June 30, 2024
Facebook Ads For Online Course [2024 Update]
Facebook Ads For Online Course [2024 Update]
Learn how to sell online courses using Facebook Ads. Our guide covers targeting, ad creation, and optimization to help you achieve maximum ROI.
Learn how to sell online courses using Facebook Ads. Our guide covers targeting, ad creation, and optimization to help you achieve maximum ROI.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to run successful ad campaigns for your online course. We’ll share best practices in the online course space for setting up and scaling your Facebook ad campaigns to achieve maximum profitability. Additionally, you can calculate your projected ad revenue automatically based on your CPC using our Ad Profit Calculator.
Why Advertise on Facebook Ads?
Is Facebook the best place to advertise? Let's delve into the numbers and compare digital ad revenue per company. Meta, which owns Facebook, holds 21.3% of the market share, while Google leads with 26%. In monetary terms, Facebook generated $132 billion in ad revenue, compared to TikTok's $16 billion. These figures clearly indicate Facebook's dominance in the digital advertising space.
For online course creators and coaches, Facebook Ads is the #1 ad platform. This is because creators often use personal branding to create a connection with their audience. Facebook's robust targeting options allow you to reach your specific audience effectively, ensuring that your ads are seen by the right people.
If you're looking to maximize the exposure and profitability of your online course, you're in the right place.
Run and Scale Your Course with Facebook [Step by Step]
Technical Implementation
Campaign Setup
The Perfect Ad Creative
Understand the Metrics
Scaling
Let’s break down each step to ensure your Facebook ads deliver the best results for your online course.
1. Technical Implementation
The technical implementation is a critical step for your success in running Facebook ads. We need to ensure all necessary elements are in place to launch the ads effectively.
Checklist:
Setup the Business Manager:
Create a Facebook Business Manager Account: This is essential for managing your ad campaigns, pages, and billing information in one place. Get started here.
Account Connection:
Connect Instagram and the Facebook Page to Business Manager: This integration allows you to run ads on both platforms seamlessly, expanding your reach and improving campaign management.
Setup Conversion Tracking:
Create a Facebook Pixel:
A Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that you place on your website. It helps track conversions from Facebook ads, optimize ads based on collected data, build targeted audiences for future ads, and remarket to people who have already taken some kind of action on your website. Learn how to create a Pixel.
Add Pixel Code to Your Site or LMS:
Thinkific: Follow this guide to add the pixel ID in Thinkific.
Kajabi: Follow this guide to add the pixel ID in Kajabi.
WordPress (Woocommerce): Install the Pixel Your Site plugin and follow this video to add the pixel.
Why Tracking Matters:
Tracking allows Facebook to monitor user engagement after they click on your ads. Here’s how it works:
High Engagement: If users engage with your content, Facebook will send more similar profiles to your ads, enhancing your campaign's effectiveness.
Low Engagement: If engagement is low, Facebook's algorithm will send fewer similar profiles, helping you refine your targeting strategy.
By ensuring these technical aspects are correctly implemented, you set a solid foundation for your Facebook ad campaigns to succeed.
2. Campaign Setup
With the progress in AI and the Facebook ad research team's capabilities in finding ideal customers, the strategy for campaign setup is now completely different from what it was a few years ago. Facebook aims to make its ad platform accessible to all, resulting in a campaign structure and setup that is lighter and easier for everyone. The key takeaway is to let Facebook have the space to A/B test for you; don’t restrict it.
The Most Effective Campaign Structure for Courses
To understand the most effective campaign structures for cold acquisition, it's essential to focus on two main elements: Ad Creatives and Audiences. These two factors play the biggest role in creating conversions. Therefore, most of your effort should go into testing various aspects of these elements.
Key Points:
Ad Creatives: These are the visuals and texts that attract your audience's attention.
Audiences: These are the groups of people you target with your ads.
Before creating multiple ad sets and audiences, consider how much you are spending. We generally recommend $100/day to maximize the sample size.
Recommended Budget Allocation:
More than $50/day per Ad Set
More than $15/day per Ad Creative (as CBO or ABO)
With a $100/day budget, you can effectively test:
2 Ad Sets (targeting two different audiences)
3 Creatives (tested over the two different audiences)
For direct sales, it's recommended to spend at least 10 times your product price on ads to have a good sample size, which allows for adequate A/B testing on both the audience and creative sides.
Campaign Type for Cold Acquisition
Creative Needed:
Campaign Type: Conversion
Ad Set: Audience size above 20 million (choose only one audience)
Creative: Short and impactful creatives ($15 budget per creative per day on ad set level)
Campaign Setup Objective and Bid Strategy
Facebook offers several campaign types tailored to your specific goals:
Select Campaign Type:
For online course creators aiming to sell courses via checkout, choose “Sales”.
