Advertising on Facebook is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing. The platform has billions of active users, allowing businesses from all industries to reach their target audiences.
That said, running Facebook ad campaigns isn’t easy. There are many variables that you need to get right in order to have success.
This is why companies hire Facebook experts.
These Facebook specialists know the ins and out of Facebook marketing and how to generate the best results.
In this post, I’ll give you a simple 10 step process you can follow to become a Facebook Advertising expert.
What does a Facebook Ads Expert Do?
Facebook Ads experts are responsible for building and monitoring marketing campaigns on the Facebook Advertising platform.
They can work for a single brand or at a digital marketing agency where they handle multiple clients.
Here are some of the important responsibilities of a Facebook Advertising expert:
- Planning Facebook Ad campaigns
- Creating graphics and ad copy
- Analyzing campaign performance and making optimizations
- Installing tracking pixels
- Working with other marketers to optimize landing pages
- Staying up to date with the latest Facebook Advertising best practices
10 Steps to Become a Facebook Ads Expert
These are the 10 steps to follow to become a Facebook ads specialist.
- Build your Facebook ads skills and get certified
- Learn how to use Facebook business manager
- Understand how Facebook sales funnels work
- Learn how to configure Facebook events and custom conversions
- Understand what are custom and lookalike audiences
- Study the different ad placements and Facebook Ad types
- Learn how to use a graphics design tool
- Learn how to do competitor analysis
- Learn how to use the Facebook ads reporting tool
- Stay informed about updates to Facebook Ads
1. Build your Facebook ads skills and get certified
The first step to becoming a Facebook Ads specialist is to learn Facebook Ads and to build the skills needed to carry out the various responsibilities of the role.
Some of the important skills you’ll need to build include:
- How to create a winning ad strategy
- Knowing what types of ad formats to use in different situations
- Selecting the best audience for campaigns
- How to design ad creatives that capture users’ attention
- Using engaging content to increase your reach
- How to set up a Facebook Shop catalog
The best way to begin learning about Facebook marketing is through online Facebook courses.
With a good course, you’ll have all the important topics you need to know compiled together in a single resource. As a result, you won’t have to worry about finding what you should study next.
A solid option is the Facebook Ads Course from Reliablesoft.The course includes 12 lessons consisting of 100 pages of material, video tutorials, and checklists you can use for your own processes.
It covers everything you need to go from beginner to knowledgable Facebook marketer.
As you learn about Facebook marketing, you also want to get certified. Many courses will include a certification that you can earn upon completion.
Certifications validate your skills and knowledge and are quite beneficial throughout your digital marketing career. You can use your certifications to stand out from others when looking for work as a Facebook Ads specialist.
There are several Facebook Ads certifications you can receive. The most notable is the Facebook Blueprint Certification.
Facebook Blueprint is a Facebook marketing training program run by Facebook themselves.
The program includes free online courses covering all the core areas of Facebook marketing.
There are also a number of professional certifications available in the following areas of Facebook marketing.
- Digital Marketing Associate
- Marketing Science Professional
- Creative Strategy Professional
- Media Planning Professional
- Media Buying Professional
- Marketing Developer
- Advanced Marketing Developer
- Advertising API Developer
- Community Manager
You’ll want to start with the Digital Marketing Associate Certification as it covers the introductory parts of Facebook Advertising.
Each certification requires you to pass an exam. The exam can be taken online or in person. The number of questions and time limit varies for each exam.
You have to pay a fee for each exam and if you fail you’ll need to pay the fee again.
2. Learn how to use Facebook business manager
The next step is to become a Facebook Business Manager expert.
Facebook Business Manager is the platform used to manage your Facebook ad campaigns and Facebook pages. You can add multiple ad accounts to the Business Manager for an organized way to manage ads for various clients.
The Ads Manager tool in Business Manager is what you will use to design your ads and create campaigns.
As a Facebook Ads specialist, you’ll need to know how to add business pages and optimize them for maximum engagement.
You’ll also need to know how to control user access for different parties within Business Manager.
Facebook Business Manager allows you to add team members so that you can collaborate inside the system.
Each team member needs to be assigned a permission level that determines what they are able to see and what actions they are able to take.
Setting up Facebook Pixel
Facebook Business Manager is also where you will create and manage your Facebook Pixels. These pixels are pieces of tracking code that are added to your website.
When a pixel is installed on your site, Facebook is able to gather data on your visitors and the actions they take.
This allows Facebook to calculate important performance metrics for your ads. For example, the Facebook Pixel can track every sale to give you a conversion rate and total revenue generated from your ads.
The Facebook Pixel is also useful for remarketing as it can track exactly what pages and products a person visits.
There are other important parts of Business Manager that you’ll need to master including:
- Creating a calendar for posts
- Setting up a product catalog for Facebook Shop
- Using the Inbox to communicate with users through Messenger and Instagram Direct
3. Understand how Facebook sales funnels work
Similar to other forms of digital marketing, sales funnels play an important role in Facebook Advertising.
