Why Goals and Events Are Important

Goal and Event tracking are fundamental parts of a Google Analytics installation. Together, Goals and Events map the most important moments on your buyers’ journey.

This is important because knowing where your audience started and stopped during their buying journey is critical for understanding why they started or stopped along their journey.

Armed with this knowledge, you can easily clear any obstacle standing between your audience and your objective.

What You’ll Walk Away With

At the end of this lesson, you’ll know:

• How to nominate Goals and Events in Google Analytics
• How to set up Goals and Events in Google Analytics
• How to troubleshoot Goals and Events in Google Analytics

Defining Goals and Events

Every website has an objective—getting somebody to buy something, fill out a contact form, sign-up for a newsletter, etc. Goals and Events are how you track those objectives.

Goals are used to measure how effective your site is at getting users to complete your target objectives. So each time a user completes your objective (e.g. submits a form), a Goal will fire, logging a conversion in your Google Analytics account.

Events are recorded interactions leading up to a Goal—think of them as milestones. They’re tracked independently from web page level data (e.g. # of clicks a button receives). Events can be used for tracking unrelated to Goals, but those uses are infrequent and often require advanced implementation.

How To Use Goals And Events

Plot important points along the buyer’s journey.

Recall our first lesson, Understanding Intent and the Buyer’s Journey. In that lesson, we talked about the different stages of a buyer’s journey—awareness, consideration, decision, and experience.

Ideally, your website should have one or more objectives for each stage and for your different target audiences.

For example, the ultimate objective during the decision stage for consumers browsing Things by Bean would be completing a purchase. For retailers on Things by Bean, the ultimate objective would be a form submission requesting a wholesale purchase.

After identifying your objectives for each stage of the buying process and audience type, you can create Goals based on the actions that complete the objectives. Then, each time an objective is completed, a Goal (AKA conversion, goal completion, etc.) fires in Google Analytics. In the cases discussed above, we could create Goals for successful purchase completions and form submissions.

Events should be assigned similarly to Goals. Events should reflect the interactions leading up to the completion of an objective. For example, expanding an image for a card may trigger an Event. While this doesn’t equate to a sale, it’s an important interaction along the way to a sale.

Also, two things to note. First, there is a variety of advanced tracking that can be done with Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking. We’ll discuss that in a future lesson. Second, Events can be used for a variety of other purposes (e.g. troubleshooting); goal tracking is simply the most basic use.

Set Up and Test Your Goals

After mapping your Goals to your website’s objectives, it’s time to set up your Goals.

Setting Up Your Goals
To set up Goals, you need to navigate to the “Goal” section in Google Analytics. It’s found in the “Admin” section of the site, under the “View” column. Once in the “Goal” section, click “+New Goal”.

There are several Goal tracking options here. The only option we’re going to discuss is the first one—the Destination Goal.

A Destination Goal is triggered when a user reaches a certain page. Most commonly, it’s the page that shows after somebody completed an objective, so it should be an accurate measurement when you’re trying to determine the effectiveness of your website.

For example, if somebody makes a purchase on Things by Bean, it redirects the buyer to an Order Summary page. We would use the URL for the Order Summary page as the Goal’s destination URL. This way, we’d know precisely how many people successfully submitted an order by looking at the number of Goal completions.

You can also assign a value to a Goal, allowing you to easily view and report on transactions from your marketing campaigns.

If you’re able to calculate the estimated value for that Goal (e.g. ~$110  for wholesale card order requests) then you should do that.

Testing Your Goals
Once you’re satisfied the Goal is properly configured, click “Verify this Goal” option at the bottom of the page. This will use data in your Analytics account to determine if the Goal would have fired in the past 7 days.

If you do not have data in your account that would register as a Goal Completion (e.g. nobody has fulfilled Goal criteria since being set up) then clicking on “Verify this Goal” will not work.

Another way to test Goals would be to complete the triggering action (e.g. making a purchase) and wait 24 hours to see if it’s recorded in Google Analytics. It’s important to keep the time lag in mind when QAing and troubleshooting Google Analytics goals.