For coaches seeking appointments, choose “Lead”.
Setup Manual Sales Campaign:
Most early-stage creators see results with a “Manual Sales Campaign”. Choose this campaign type initially.
As the algorithm and machine learning capabilities progress, you can start A/B testing with the Advantage + Shopping Campaign type.
Naming and Budget Settings:
Name your campaign and keep all settings at their default values.
Scroll to “Advantage Campaign Budget” and activate it. This enables a CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) campaign, allowing Facebook to allocate the budget to the best-performing ad sets automatically.
At our agency, the highest ROAS campaigns are frequently CBO campaigns during the early stages, particularly with budgets below $1k/day.
By adhering to these guidelines, you'll be well-equipped to set up and optimize your Facebook ad campaigns for maximum efficiency and profitability.
Optimizing Ad Set
This is where the magic happens. Many gurus might suggest A/B testing everything, but in reality, it's crucial to give Facebook's algorithm space to find its way. This is why ensuring your ad tracking is set up perfectly is essential.
Ad Tracking:
Proper tracking allows Facebook to collect valuable metrics on every user that lands on your site, including their personal details and preferences. This data is crucial for optimizing your ad sets.
Recommended Ad Sets:
We recommend a maximum of 2 to 3 ad sets per campaign. This helps in efficiently managing and optimizing your ads without overwhelming the algorithm.
Audience Types Facebook Allows:
Broad Audiences (Highly Recommended):
Keep your audience targeting broad to let Facebook's powerful machine learning figure out and optimize for the right audience. This approach allows Facebook to identify and target your potential buyers effectively.
Interest Stacks:
Use Facebook’s detailed targeting to manually select audiences based on interests. Running these alongside broad audiences can help determine which ad sets drive lower CPAs.
Lookalike Audiences:
While lookalike audiences can be hard to scale, they can yield good results early in a campaign. Introduce this audience targeting alongside broad audiences and interest stacks to see early gains.
Setting the Right Budget:
Avoid constantly modifying the campaign settings once they are published. The only changes should be budget adaptations and turning off underperforming creatives.
Minimum Budget Recommendation: Spend at least $100/day to maximize the learning curve of Facebook’s algorithm. It needs substantial data to effectively adapt the audience targeting.
Budget Formula: Minimum Campaign Budget = AOV (Average Order Value) * 2 * Number of Ad Sets.
We recommend spending three times the average order value per campaign before optimizing creatives or testing new audience types.
To gather a large enough sample for assessing the success potential of your course with Facebook ads, spending 10x the average order value is advisable. This allows for testing multiple audiences, creatives, and campaign types.
Evaluating Campaign Performance:
If you aren’t getting satisfactory results, examine your site’s conversion rate. The issue might lie there rather than in the ad sets.
Ad Performance Estimation:
To estimate your ad’s potential for your course or coaching program, use our Ad Profit Calculator to gauge your profit based on ad cost (CPC) and conversion rate.
By following these guidelines, you'll ensure that your ad sets are optimized effectively, giving Facebook’s algorithm the necessary room to deliver the best results for your campaigns.
#3 The Perfect Ad
Ad creatives are directly correlated to your CPC (Cost per click). The better your creative, and the higher your click-through rate (CTR), the lower your CPC will be. For instance, if a poor creative generates a $4 CPC and a good creative generates a $2 CPC with a high CTR, you effectively halve your acquisition cost. This underscores the importance of impactful creatives.
Key Elements of a Successful Ad:
Straightforward and Simple Copy:
Keep it short and sweet.
Facebook recommends:
Primary Text: 80 characters
Headline: 27 characters
Attention-Grabbing and Clear Ad Creative:
Stick to one call-to-action.
The most crucial aspect is the ad creative itself.
High ROAS Ad Creative:
Over the years, I’ve studied reports from Neuronsinc AI, a Danish startup founded by neuroscientist Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy. This technology tracks eye movements in real-time and estimates ad performance through complex AI algorithms. Here are the key takeaways:
Face: Human faces dominate attention.
Product: Product-focused ads perform well at the top of the funnel.
Copy & Text: Shorter copy simplifies the message and makes ads more effective.
Branding and Logo: Branded ads build more trust and traction.
For a deeper understanding, I highly recommend reading their report, which includes work with brands like Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google, H&M, and TikTok. Click here to download the report.
In the e-learning industry, we’ve seen thousands of creatives perform well and thousands fail. Here are two major insights:
Featuring the Educator or Customers:
Creatives featuring the educator or one of their customers typically generate better results.
