Facebook Ad Tips For Photographers

Although there is no guarantee that paying for Facebook ads will boost your photography business, it can be a powerful promotional tool as it gives you so many options.

If you are paying good money to advertise on Facebook, though, it's important that the adverts work hard for you.

Here's a brief guide to the essentials of setting up a Facebook ad for a wedding business (the principles apply to other genres too, though it maybe harder to specify such exact targeting).

1) What do you want to achieve?

Once you click to create a new Facebook ad, you are given a range of options.

While I could set up an ad to get more Likes for my wedding photography Facebook page, I actually want to get more people to visit my website, so I select 'Send people etc etc.' It's worth checking out the other options on this page as there are some powerful marketing tools.

Click 'Help: Choosing an Objective' if you are unsure.

2) Supply website details

Then it's just a question of entering your website address. Be very careful of any typos or spelling mistakes, as the ad campaign will totally backfire if people can't reach your site.

A good tip is to load your site's home page (or other relevant page) and then copy and paste the address from the top web browser window, rather than manually typing it in.

3) Set the region

This done, choose the geographical area you want to target. Choosing a whole country is a very grapeshot approach – and as a photographer in the south west, I might not want a booking in northern Scotland – so it pays to be specific.

This is also a good way to target affluent areas. Next, set the age of your target market, their gender, and interests. I've chosen women.

At the risk of stereotyping, it tends to be potential brides who respond more emotionally to wedding ads, though there are plenty of same sex couples need photographers, too! Common sense suggests I should choose 'engaged' as a relationship status, rather than already married.

4) Interests, behaviours and budget

For Interests, I've also chosen relevant topics and I have tried to target the ad at Mobile Device Users.

More and more people are seeing Facebook ads on smartphones or tablets and since I am mainly asking them to check out my website, there is a good chance they'll click through (people are generally less confident about making payments on mobile devices, though this is changing).

Then, I specify how long I want the ad to run for, and how much I want to spend.

5) Text and picture

Now for the fun bit. You're limited in how much you can write, so keep the headline and body text punchy and enticing – sell the benefits of what you offer, rather than just describing it.

Emphasise a unique selling point (in this case, last minute bookings) and choose a strong image that will also work on smaller and mobile-device screens. I select 'Learn More' as the call to action button, to get people to visit my site. Then review the ad and bingo!