Set Up and Test Your Events

Events allow you to establish milestones your visitors will pass through on their way to a completing a goal. Measuring those milestones can help you identify where users are struggling to convert.

Setting Up Your Events
Events are set up by adding a small snippet of code to the website element you want to track, such as a button, a link, etc.

This is what the code looks like:

    ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘category’, ‘action’, ‘label’, value);

Note: This method is used in Google Universal Analytics. If you’re using an older version, you’ll have to look here for instructions (although they operate very similarly).

When using the code on your site, you’d replace category, action, label, and value with something descriptive.

For example, if Things by Bean wanted to track how many people were clicking on the “Sale” link in their navigation, this is what the code would look like:

    ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘button’, ‘click’, ‘nav buttons’, 2);

This syntax classifies the event as being in the “button” category, notes that it involved a click, and includes where the action occurred—in the universal navigation.

We won’t go into detail about how to actually paste the code into your website. Installing the code is CMS dependent so there are too many variables to describe here. If you’re struggling with this, we advise working with a developer. You can also refer to Google’s guide to event tracking for developers.

Testing your Events.
You can find existing Events by looking at the “Events” reports found under “Behavior” in Google Analytics reporting.

If there are no Events showing up in your Google Analytics reports, then that could mean:

• You don’t have any Events set up on your website
• The Events are set up but they’re not firing
• Nobody has triggered an Event yet

The best way to test Events is to use the following process:

• Right-click on the page and select “Inspect.”
• Navigate to the “Network” tab and check the “Preserve Log” box.

• Complete the action you are trying to track, such as submitting a form or clicking a button.
• In the “Inspect” window type in “collect,” “pageview,” or “event.” You’ll then see several items under the “Name” section.

Click to enlarge

• Hover over the items in the “Name” section and search for your event category, action, and label. They should be preceded by “ec” for event category, “ea” for event action, and “el” for event label.

It’s important to note that it’s worthwhile to check your events on a regular basis to ensure that they are tracking correctly. If an event isn’t firing properly, it’s best to contact a developer for support.

Try This Tracking Exercise

Complete the exercises below before moving on. You’ll gain critical hands-on experience that will help you become the marketer you were meant to be. Plus, it makes completing the quiz at the end of the lesson even easier.

Exercise: Mapping A Website’s Goals & Events

Setting up goals and events in Google Analytics is critical for understanding the impact of your marketing efforts. By clearly recording when a visitor completes a desirable action, you can better understand which parts of your campaign are contributing the most to your bottom line results.

Why Custom Reporting Is Important

Showing the impact of your efforts in an easy-to-understand report is essential for client communications. Unfortunately, the pre-configured reports in Google Analytics don’t always provide a clear view of the impact of your efforts.

Custom reports allow you to create a more precise view of website activity arising from your efforts. They give you more flexibility in terms of choosing your dimensions and metrics as well as more flexibility in terms of reporting navigation and complexity.

What You’ll Walk Away With

By the end of this lesson, you’ll know:

• How to create and edit custom reports in Google Analytics
• How to share custom reports in Google Analytics

Defining Custom Reporting

A custom report is a user-created report featuring any combination of dimensions and metrics. The custom reports in Google Analytics draw their data from a website’s online (or offline) data sets.

How To Create Custom Reports

Custom reports are found in the “Customization” tab found in every Google Analytics account. From this screen, you can manage existing custom reports and create new ones.

Creating A New Custom Report

You can create new custom reports by clicking “New Custom Report” while on the customization tab. Pretty intuitive so far, right? Next, you get to build the report. And there are tons of options to choose from. We’ll briefly cover the different options available, but we’ll primarily point you towards the most frequently used building blocks for custom reports.

Choosing Report Type

Explorer: You’ll be using this type of custom report 90% of the time. It creates a data table that allows you to include a bunch of metrics and dimensions in the report. Plus, it includes a nice big line graph. The main advantage of the explorer report type is the ability to explore or drill down into your data (e.g. click on a single page URL and view additional information confined to that URL, like the browser types used when accessing the page).