Short Ad Copies:
Ad copies with fewer than six words usually outperform longer copies.
Meta ads not only help test a marketing idea but also scale it once your product is finalized, your landing page is optimized, and the social trust elements are in place.
Look at Your Competitors’ Ads:
Meta (Facebook) offers the opportunity to see your competitors' ads using the Facebook Ads Library. By examining what the competition is successfully monetizing, you can create similar ads and run them. You can assess their profitability by checking metrics such as the duration the ad has been active.
By focusing on these elements, you can create the perfect ad that not only captures attention but also drives conversions and lowers your CPC.
#4 Analyze Your Ads Performance
Once your Facebook ads are live, it's crucial to monitor their performance closely. Without careful analysis, you can quickly burn through your budget without seeing any significant returns.
Primary Goal: The main objective is to ensure your Facebook ads generate more revenue than they cost to run. Here are the key metrics on Facebook to watch closely:
Ad Frequency: How often your ad is shown to the same user.
Cost per 1000 Impressions (CPM): The cost to show your ad 1,000 times.
Outbound Clicks: The number of clicks on your ad that lead to an external destination.
Content Views: The number of times your content is viewed.
Adds to Cart: The number of times items are added to a shopping cart.
Checkouts Initiated: The number of times a checkout is started.
Purchases: The number of completed purchases.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated for every dollar spent on ads.
Funnel Performance and Conversion Rate: Acquisition is only one part of the success of your course or coaching program. You need to look beyond these metrics to understand the entire funnel's performance.
Conversion Rate Analysis: Examine the conversion rate of your funnel to identify potential issues. For instance, if you have a low add-to-cart rate and the cost per add-to-cart is higher than 30% of your product price, there might be an issue with your course. If it's below that threshold, ensure you address all client objections during the checkout phase.
Tools for Analysis:
Google Analytics 4 Reports: To track and analyze customer behavior.
Microsoft Clarity: To optimize your site with a data-driven approach.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): ROAS is one of the most important metrics to track on Facebook. It helps you understand if Facebook is providing a positive return on investment and indicates when you're ready to scale up your ad spend.
ROAS Benchmarks for E-learning:
Below ROAS of 1: Breakeven
Above ROAS of 1.1: Profitable
Above ROAS of 2: Highly scalable
ROAS Benchmarks for Coaching or Services (Higher Ticket Items):
Below ROAS of 8: Breakeven
Above ROAS of 10: Profitable
Above ROAS of 15: Highly scalable
To calculate and estimate ROAS before launching your ads, use our Ads Profit Calculator for coaches and course creators. This tool helps ensure your strategy is on track and poised for success.
By keeping a close eye on these metrics and using the right tools, you can effectively analyze and optimize your ad performance, ensuring a positive return on investment.
#5. Scaling Facebook Ads For Online Course
Scaling Facebook ads is an advanced aspect of Facebook marketing. Before attempting to scale, ensure you are already receiving a few sales from your initial Facebook campaign. If you haven't achieved any sales yet, revisit and fix your campaign before considering scaling.
Scaling Strategies That Work:
There is a lot of information and strategies to cover when it comes to scaling and online course or coaching program with ads on Facebook, and it deserves its own post. For personalized guidance and to develop a tailored scaling strategy, schedule a strategy call with one of our specialists.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to run successful ad campaigns for your online course. We’ll share best practices in the online course space for setting up and scaling your Facebook ad campaigns to achieve maximum profitability. Additionally, you can calculate your projected ad revenue automatically based on your CPC using our Ad Profit Calculator.
Why Advertise on Facebook Ads?
Is Facebook the best place to advertise? Let's delve into the numbers and compare digital ad revenue per company. Meta, which owns Facebook, holds 21.3% of the market share, while Google leads with 26%. In monetary terms, Facebook generated $132 billion in ad revenue, compared to TikTok's $16 billion. These figures clearly indicate Facebook's dominance in the digital advertising space.
For online course creators and coaches, Facebook Ads is the #1 ad platform. This is because creators often use personal branding to create a connection with their audience. Facebook's robust targeting options allow you to reach your specific audience effectively, ensuring that your ads are seen by the right people.
If you're looking to maximize the exposure and profitability of your online course, you're in the right place.
Run and Scale Your Course with Facebook [Step by Step]
Technical Implementation
Campaign Setup
The Perfect Ad Creative
Understand the Metrics
Scaling
Let’s break down each step to ensure your Facebook ads deliver the best results for your online course.
1. Technical Implementation
The technical implementation is a critical step for your success in running Facebook ads. We need to ensure all necessary elements are in place to launch the ads effectively.