People are unlikely to buy from your business on the first interaction. Therefore, it is necessary to guide them through the purchasing journey.
Funnels divide users into various stages based on their current relationship with your business.
People who engage with your business for the first time are at the top of the funnel. The more people engage with your business, the further down the funnel they go until eventually becoming a customer.
Facebook sales funnels use the following stages to guide an individual from prospect to customer:
Acquisition – During this stage you find new audiences to target with your campaigns. You then use your ads and content to warm them up for the later funnel stages.
Retargeting – During this stage, you market to people who have moved through the acquisition stage but have not resulted in a sale. This can include people who saw your ad but took no action or people who clicked through to your website before eventually leaving. The goal of this stage is to generate more sales with less marketing spend than the previous stage.
Retention – During this stage, you use your ads to target existing customers. Already having data on this audience, you are able to promote highly targeted offers.
4. Learn how to configure Facebook events and custom conversions
Facebook Advertising experts must know how to set up custom events and conversions to better track the performance of their campaigns
The Facebook Pixel automatically tracks some important actions users take on your site but not all. Tracking the rest requires custom configuration.
Below are some of the standard pixel events that are automatically tracked:
- Add payment info
- Add to cart
- Add to wishlist
- Contact
- Complete registration
- Initiate checkout
- Lead
- Purchase
- Search
- View content
To track an action that isn’t part of the standard tracking events, you’ll need to know how to create a custom event.
You can configure your custom events to automatically add users to custom audiences. However, you cannot use custom events for optimization or attribution unless the event is mapped to a custom conversion.
To create a custom conversion you have to go to Manage Business > Events Manager.
Find the pixel you are using and select Custom Conversion from the Events Manager menu.
Click Create a Custom Conversion. Add a name and select a data source. This will be your pixel unless you are tracking an offline event.
You’ll then need to select the conversion event that you are looking to track. This can be any of the standard events or it could be a custom event.
5. Understand what are custom and lookalike audiences
Facebook gives marketers all sorts of options for defining the audience for an ad campaign. You can target people based on location, age, interests, gender, and more.
If you want to target your audience in even more detail, you’ll need to understand how custom and lookalike audiences work.
Custom audiences
With a Facebook custom audience, you can create a precise list of people to target with your ads. You can use several different data sources to create your custom audiences including:
- Website visitors: You can add all website visitors or you can define particular segments of your visitors such as people who visit a certain page or people who visit multiple pages.
- Customer list: You can upload a list of email addresses for previous customers. Facebook will match the emails to customer accounts to know who to target for ads.
- Engagement: You can add anyone who engages with your business on Facebook (comments, likes a post, etc.) to a custom audience.
Lookalike audiences
Lookalike audiences give you the ability to market to a large base of users who share similarities with your target audience.
You can create a lookalike audience by uploading a source audience.
Facebook uses machine learning to scan the characteristics of the users in the source audience. It then finds other users who share similar characteristics and adds them to your lookalike audience.
You can create source audiences using the same data used for customer audiences (website visitors, list of previous customers, etc.).
6. Study the different ad placements and Facebook Ad types
Facebook Ads can appear in a variety of different places across Facebook’s web properties.
When you create a campaign, you can have Facebook select placements for you by selecting Automated Placements.
If you want to choose your ad placements, you select Edit Placements on the ad settings page.
You can then choose to enable or disable the following platforms:
- Audience Network
- Messenger
Beneath the platforms is a list of specific placements you can choose to enable or disable. Some of the options include:
- Facebook News Feed
- Instagram Feed
- Instagram Stories
- Facebook Right Column
- Messenger Inbox
Along with placements, you’ll also need to understand the different Facebook ad formats.
Here are some of the most important types of Facebook ads you’ll need to know how to use:
Image ads – This is the simplest form of Facebook Ad and contains an image, headline, description, link, and call to action button. You can use image ads for all kinds of Facebook Ads placements.
Video ads – With this ad format, you can showcase your product or service using a short-form video. Video ads can appear in various placements throughout Facebook’s properties. Each placement allows for different video lengths and aspect ratios. As a Facebook Ads expert, you’ll need to know how to make videos that capture people’s attention quickly.
Carousel ads – This ad format allows you to show up to 10 images or videos in the same ad. Each image has its own copy, link, and call to action. Users can scroll the tiles by swiping on their phones or clicking the arrows on a desktop. These ads are a great choice when you want to showcase multiple products or different features for the same item.
Slideshow ads – This ad format features video-like ads that use sound, motion, and text to connect with the target audience. Images in the slideshow automatically shift to create an immersive experience. Slideshow ads are an effective option for marketers looking to create visually engaging ads without the high production costs of recording a video.
Collection ads – These ads were designed specifically for mobile users. They contain a cover image (or video) followed by multiple products. When someone taps on the ad, it becomes full screen and they can scroll through more products.
