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How to Use Facebook Ads to Promote your Insurance Agency Since its beginnings in 2004, the Facebook advertising platform has grown exponentially in terms of its potential reach and its capabilities. After all, what business or brand wouldn t want to tap into the marketing potential of an audience of more than 1 billion active monthly users? But the sheer potential reach isn t where Facebook s strength lies for insurance agents who are looking to advertise on the worlds largest social media platform its expansive targeting options are there to ensure that you reach the right customers and earn valid leads. 2 FACEBOOK OFFERS SEVERAL OPTIONS FOR ADVERTISERS DEPENDING ON THE INTENDED GOAL: Audience growth ads (Page Likes) Content promotion ads (Page Post Engagement) Lead generation advertisements (Clicks to Website) As you will see later on in the ad creation wizard screen, Facebook also offers advertisers the option to create ads for: Application installations or engagement, event responses, local store front offers, and video views, however, most agents will only leverage the above stated ads, which will be the focus of this guide.
Creating a Facebook Advertising Account All Facebook users have the option to become advertisers. When you re logged into your account, click the settings icons which looks like three dots in the upper right corner of the page, and select Create Ad from the drop down menu. 3 This will take you to the Facebook Advertising home page where you can choose an ad type based on the various goals you re trying to accomplish. As mentioned previously, we will concentrate on Clicks to Website, Website Conversions, Page Post Engagement, and Page Likes. As you move through the ad creation process, you ll have options to choose your budget, daily limit, audience targeting, funding source, and other options to ensure your ads are optimized for your business and intended goals.
PAGE LIKE Ads When you set up a Facebook page for your agency, you probably had high hopes for the new likes and followers you d have rolling in. After a couple of weeks you may have noticed that this process was a little slower than you would have liked. After all, what s the point of creating great Facebook content if no one is there to see your posts and engage with you? Facebook ads to grow your audience can help. 4 Audience building ads (the Page Likes option in the ad creation wizard) will help you grow the number of likes for your page, usually for under $1 per like, depending on how targeted your audience is and the competition from other advertisers trying to reach that same audience on Facebook. These ads display in users newsfeeds and in the right-hand sidebar on Facebook. You have a few options for customization, including: A 90 character headline 6 image variations (recommended image size is 1200 x 444)
IMAGES Though it s not necessary to upload all six images, we do recommend that you upload at least a few variations so you can test which ones perform best with your audience. Each image will create a separate ad variation in your campaign. Generally, images of happy people have higher click-through rates. TEXT & LINKS In the headline text area, try to give a short, compelling reason why people would like your page. Consider adding a Call to Action (CTA) in your headline. A Call to Action is a strategically placed prompt that encourages and action from visitors to engage with you or take a specific action. Sample headline (without a CTA): XYZ agency provides fast free insurance quotes for your auto and home insurance needs. 5 Sample Headline (with a CTA) Contact XYZ agency for valuable money saving tips and your free insurance policy review. AUDIENCE Choosing who sees your ad is crucial for an effective page like campaign. You want to target people who are more inclined to engage, share, comment, etc... as a product of the like you received. Facebook offers many different ways to connect with your target audience by interest, behavior, age, and many others. Be cautious however that too specific of a target may not get the traction you expected with your ads.see the Ad Targeting section on page 11 to learn more about connecting with your ideal audience.
Page Post Engagement Ads 6 Once you have a good audience built up, it s important that your potential customers see your content and remain engaged with your agency. Facebook describes Page Post Engagements as The number of actions (page likes post likes, clicks, shares, etc...) related to your Post as a result of your ad. Page Post Engagement ads can help get your content in front of more Facebook users, and ensure that potential customers are engaged with your content through comments, likes and shares. The higher your engagement rates remain on your page, the more people will see your content in the long run. One of the strengths in post engagement ads is that content is shown to users whose friends like your page, and whose friends have interacted with your content. This sort of personal connection usually has high return rates.
After selecting the Page Post Engagement option, you ll select the page you want to promote if you have multiple pages, and the recent post you d like to feature. The best bets for posts you might want to promote include: A special event A resource for customers that they can download from your website Agency news, such as a new agent or change of address Contests or promotions You do not have the option to add text or images to this type of ad, as it uses the existing page post content to create the ad. After selecting a post you want to promote, you ll have the same options for targeting as you would when creating a page like ad. For best results, target users that are interested in or have a high likelihood of interacting with the specific post or your content in general. EXAMPLE: 1. Using Behaviors, auto insurance agents might target auto owners who recently purchase a crossover SUV within a geographic location. Yes, Facebook can do that! 7 2. Life insurance agents might want to choose people who s interests include Marriage and a behavior of recently Moved to advertise your post about Life Insurance Tips. The trick here is to test and re-test your audience selection to ensure an optimal performance and ultimately more customers that interact with your business. See the Ad Targeting section on page 11 to learn more about connecting with your ideal audience.
Lead-Generation Advertisements The last type of ad we ll discuss can help you drive potential insurance customers from their Facebook profiles to your agency s website, where they can be captured as potential new leads. To create these ads, you will select the Clicks to Website option on the ad creation wizard, and enter the URL of the landing page to which you d like to send people. 8 Lead generation ads can display both in users newsfeed and in the right-hand column of Facebook. You have the same option to include image variations, a headline and text block as you do when you created your audience building ads. As with some of the other types of ads at your disposal, the combination of text and images is extremely important. Choose eye-catching images with happy people or other subjects relevant to the information you re promoting. Choose a catchy, thought provoking headline or try asking a question. Include a strong call to action.