Checklist:
Setup the Business Manager:
Create a Facebook Business Manager Account: This is essential for managing your ad campaigns, pages, and billing information in one place. Get started here.
Account Connection:
Connect Instagram and the Facebook Page to Business Manager: This integration allows you to run ads on both platforms seamlessly, expanding your reach and improving campaign management.
Setup Conversion Tracking:
Create a Facebook Pixel:
A Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that you place on your website. It helps track conversions from Facebook ads, optimize ads based on collected data, build targeted audiences for future ads, and remarket to people who have already taken some kind of action on your website. Learn how to create a Pixel.
Add Pixel Code to Your Site or LMS:
Thinkific: Follow this guide to add the pixel ID in Thinkific.
Kajabi: Follow this guide to add the pixel ID in Kajabi.
WordPress (Woocommerce): Install the Pixel Your Site plugin and follow this video to add the pixel.
Why Tracking Matters:
Tracking allows Facebook to monitor user engagement after they click on your ads. Here’s how it works:
High Engagement: If users engage with your content, Facebook will send more similar profiles to your ads, enhancing your campaign's effectiveness.
Low Engagement: If engagement is low, Facebook's algorithm will send fewer similar profiles, helping you refine your targeting strategy.
By ensuring these technical aspects are correctly implemented, you set a solid foundation for your Facebook ad campaigns to succeed.
2. Campaign Setup
With the progress in AI and the Facebook ad research team's capabilities in finding ideal customers, the strategy for campaign setup is now completely different from what it was a few years ago. Facebook aims to make its ad platform accessible to all, resulting in a campaign structure and setup that is lighter and easier for everyone. The key takeaway is to let Facebook have the space to A/B test for you; don’t restrict it.
The Most Effective Campaign Structure for Courses
To understand the most effective campaign structures for cold acquisition, it's essential to focus on two main elements: Ad Creatives and Audiences. These two factors play the biggest role in creating conversions. Therefore, most of your effort should go into testing various aspects of these elements.
Key Points:
Ad Creatives: These are the visuals and texts that attract your audience's attention.
Audiences: These are the groups of people you target with your ads.
Before creating multiple ad sets and audiences, consider how much you are spending. We generally recommend $100/day to maximize the sample size.
Recommended Budget Allocation:
More than $50/day per Ad Set
More than $15/day per Ad Creative (as CBO or ABO)
With a $100/day budget, you can effectively test:
2 Ad Sets (targeting two different audiences)
3 Creatives (tested over the two different audiences)
For direct sales, it's recommended to spend at least 10 times your product price on ads to have a good sample size, which allows for adequate A/B testing on both the audience and creative sides.
Campaign Type for Cold Acquisition
Creative Needed:
Campaign Type: Conversion
Ad Set: Audience size above 20 million (choose only one audience)
Creative: Short and impactful creatives ($15 budget per creative per day on ad set level)
Campaign Setup Objective and Bid Strategy
Facebook offers several campaign types tailored to your specific goals:
Select Campaign Type:
For online course creators aiming to sell courses via checkout, choose “Sales”.
For coaches seeking appointments, choose “Lead”.
Setup Manual Sales Campaign:
Most early-stage creators see results with a “Manual Sales Campaign”. Choose this campaign type initially.
As the algorithm and machine learning capabilities progress, you can start A/B testing with the Advantage + Shopping Campaign type.
Naming and Budget Settings:
Name your campaign and keep all settings at their default values.
Scroll to “Advantage Campaign Budget” and activate it. This enables a CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) campaign, allowing Facebook to allocate the budget to the best-performing ad sets automatically.
At our agency, the highest ROAS campaigns are frequently CBO campaigns during the early stages, particularly with budgets below $1k/day.
By adhering to these guidelines, you'll be well-equipped to set up and optimize your Facebook ad campaigns for maximum efficiency and profitability.
Optimizing Ad Set
This is where the magic happens. Many gurus might suggest A/B testing everything, but in reality, it's crucial to give Facebook's algorithm space to find its way. This is why ensuring your ad tracking is set up perfectly is essential.
Ad Tracking:
Proper tracking allows Facebook to collect valuable metrics on every user that lands on your site, including their personal details and preferences. This data is crucial for optimizing your ad sets.
Recommended Ad Sets:
We recommend a maximum of 2 to 3 ad sets per campaign. This helps in efficiently managing and optimizing your ads without overwhelming the algorithm.
Audience Types Facebook Allows:
Broad Audiences (Highly Recommended):
Keep your audience targeting broad to let Facebook's powerful machine learning figure out and optimize for the right audience. This approach allows Facebook to identify and target your potential buyers effectively.
