Reach Nearby Customers with Facebook Local Awareness Ads

On October 7th, Facebook announced a new Facebook advertising objective on their blog called “local awareness ads.” This new ad objective is designed to make advertising for local small business owners “easier and more effective.” A promotional video for the new feature also appeared the next day on the Facebook for Business YouTube Channel, watch it here.

The announcement said the new feature was to be rolled out in the following weeks in the United States and globally in the following months. It appears to be available for the United States now, as we received a promotional email from Facebook asking us to try it out:

So I decided to give this new feature a spin. To give you a taste of whether this feature could be right for you, here is a walk-through of what is involved:

Step One: Choose a Campaign Objective

To create a local awareness ad, select the “Reach people near your business” objective.

Step Two: Select Business Page

If your Facebook account is connected to more than one business page, select the page for the business you would like to promote with this ad and choose a name for your campaign. Facebook will automatically default to naming it after the campaign objective, shown below:

Step Three: Geographic and Demographic Targeting

Fill in your business’ address and select the area around your business you would like to target. The custom radius you select may be as small as a mile. Facebook will use this information to show your ad in the news feed of Facebook users who live in or were recently in the geographical area you select. Next, choose an age range and gender to further specify your desired target audience. You will be provided with an estimate of your ads potential reach based on your selections on the right side of the map:

Step Four: Budget and Scheduling

Pick the start and end dates and times of your campaign and determine the total amount you would like to spend over the lifetime of the campaign. Again, Facebook will provide you with an estimated daily reach based on your selections:

Step Five: Choose Featured Image(s)

Add up to six images by uploading new images or using images from your Facebook Page’s library. You are also given the option of selecting an image from a collection of free and professional images provided by Shutterstock. Note in the screenshot below that each image you upload will create a new ad, which gives you the opportunity to experiment and evaluate how different images perform.

Step Six: Ad Text and Placement

The last step is to fill in the text for your ad. There are three text fields to fill in; a headline with a limit of 25 characters, a text field limited to 90 characters, and an optional “News Feed Description” which Facebook suggests you use to “describe why people should visit your business.” You are also given the choice of including a “Get Directions” button to your ad which will pull up a map to the address listed on your business page when a user clicks on it. A preview is provided of what both the desktop news feed ad and mobile news feed ad will look like with your chosen text.

 

Now that you have the scoop on Facebook’s local awareness ads, do you think you will give it a try? Let us know in the comments below!