YOUR LANDING PAGE The page your audience lands on once they click the ad is just as important as the ad that brought them there. For best results, create a custom landing page on your site that users will visit once they click on your ad. The page should reinforce the style, theme, images, or information to coincide with the ad you ve created. Also, be sure to include a simple email collection or contact form. If you direct people to your agency s main home page, consider the risk of information overload or losing them before they ve had a chance to submit their information or contact you. Good content ideas for lead generation ads to advertise include: A special deal or offer through your agency, such as a free quote or discount. A new video or useful blog content that includes a contact form. A resource for your customers that they can download after submitting an email, such as common insurance questions and answers, a check list for new homeowners, or a white paper on homeowners insurance claims. 9 Once you are happy with the content on the page you are sending people to and have created appropriate ad variations, you will then have the opportunity to target your ads, place them in a campaign and choose your ad spend budget similar to other ad options. With this type of ad, you will want to measure cost per click and number of website clicks to gauge your success. For advanced users, you may want to consider adding conversion tracking pixels to your site, so you can measure the number of people who clicked through and gave you their contact information through a lead collection form. For more information on implementing tracking pixels, see this set of articles in Facebook s help center: https://www.facebook.com/help/435189689870514/
AD TARGETING The real magic in Facebook advertising comes when it s time to choose your targeting options for your ads. This is especially helpful for insurance agents who are interested in specific locations and demographics, and can help you get in touch with a local audience who will want to hear what you have to say. 10 If you ve invested in Google Adwords as a means of advertising, you may be familiar with targeting prospects locally. With Adwords, an agent will typically target users in a specific location that search for relevant keywords, such as auto insurance, insurance agents in Pensacola, or homeowner s insurance cost. On Facebook, the targeting is slightly different. Instead of targeting users based on what they are searching for, you will target your audience based on the data and interested they have provided to Facebook. When an audience member sees your ads, it is likely that your content will meet their needs without them having to go looking for it.
DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETING First and foremost when setting up your targeting, you will need to consider the high-level model of your ideal customer. Start by looking at a combination of many different demographic categories. Below is only a small sample of a few ways you can begin to target your customers. Geographic location (country, state/province, city, ZIP) Age range and gender Languages Relationship Status Education Level Workplace INTERESTS & BEHAVIORS Finding potential customers using their interests and behaviors is even more powerful than just using the demographic targeting. By selecting Facebook users based on specific likes and actions they ve announced on Facebook, agents can look for audiences with interests in family, entertainment, business, technology, sports, and much more. A small sample of these options include: 11 Business and Industry Family and Relationships Fitness and Wellness Digital Activity Financial position Purchasing behavior
There are many subcategories under each of these to help further target the ideal audience. For instance, selecting the behavior of Automotive (DLX Auto Powered by Polk) allows you to drill down even further to choose people whose interests include everything from new buyers vs used buyers to the make, model, style, or even vehicle age. With all of these options to choose from it can be a challenge to find the right mix. We encourage that when selecting your potential audience, you look for the Potential Reach in the Audience Definition section on the right of the screen to be sure that you are targeting enough users to ensure that your ads will be seen by enough people. 12 CAMPAIGN BUDGET AND PRICING As with all ads, you can select how to fund and optimize your ad displays. You have the option to choose a lifetime budget or a daily budget depending on your preference and performance. We recommend keeping the default settings until you have a full grasp on the Facebook ad platform. Changing these setting could end up costing you more than by just using the default settings. Once you have successfully completed a few campaigns, it will be worth a look to see if you can optimize your ads by setting different bidding methods.
Benefits of CPA/CPC (Cost Per Action/Click) The obvious reason for using CPC ads are that you will only be charged when someone clicks on your Facebook ad. This is the least risk in display advertising and could offer many free impressions (number of times your ad shows) though clicks are what you ultimately want. CPC ads are the bread and butter for agents with limited budgets ($5 - $20 per day) or for agents that may not have the interest in constant ad management or optimization. EXAMPLE: Determining your cost per click is easy. Simply divide the amount spent by the numbers of clicks received. Amount Spent ($250) / # Clicks (500) = Cost Per Click ($0.50). This same method applies to cost per like as well. Campaign Spend ($100) / Likes Generated (20) = Cost Per Like ($5) Benefits of CPM (Cost Per Thousand) CPM is best used when there are many ad variations you would like to test for engagement or you expect high engagement. There is some management involved in order to ensure you are not over paying for ads that offer no conversions (clicks) since you are paying by how many are shown rather than only paying when a user clicks your ad as with the CPA/CPC method. 13 EXAMPLE: Say you begin a campaign targeting homeowners and you bid $1.00 for 1,000 impressions and get 10,000 total impressions. Your total cost would be $10.00. If you get 1 click, your CPC (Cost Per Click) is $10. However, if your ad performs well and you get 100 clicks from those same 10,000 impressions, your CPC (Cost Per Click) is now only $0.10 and could greatly out perform a CPC campaign.
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