Dynamic product ads – These ads are used to remarket to people who have visited products on your e-commerce site. Once you set up the campaign the ads are automatically generated to show users products specific to their interests.
7. Learn how to use a graphics design tool
Facebook Ads specialists need to know how to use graphic design tools.
Visuals are the core of Facebook Ads as every ad format needs to have an image or video.
You can save your images and design elements in a single place. This allows you to work more efficiently as you can simply reuse these elements as needed.
There are plenty of graphic design software options that are easy to learn. Some popular choices include:
- Canva
- Crello
- Pixelied
8. Learn how to do competitor analysis
Analyzing the competition is a useful way of improving a Facebook Ad campaign. By knowing what competitors are doing you can create ads that stand out.
You can also learn by seeing what they place the most focus on. This helps inform you which areas are important to customers so that you can optimize your own campaigns.
The Facebook Ad Library provides a database of all the ads running across the Facebook Advertising platform.
You can use the Ad Library to see exactly what ads a competitor is running. This includes placements, images, copy, links, and when the campaign started.
There are other tools like SEMRush that help you spy on your competitors further.
These tools allow you to see where competitor traffic comes from, how much engagement their social profiles get, how much they spend on different advertising channels, and more.
9. Learn how to use the Facebook ads reporting tool
The Facebook Ads reports give you all the information you need to monitor the performance of your campaigns.
As a Facebook Advertising expert, you need to know how to analyze the data so that you can see where you are having success and where you need to make improvements.
You can customize the ad reports so that they include the metrics that are most meaningful to your business.
Here are some of the most important metrics to track in your reports:
- Click-through rate: This shows the percentage of people that click the ad after seeing it.
- Link clicks: Measures the total number of times someone clicked on an ad.
- Amount spent: Mesauses the campaign’s total cost paid for impressions and clicks.
- Impressions: This shows the total number of times your ad is viewed.
- Reach: Measures the number of people who have seen your ads.
- CPC: Measures the average amount paid each time someone clicks on your ad.
After you’ve created a report, you can export the data to use outside of Facebook.
You can also automate the process of generating reports. To do this, you need to create a new report and select Schedule Email when saving the report.
You can select how often you want to receive the email and the report will then be created at recurring intervals.
10. Stay informed about updates to Facebook Ads
It is important to stay up to date with the latest changes in Facebook Advertising and digital marketing as a whole.
Doing so keeps you familiar with current best practices and increases your ability to continue to drive positive results.
The Facebook for Business Newsletter is a great place to stay up to date with the latest changes in the world of Facebook marketing.
You can use this page to sign up for the newsletter for free. Once subscribed, you’ll receive regular updates directly to your inbox.
Another great way to stay informed is to follow top websites related to Facebook marketing. These sites post content regularly and are great for expanding your knowledge of Facebook advertising.
Here are some quality sites worth checking out:
Facebook Ads Specialist Salary
So how much do Facebook Specialists make?
Salaries for Facebook Ads Specialists range between $49k and $80K per year, with the average being $55K.
Differences in salaries depend on a variety of factors including years of experience, education, certifications, and location.
Key Learnings
Facebook advertising is an effective marketing channel for businesses across industries.
Running successful Facebook marketing campaigns requires extensive knowledge and skills.
This leads companies to hire Facebook Ads experts who know everything there is about advertising on Facebook.
Facebook Ads specialists have a range of responsibilities including:
- Planning Facebook Ad campaigns
- Creating graphics and ad copy
- Analyzing campaign performance and making optimizations
- Installing tracking pixels
You can start your journey to becoming a Facebook Ads expert by completing the following steps:
Build your Facebook ads skills and get Blueprint Certification – the fastest way to build your skills is by taking a Facebook Ads course.
Learn how to use Facebook Business Manager – this is the tool you’ll use to create your ads and manage your campaigns.
Understand how Facebook sales funnels work – sales funnels make your ads more effective by targeting people based on their current interest level.
Learn how to configure events and custom conversions – properly tracking conversion ensures that your reports are accurate.
Know how to use custom and lookalike audiences – these audience types allow you to reach highly targeted users at scale.
Know how to use the different ad placements and Facebook Ad types – you should understand where Facebook Ads appear and what ad formats are best for different objectives.
Learn how to use a graphics design tool – you should know how to use a tool like Canva to create graphics for ads.
Learn how to do competitor analysis – monitoring what competitors are doing is a great way to improve your own campaigns.
Learn how to use the Facebook ads reporting tool – the Facebook ads reports allow you to track important performance metrics. You should know how to configure the reports to show the metrics relevant to your business.
Stay informed about updates to Facebook Ads – staying on top of Facebook advertising changes helps ensure that you are always following current best practices.
Thanks for sharing this all valuable stuff. you are right to understand the audience is our first priority.
You have explained all techniques to become a Facebook specialist. Thanks you for your wonderful support.