Interest Stacks:
Use Facebook’s detailed targeting to manually select audiences based on interests. Running these alongside broad audiences can help determine which ad sets drive lower CPAs.
Lookalike Audiences:
While lookalike audiences can be hard to scale, they can yield good results early in a campaign. Introduce this audience targeting alongside broad audiences and interest stacks to see early gains.
Setting the Right Budget:
Avoid constantly modifying the campaign settings once they are published. The only changes should be budget adaptations and turning off underperforming creatives.
Minimum Budget Recommendation: Spend at least $100/day to maximize the learning curve of Facebook’s algorithm. It needs substantial data to effectively adapt the audience targeting.
Budget Formula: Minimum Campaign Budget = AOV (Average Order Value) * 2 * Number of Ad Sets.
We recommend spending three times the average order value per campaign before optimizing creatives or testing new audience types.
To gather a large enough sample for assessing the success potential of your course with Facebook ads, spending 10x the average order value is advisable. This allows for testing multiple audiences, creatives, and campaign types.
Evaluating Campaign Performance:
If you aren’t getting satisfactory results, examine your site’s conversion rate. The issue might lie there rather than in the ad sets.
Ad Performance Estimation:
To estimate your ad’s potential for your course or coaching program, use our Ad Profit Calculator to gauge your profit based on ad cost (CPC) and conversion rate.
By following these guidelines, you'll ensure that your ad sets are optimized effectively, giving Facebook’s algorithm the necessary room to deliver the best results for your campaigns.
#3 The Perfect Ad
Ad creatives are directly correlated to your CPC (Cost per click). The better your creative, and the higher your click-through rate (CTR), the lower your CPC will be. For instance, if a poor creative generates a $4 CPC and a good creative generates a $2 CPC with a high CTR, you effectively halve your acquisition cost. This underscores the importance of impactful creatives.
Key Elements of a Successful Ad:
Straightforward and Simple Copy:
Keep it short and sweet.
Facebook recommends:
Primary Text: 80 characters
Headline: 27 characters
Attention-Grabbing and Clear Ad Creative:
Stick to one call-to-action.
The most crucial aspect is the ad creative itself.
High ROAS Ad Creative:
Over the years, I’ve studied reports from Neuronsinc AI, a Danish startup founded by neuroscientist Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy. This technology tracks eye movements in real-time and estimates ad performance through complex AI algorithms. Here are the key takeaways:
Face: Human faces dominate attention.
Product: Product-focused ads perform well at the top of the funnel.
Copy & Text: Shorter copy simplifies the message and makes ads more effective.
Branding and Logo: Branded ads build more trust and traction.
For a deeper understanding, I highly recommend reading their report, which includes work with brands like Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google, H&M, and TikTok. Click here to download the report.
In the e-learning industry, we’ve seen thousands of creatives perform well and thousands fail. Here are two major insights:
Featuring the Educator or Customers:
Creatives featuring the educator or one of their customers typically generate better results.
Short Ad Copies:
Ad copies with fewer than six words usually outperform longer copies.
Meta ads not only help test a marketing idea but also scale it once your product is finalized, your landing page is optimized, and the social trust elements are in place.
Look at Your Competitors’ Ads:
Meta (Facebook) offers the opportunity to see your competitors' ads using the Facebook Ads Library. By examining what the competition is successfully monetizing, you can create similar ads and run them. You can assess their profitability by checking metrics such as the duration the ad has been active.
By focusing on these elements, you can create the perfect ad that not only captures attention but also drives conversions and lowers your CPC.
#4 Analyze Your Ads Performance
Once your Facebook ads are live, it's crucial to monitor their performance closely. Without careful analysis, you can quickly burn through your budget without seeing any significant returns.
Primary Goal: The main objective is to ensure your Facebook ads generate more revenue than they cost to run. Here are the key metrics on Facebook to watch closely:
Ad Frequency: How often your ad is shown to the same user.
Cost per 1000 Impressions (CPM): The cost to show your ad 1,000 times.
Outbound Clicks: The number of clicks on your ad that lead to an external destination.
Content Views: The number of times your content is viewed.
Adds to Cart: The number of times items are added to a shopping cart.
Checkouts Initiated: The number of times a checkout is started.
Purchases: The number of completed purchases.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated for every dollar spent on ads.
Funnel Performance and Conversion Rate: Acquisition is only one part of the success of your course or coaching program. You need to look beyond these metrics to understand the entire funnel's performance.
