Choosing the Right Facebook Ad Campaign Objective: An In Depth Look
You don’t have to have a degree in marketing to know that having a goal for your advertising campaigns makes sense, and Facebook advertising is no different. The social networking giant offers a variety of ways to advertise your restaurant, but their most powerful and flexible tool is their customizable proprietary ad creator. By quickly and easily designing your own ads on Facebook, you can accomplish a variety of things, and reaching your goals starts with selecting the right objective. Here’s a quick commentary on each of Facebook’s ad creator objective options, as well as our recommendations for some objectives that work well for restaurant owners.
“Clicks to Website”
This advertising objective helps you refer people to your restaurant’s site, and can send people directly to your site from Facebook. However as a restaurant owner, you probably won’t make a huge amount of your profits from your site directly. and advertising dollars might be better spent on promoting online food ordering or other revenue generators.
“Website Conversions”
This objective helps you convert website visitors into customers, but again, you likely aren’t selling too much from your site directly. If you do have merchandise or other things to sell on your site, this is a powerful option though.
“Page Post Engagement”
This advertising objective acts similarly to the “boost post” feature, and helps more people see your updates. This is a great option when you are advertising a new feature like online ordering, or want to spread the word about some important news about your restaurant.
“Page Likes”
This advertising objective is an easy way to help you get some page likes right after you launch your Facebook page for your business. Once you get a little more established though, there are a lot of organic and free ways to help you generate likes and grow your Facebook fanbase.
“App Installs”
If you have an App for your restaurant, this feature helps you up the downloads. This probably won’t be a factor for most restaurant owners.
“App Engagement”
Again, unless you are one of the few restaurant owners with a dedicated app, and are selling or promoting something within that app, this tool probably won’t be that useful.
“Offer Claims”
If you are comfortable and familiar with the benefits of giving out coupons and discounts, this is a powerful way to promote deals to your Facebook followers. As a restaurant owner, this is a great way to convert your online following into real sales that will help boost your bottom line.
“Local Awareness”
Since your business is so tied to locality as a restaurant owner, this is a great way to spread word in your community and reach real paying customers. Especially if you have opened your doors recently, this can be a powerful tool for reaching new potential fans that will help you boost profits.
“Event Responses”
If you regularly host events at your restaurant, this is a good option to kickstart the word. But there are free and easy ways to promote your events through organic reach, so once your page has a decent amount of followers this may not be the best place to invest advertising dollars.
“Video Views”
Most local restaurants don’t spend a lot of time producing video media, but if you do have some fun clips or an advertisement to share, this is a good way to boost your video’s reach.
What’s The Best Advertising Objective for Restaurants?
Depending on how established your restaurant is and how many fans you have on your Facebook page, different promotion objectives may be right for you. But there are a few objectives that are a great idea for all restaurateurs. As a restaurant owner, you want to turn your online fans and social media follows into profits. And, some of Facebook’s objectives can help you do that. And there’s one objective in particular that can help you get there.
With the “Offer Claims” tool, you can quickly design a coupon for your restaurant to help you bring people in the door. And unlike coupons that your customers might lose or forget about, the coupon you design through Facebook’s ad creator can be accessed directly from a smartphone, making it easy and convenient. Plus when you promote an offer, it gives a little nudge to your fans who haven’t visited for a while, as everyone loves a deal and getting a discount is the perfect incentive to return to an old favorite.
If you don’t like offering discounts and aren’t comfortable with coupons, your second best choice is probably the “Local Awareness” objective. After all, if you have good food to offer your community, all it can take to win over a new loyal customer is spreading the word. All of Facebook’s advertising objectives will help you do that in one way or another, but the “Offer Claims” and “Local Awareness” objectives are two that can be especially beneficial to restaurant owners.