How To Successfully Run Facebook Ads During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Social Media Marketing

Meet the team: Person with glasses smiling in front of a green background. Posted by: Em Rohrer 5 years ago

Table of Contents

Welcome to the fourth blog post in our series designed to help local businesses attract new customers and keep current customers interested during the COVID-19 outbreak.

If you haven’t read the first three posts in our series, you can click below to check them out!

Business Blogging: How To Get Started

How To Pick The Right Blog Topics

Social Media Posting Tips For Every Business

Facebook ads are often a key part of the marketing strategies we recommend to our clients. This type of pay-per-click (PPC) ad is unique because Facebook allows you to target your ideal audience using demographics like age, gender, location, and interests.

Facebook ads aren’t ideal for every business to use during the COVID-19 outbreak, but most businesses that are still open (even virtually or providing curbside and delivery) can benefit from upping their paid ad strategy.

6 Pandemic-Friendly Facebook Ad Tips

We can’t treat Facebook ads the way we did prior to the global pandemic. Businesses are adapting to widespread stay home orders and advertising methods need to shift as well.

There are still a few basics that you need to have in place before launching a Facebook ad campaign, especially if this is your first attempt.

If you haven’t set up goals for your Facebook ad marketing campaigns, make sure to do that first. Try using these free Facebook Ad templates from AdEspresso to get started!

1. Give Yourself Extra Time For Ad Approval

Facebook has notified businesses that the COVID-19 outbreak will likely cause delays in their ad approval process. The company has automated more of this process, so it’s unlikely an actual human being is reviewing your Facebook ads these days.

Because of this, make sure you allow extra time to get your ads approved. You can easily prep your ads and submit them for review, then pause them until you’re ready for the campaign to go live.

2. Share Ads That Are Relevant Right Now

According to the New York Times, internet traffic is surging due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It makes sense, more and more of us are working from home, kids are completing school assignments online, and we’re all trying to connect with the world while staying inside our homes. Facebook’s traffic alone has jumped up 27% and experts are saying they expect it to continue to rise.

Since you’re going to be competing to keep your target audience’s attention at a whole new level, it’s important to make sure your ads are immediately relevant.

For most businesses, this will look like creating ads that promote:

Curbside pickup and delivery orders
Online shopping promotions
Offering virtual or phone consultations
Purchasing gift cards to use once your business is open again.

Example

Bones Coffee is running a COVID-19 related ad that gives buyers 20% off and they’re donating bags of coffee to first responders with every purchase. Thes are fantastic examples of a company keeping its Facebook ad campaign relevant and giving their customers something valuable.

3. Use Retargeting Ad Campaigns

Since web traffic has skyrocketed, this is the best time to re-engage with people who visited your website but didn’t complete a purchase. If you have the Facebook Pixel added to your website, it makes it easy to create new ad audiences designed for retargeting ad campaigns.

Retargeting ads should include things like free shipping offers and special promotions designed to convince someone to return to your website and buy a product or schedule a service.

Example

The following ad from Daily Harvest is a great example of a retargeting Facebook ad designed to motivate their target audience to buy using a discount and free shipping.

Don’t Stop Running Your Existing Ad Campaigns

If you’ve been running Facebook ads, now is not the time to stop. It may sound counterintuitive, but stopping your Facebook ads completely while the business landscape is stalled due to COVID-19 isn’t the solution.

If your business has been using Facebook ads to attract new customers, you’ve already got momentum built and a plan in place. Don’t pull your ads and risk losing your target audience’s attention!

Learn more about why you shouldn’t stop Facebook ads during the COVID-19 outbreak

If you’ve never tried running Facebook ads for your business before, or have tried but haven’t gotten the success you need, we’re here to help!