Conversion Rate Analysis: Examine the conversion rate of your funnel to identify potential issues. For instance, if you have a low add-to-cart rate and the cost per add-to-cart is higher than 30% of your product price, there might be an issue with your course. If it's below that threshold, ensure you address all client objections during the checkout phase.
Tools for Analysis:
Google Analytics 4 Reports: To track and analyze customer behavior.
Microsoft Clarity: To optimize your site with a data-driven approach.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): ROAS is one of the most important metrics to track on Facebook. It helps you understand if Facebook is providing a positive return on investment and indicates when you're ready to scale up your ad spend.
ROAS Benchmarks for E-learning:
Below ROAS of 1: Breakeven
Above ROAS of 1.1: Profitable
Above ROAS of 2: Highly scalable
ROAS Benchmarks for Coaching or Services (Higher Ticket Items):
Below ROAS of 8: Breakeven
Above ROAS of 10: Profitable
Above ROAS of 15: Highly scalable
To calculate and estimate ROAS before launching your ads, use our Ads Profit Calculator for coaches and course creators. This tool helps ensure your strategy is on track and poised for success.
By keeping a close eye on these metrics and using the right tools, you can effectively analyze and optimize your ad performance, ensuring a positive return on investment.
#5. Scaling Facebook Ads For Online Course
Scaling Facebook ads is an advanced aspect of Facebook marketing. Before attempting to scale, ensure you are already receiving a few sales from your initial Facebook campaign. If you haven't achieved any sales yet, revisit and fix your campaign before considering scaling.
Scaling Strategies That Work:
There is a lot of information and strategies to cover when it comes to scaling and online course or coaching program with ads on Facebook, and it deserves its own post. For personalized guidance and to develop a tailored scaling strategy, schedule a strategy call with one of our specialists.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to run successful ad campaigns for your online course. We’ll share best practices in the online course space for setting up and scaling your Facebook ad campaigns to achieve maximum profitability. Additionally, you can calculate your projected ad revenue automatically based on your CPC using our Ad Profit Calculator.
Why Advertise on Facebook Ads?
Is Facebook the best place to advertise? Let's delve into the numbers and compare digital ad revenue per company. Meta, which owns Facebook, holds 21.3% of the market share, while Google leads with 26%. In monetary terms, Facebook generated $132 billion in ad revenue, compared to TikTok's $16 billion. These figures clearly indicate Facebook's dominance in the digital advertising space.
For online course creators and coaches, Facebook Ads is the #1 ad platform. This is because creators often use personal branding to create a connection with their audience. Facebook's robust targeting options allow you to reach your specific audience effectively, ensuring that your ads are seen by the right people.
If you're looking to maximize the exposure and profitability of your online course, you're in the right place.
Run and Scale Your Course with Facebook [Step by Step]
Technical Implementation
Campaign Setup
The Perfect Ad Creative
Understand the Metrics
Scaling
Let’s break down each step to ensure your Facebook ads deliver the best results for your online course.
1. Technical Implementation
The technical implementation is a critical step for your success in running Facebook ads. We need to ensure all necessary elements are in place to launch the ads effectively.
Checklist:
Setup the Business Manager:
Create a Facebook Business Manager Account: This is essential for managing your ad campaigns, pages, and billing information in one place. Get started here.
Account Connection:
Connect Instagram and the Facebook Page to Business Manager: This integration allows you to run ads on both platforms seamlessly, expanding your reach and improving campaign management.
Setup Conversion Tracking:
Create a Facebook Pixel:
A Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that you place on your website. It helps track conversions from Facebook ads, optimize ads based on collected data, build targeted audiences for future ads, and remarket to people who have already taken some kind of action on your website. Learn how to create a Pixel.
Add Pixel Code to Your Site or LMS:
Thinkific: Follow this guide to add the pixel ID in Thinkific.
Kajabi: Follow this guide to add the pixel ID in Kajabi.
WordPress (Woocommerce): Install the Pixel Your Site plugin and follow this video to add the pixel.
Why Tracking Matters:
Tracking allows Facebook to monitor user engagement after they click on your ads. Here’s how it works:
High Engagement: If users engage with your content, Facebook will send more similar profiles to your ads, enhancing your campaign's effectiveness.
Low Engagement: If engagement is low, Facebook's algorithm will send fewer similar profiles, helping you refine your targeting strategy.
By ensuring these technical aspects are correctly implemented, you set a solid foundation for your Facebook ad campaigns to succeed.
2. Campaign Setup
With the progress in AI and the Facebook ad research team's capabilities in finding ideal customers, the strategy for campaign setup is now completely different from what it was a few years ago. Facebook aims to make its ad platform accessible to all, resulting in a campaign structure and setup that is lighter and easier for everyone. The key takeaway is to let Facebook have the space to A/B test for you; don’t restrict it.
