to learn more unique strategies.
Step 2: Install Facebook Pixel On Webinar Funnel
The next step in our strategy is to install a Facebook Pixel on your webinar funnel. This will help you track your Facebook ads and optimize them for better results.
Step 3: Install Conversion Tracking
Step number three is to install conversion tracking on your Thank-You page and ticket purchase page. This will help you track your webinar registrations and people who have bought their event tickets.
Step 4: Create Custom Audiences On The Pixel
Once you have installed your pixel the next thing is to create custom audiences based on the pixel triggers.
Here are some examples of custom audiences that you can create:
- Landed on page but did not register.
- Registered for the webinar but did not show up.
- Showed up for the webinar but did not buy the event ticket.
- Went to check out page but did not buy the event ticket.
Step 5: Create A Targeted Cold Audience
You will need to use the Facebook Audience Insights to create a targeted cold audience for your ads.
This audience will depend on the nature of your event but you basically want to target people who are super interested in your industry.
Let’s use the dog training event as as example.
The ideal audience would be dog owners so you might create a layered audience of people who like dogs, are within a reasonable radius from the event location and must also like PetSmart, Petco, Chewy and other dog related interests.
Layered audiences will help you narrow down your ads to people who are most likely to show up for your event.
Step 6: Run Ads For Your Webinar
The next step is to run Facebook ads for your webinar. Your main goal at this stage is to get people to attend the webinar where you can sell your event tickets.
Here is an example of a simple dog training webinar ad…
The ad is designed to only attract the ideal customer. Your ads should only be attractive to people who are interested in your event topic.
Step 7: Retargeting
The next step of the strategy is to set up retargeting ads for people who have not yet bought tickets for your main event.
You will need to set up different retargeting ads for people who have:
- Landed on page but did not register.
- Registered for the webinar but did not show up.
- Showed up for the webinar but did not buy the event ticket.
- Went to check out page but did not buy the event ticket.
The message of each ad will depend on the stage of the sales process.
Step 8: Optimize
This is where you start to monitor and optimize your Facebook ads for better results. The optimization phase is basically where you start to scale winning ads and stop every ad that is not producing results.
Step 9: Scale
The scaling phase will leverage the power of Lookalike Audiences. Here are some of the Lookalike Audiences that you can create for scaling:
- 1% Landing Page Views LAA
- 1–2% Landing Page Views LAA
- 4–5% Landing Page Views LAA
- 1% Webinar Registrations LAA
- 1–2% Webinar Registration LAA
- 4–5% Webinar Registration LAA
- 1% Ticket Buyers LAA
- 1–2% Ticket Buyers LAA
- 4–5% Ticket Buyers LAA
There are so many Lookalike Audiences that you can create and increase your reach for scaling . The idea is to test every audience and monitor the results for optimization.
Facebook Event Ads Best Practices
The best practice for running event ads on Facebook is simply understanding that selling event tickets is a longer sales process.
Once you understand the different touch points in your sales process you can easily create a promotion strategy that is guaranteed of producing results.
Many people are quick to pitch the event before going through some early stages of the sales process.
Make sure that you don’t skip any stage in the process.
It might take a lot of work and time but you have a greater chance of winning.
Best Facebook Event Ads Examples
Here are some examples of great Facebook ads for events:
1.Social Media Week
2.HubSpot
3.Quicket
The Next Step
There are definitely a lot of factors that contribute to a successful Facebook advertising campaign.
Your desired results. Target audience. Event topic.
These are all factors that will determine your promotion strategy.
The one I gave you in this article is simply a foundation for creating your own unique plan.
You understand your business and target audience better than anyone so there is a need for you to take the wheel here.
Other people’s plans and strategies are simply a guide to show you what is working.
And speaking of plans.
There is a free online training program with multiple proven digital marketing strategies from other entrepreneurs like you.
It is called the 30 days summit and it definitely help you discover a great Facebook advertising strategy for your event.
Thank you for reading.
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Disclosure: I am an independent ClickFunnels Affiliate, not an employee. I receive referral payments from ClickFunnels. The opinions expressed here are my own and are not official statements of ClickFunnels or its parent company, Etison LLC.
