Should commercial trade contractors use Facebook and Instagram ads?

October 15, 2019 – By Aaron Hockel

The Value of Facebook and Instagram Ads

 
There are two undeniable facts about Facebook and Instagram. First, they are both used by a staggering amount of people on a daily basis. Second, those people use them for almost an hour everyday. Checkout these two infographics that summarize the usage statistics for Facebook and Instagram:
 
Facebook Daily User Stats
 
Instagram User Stats
 

Commercial Buyers Use Facebook and Instagram

 
The simple takeaway from those usage statistics is that buyers of commercial trade contracting services use Facebook and Instagram everyday for extended periods of time. As a result, commercial contractors need to take advantage of the advertising opportunity this presents. In addition to heavy usage, Facebook and Instagram own significant amounts of demographic data about their users. Commercial contractors can use this data, plus location targeting, to reach specific audiences in specific locations.

Reaching Commercial Buyers on Facebook and Instagram

 
Commercial contractors can target Facebook and Instagram ads to users in the property and facility management industry using a custom audience. A custom audience targets users based on their location, age and sex plus other key demographics. The picture below highlights a custom audience of 16,000 Facebook and Instagram users in South Florida. These 16,000 users meet the following the criteria:

  • Physically live in Southeast Florida
  • Men and women ages 25 to 50
  • Interested in “Property management” or “Facility management”
  • Have graduated from college

This audience can be shrunk or expanded by adjusting the demographics. For example, shrinking the age range or removing one of the interests will make the audience smaller. Adding another interest, like “Commercial real estate”, will expand the audience. This custom audience also requires users are interested in “Property management” OR “Facility management” AND have a college degree. This helps narrow the audience.

 
Example Facebook and Instagram Ad Audience for Commercial Trade Contractors

Custom Audience Facebook and Instagram Ad Formats

 
Any contractor who has opened the Facebook Ad Manager knows it can be overwhelming. There are carousel, single image and video ad formats plus over 15 different types of ad placements. To simplify this, commercial contractors should focus on single image ads using 5 basic placements:

  • Facebook Desktop Newsfeed
  • Facebook Mobile App Newsfeed
  • Facebook Stories
  • Instagram Newsfeed
  • Instagram Stories

This will get your ads front and center in the most heavily viewed areas of Facebook and Instagram. The story placements are especially important, because they takeover the users entire screen. This puts the ad, including the image, copy and call to action directly in front of the user:

Instagram Story Ad

Social Media Retargeting Ads

 
On top of demographic ads, commercial contractors should use Facebook and Instagram retargeting ads. Using the Facebook Pixel, anyone who visits your website gets pulled into an audience. This creates an audience of past website visitors you can show ads on Facebook and Instagram. (If you use Facebook and Instagram and are reading this article, you will see this action!)

These are especially powerful when combined with demographic Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns plus traditional paid search, SEO, display, and email marketing campaigns. This is because all of the campaigns drive traffic to the website. Now these visitors continue to see ads every time they visit Facebook and Instagram – which they are going to visit every day for about 55 minutes.

Facebook and Instagram Ads are Affordable

 
Compared to other digital ads like Google PPC Ads, Facebook and Instagram ads are not expensive. In fact, Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns can be run using budgets as low as $1.00 per day. While bigger budgets do drive bigger results, even modest budgets can be impactful.

In the example above, Facebook estimates they will show the ad to approximately 377 to 1,100 users per day and generate 2 to 12 clicks on the link. Those numbers are based on a budget of $10.00 per day. Over the course of 30 days, assuming an ad hits the average of those ranges, the ad will be shown 22,115 times and generate 210 clicks on the link. This breaks down to $1.42 per click and a CPM of $13.52.

Launch Facebook and Instagram Ads

 
Commercial contractors can use the Facebook Ads Manager to create an account, set up their audiences and launch their campaigns. It is a self serve platform that is also used to manage and run Instagram ads. The Facebook Ads Help Center offers additional resources that are helpful when setting up campaigns. Commercial contractors can also contact AltaVista for a free Facebook and Instagram ad consultation. Just fill out the form below and a member of our team will be in touch!

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