The Most Effective Campaign Structure for Courses
To understand the most effective campaign structures for cold acquisition, it's essential to focus on two main elements: Ad Creatives and Audiences. These two factors play the biggest role in creating conversions. Therefore, most of your effort should go into testing various aspects of these elements.
Key Points:
Ad Creatives: These are the visuals and texts that attract your audience's attention.
Audiences: These are the groups of people you target with your ads.
Before creating multiple ad sets and audiences, consider how much you are spending. We generally recommend $100/day to maximize the sample size.
Recommended Budget Allocation:
More than $50/day per Ad Set
More than $15/day per Ad Creative (as CBO or ABO)
With a $100/day budget, you can effectively test:
2 Ad Sets (targeting two different audiences)
3 Creatives (tested over the two different audiences)
For direct sales, it's recommended to spend at least 10 times your product price on ads to have a good sample size, which allows for adequate A/B testing on both the audience and creative sides.
Campaign Type for Cold Acquisition
Creative Needed:
Campaign Type: Conversion
Ad Set: Audience size above 20 million (choose only one audience)
Creative: Short and impactful creatives ($15 budget per creative per day on ad set level)
Campaign Setup Objective and Bid Strategy
Facebook offers several campaign types tailored to your specific goals:
Select Campaign Type:
For online course creators aiming to sell courses via checkout, choose “Sales”.
For coaches seeking appointments, choose “Lead”.
Setup Manual Sales Campaign:
Most early-stage creators see results with a “Manual Sales Campaign”. Choose this campaign type initially.
As the algorithm and machine learning capabilities progress, you can start A/B testing with the Advantage + Shopping Campaign type.
Naming and Budget Settings:
Name your campaign and keep all settings at their default values.
Scroll to “Advantage Campaign Budget” and activate it. This enables a CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) campaign, allowing Facebook to allocate the budget to the best-performing ad sets automatically.
At our agency, the highest ROAS campaigns are frequently CBO campaigns during the early stages, particularly with budgets below $1k/day.
By adhering to these guidelines, you'll be well-equipped to set up and optimize your Facebook ad campaigns for maximum efficiency and profitability.
Optimizing Ad Set
This is where the magic happens. Many gurus might suggest A/B testing everything, but in reality, it's crucial to give Facebook's algorithm space to find its way. This is why ensuring your ad tracking is set up perfectly is essential.
Ad Tracking:
Proper tracking allows Facebook to collect valuable metrics on every user that lands on your site, including their personal details and preferences. This data is crucial for optimizing your ad sets.
Recommended Ad Sets:
We recommend a maximum of 2 to 3 ad sets per campaign. This helps in efficiently managing and optimizing your ads without overwhelming the algorithm.
Audience Types Facebook Allows:
Broad Audiences (Highly Recommended):
Keep your audience targeting broad to let Facebook's powerful machine learning figure out and optimize for the right audience. This approach allows Facebook to identify and target your potential buyers effectively.
Interest Stacks:
Use Facebook’s detailed targeting to manually select audiences based on interests. Running these alongside broad audiences can help determine which ad sets drive lower CPAs.
Lookalike Audiences:
While lookalike audiences can be hard to scale, they can yield good results early in a campaign. Introduce this audience targeting alongside broad audiences and interest stacks to see early gains.
Setting the Right Budget:
Avoid constantly modifying the campaign settings once they are published. The only changes should be budget adaptations and turning off underperforming creatives.
Minimum Budget Recommendation: Spend at least $100/day to maximize the learning curve of Facebook’s algorithm. It needs substantial data to effectively adapt the audience targeting.
Budget Formula: Minimum Campaign Budget = AOV (Average Order Value) * 2 * Number of Ad Sets.
We recommend spending three times the average order value per campaign before optimizing creatives or testing new audience types.
To gather a large enough sample for assessing the success potential of your course with Facebook ads, spending 10x the average order value is advisable. This allows for testing multiple audiences, creatives, and campaign types.
Evaluating Campaign Performance:
If you aren’t getting satisfactory results, examine your site’s conversion rate. The issue might lie there rather than in the ad sets.
Ad Performance Estimation:
To estimate your ad’s potential for your course or coaching program, use our Ad Profit Calculator to gauge your profit based on ad cost (CPC) and conversion rate.
By following these guidelines, you'll ensure that your ad sets are optimized effectively, giving Facebook’s algorithm the necessary room to deliver the best results for your campaigns.
#3 The Perfect Ad
Ad creatives are directly correlated to your CPC (Cost per click). The better your creative, and the higher your click-through rate (CTR), the lower your CPC will be. For instance, if a poor creative generates a $4 CPC and a good creative generates a $2 CPC with a high CTR, you effectively halve your acquisition cost. This underscores the importance of impactful creatives.
Key Elements of a Successful Ad:
Straightforward and Simple Copy:
Keep it short and sweet.
Facebook recommends:
Primary Text: 80 characters
Headline: 27 characters
Attention-Grabbing and Clear Ad Creative:
Stick to one call-to-action.
The most crucial aspect is the ad creative itself.
High ROAS Ad Creative:
Over the years, I’ve studied reports from Neuronsinc AI, a Danish startup founded by neuroscientist Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy. This technology tracks eye movements in real-time and estimates ad performance through complex AI algorithms. Here are the key takeaways:
Face: Human faces dominate attention.
Product: Product-focused ads perform well at the top of the funnel.
Copy & Text: Shorter copy simplifies the message and makes ads more effective.
Branding and Logo: Branded ads build more trust and traction.
For a deeper understanding, I highly recommend reading their report, which includes work with brands like Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google, H&M, and TikTok. Click here to download the report.
In the e-learning industry, we’ve seen thousands of creatives perform well and thousands fail. Here are two major insights:
Featuring the Educator or Customers:
Creatives featuring the educator or one of their customers typically generate better results.
Short Ad Copies:
Ad copies with fewer than six words usually outperform longer copies.
Meta ads not only help test a marketing idea but also scale it once your product is finalized, your landing page is optimized, and the social trust elements are in place.
Look at Your Competitors’ Ads:
Meta (Facebook) offers the opportunity to see your competitors' ads using the Facebook Ads Library. By examining what the competition is successfully monetizing, you can create similar ads and run them. You can assess their profitability by checking metrics such as the duration the ad has been active.
By focusing on these elements, you can create the perfect ad that not only captures attention but also drives conversions and lowers your CPC.
#4 Analyze Your Ads Performance
Once your Facebook ads are live, it's crucial to monitor their performance closely. Without careful analysis, you can quickly burn through your budget without seeing any significant returns.
Primary Goal: The main objective is to ensure your Facebook ads generate more revenue than they cost to run. Here are the key metrics on Facebook to watch closely:
Ad Frequency: How often your ad is shown to the same user.
Cost per 1000 Impressions (CPM): The cost to show your ad 1,000 times.
Outbound Clicks: The number of clicks on your ad that lead to an external destination.
Content Views: The number of times your content is viewed.
Adds to Cart: The number of times items are added to a shopping cart.
Checkouts Initiated: The number of times a checkout is started.
Purchases: The number of completed purchases.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated for every dollar spent on ads.
Funnel Performance and Conversion Rate: Acquisition is only one part of the success of your course or coaching program. You need to look beyond these metrics to understand the entire funnel's performance.
Conversion Rate Analysis: Examine the conversion rate of your funnel to identify potential issues. For instance, if you have a low add-to-cart rate and the cost per add-to-cart is higher than 30% of your product price, there might be an issue with your course. If it's below that threshold, ensure you address all client objections during the checkout phase.
Tools for Analysis:
Google Analytics 4 Reports: To track and analyze customer behavior.
Microsoft Clarity: To optimize your site with a data-driven approach.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): ROAS is one of the most important metrics to track on Facebook. It helps you understand if Facebook is providing a positive return on investment and indicates when you're ready to scale up your ad spend.
ROAS Benchmarks for E-learning:
Below ROAS of 1: Breakeven
Above ROAS of 1.1: Profitable
Above ROAS of 2: Highly scalable
ROAS Benchmarks for Coaching or Services (Higher Ticket Items):
Below ROAS of 8: Breakeven
Above ROAS of 10: Profitable
Above ROAS of 15: Highly scalable
To calculate and estimate ROAS before launching your ads, use our Ads Profit Calculator for coaches and course creators. This tool helps ensure your strategy is on track and poised for success.
By keeping a close eye on these metrics and using the right tools, you can effectively analyze and optimize your ad performance, ensuring a positive return on investment.
#5. Scaling Facebook Ads For Online Course
Scaling Facebook ads is an advanced aspect of Facebook marketing. Before attempting to scale, ensure you are already receiving a few sales from your initial Facebook campaign. If you haven't achieved any sales yet, revisit and fix your campaign before considering scaling.
Scaling Strategies That Work:
There is a lot of information and strategies to cover when it comes to scaling and online course or coaching program with ads on Facebook, and it deserves its own post. For personalized guidance and to develop a tailored scaling strategy, schedule a strategy call with one of our specialists.