Flat Table: This report type provides you with a data table that uses a single primary dimension and a single group of metrics. This is useful for simple reports.

Map Overlay: This report type visualizes your data as a color-coordinated map. While often impressive looking at first glance, it’s not as efficient in communicating information as the previous two reports. But if you’re reporting to somebody who doesn’t like reading reports, this one will make them smile. 

Selecting Metrics

Recalling one of our earlier lessons, metrics are the numbers you want to report on: pageviews, avg. time on page, goal completions, etc. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of metrics to choose from, so we’ll confine our discussion to those most frequently used.

Important Metrics

• Sessions
• Pageviews
• Goal completions (sitewide and for specific Goals)
• Goal conversion rate (sitewide and for specific Goals)
• Avg. time on page
• Bounce rate
• Exit rate

Selecting Dimensions

Going back again to our earlier lesson, recall that dimensions are how you categorize the numbers you want to report on— URLs, page titles, browser types,  etc. Yet again, there are dozens more dimensions than you’ll need; we’ll stick with the most important ones for this lesson.

Important Dimensions

• Source
• Medium
• Traffic type
• Page
• Landing page
• City
• Event category
• Browser version

Adding Filters

As you should recall from a previous lesson, filters prevent specified types of web data from showing up in your reports.

You can use filters to zero in on a certain type of data in an individual report (e.g. only include traffic type exactly matches organic). You can also use filters to remove a certain type of data (e.g. exclude city exactly matching your hometown).

For example, if you wanted to know how Things by Bean was performing without search engine traffic, you could exclude traffic type exactly matching “organic” and then run your report.

Tabbing Reports

You can expand the range of data to include by adding tabs to the report. Doing this allows you to:

• Use multiple report types
• Keep metric groups more easily organized
• Reorganize dimension drilldowns

To add a tab to a report, click on “+add report tab” found at the top of the page when you’re creating or editing a custom report. From there, it’s the same process as building out a new report.

Basic Building Blocks for a Custom Report

Listed below are the building blocks for a basic custom report.

• Type: Explorer
• Metrics: Sessions, goal conversion rate, pageviews, avg. time on page, bounce rate
• Dimensions: Page, source/medium, city, hour
• Filters: Include traffic type exactly matching organic

Use these settings to create your own report. You can also use this pre-built custom report into your own Analytics profile and edit it to your heart’s content. Note: to use the pre-built report, you need to access the hyperlink while logged into the account you use to view your Analytics profile.

Organizing Your Custom Reports

If your account has a lot of custom reports (or you plan on creating a lot) you can organize them with categories. Essentially folders, you can name your categories whatever you want and file your reports accordingly. You can create categories by clicking the “+ New Category” button while on the “Customization” screen.

How To Share Your Custom Reports

Sharing the reports you create is simple. If the party you’re sharing the report with has access to the Analytics view, they’ll be able to see your report from the moment you publish it. Additionally, you can apply the report to all of your Analytics profiles.

To do this, simply create a new report or edit an existing one. At the bottom of the Create/Edit page, there’s a list of Analytics profiles capable of viewing it; select the profiles you want to include.

If you’re sharing the reports with somebody who cannot access the reports in Google Analytics, then you’ll need to export the report as a PDF. The “Export” option is found at the top of the page when viewing the report.

Try This Tracking Exercise

Complete the exercises below before moving on. You’ll gain critical hands-on experience that will help you become the marketer you were meant to be. Plus, it makes completing the quiz at the end of the lesson even easier.

Exercise: Creating a Custom Report

The best way to create a Custom Report is to have a vision for what the finished report will look like. To do this, you can ask yourself these questions:

• Who is reading the report? Does this individual need high-level information or are they interested in something specific?
• Who is the subject of the report? Are you reporting on all visitors? Is there a segment of your visitors you should draw attention to?
• What data do you want to show? Are there particular traffic sources you want emphasize or exclude?
• Where should the report focus on? Are there particular pages of the site you want to analyze or is it the website as a whole?
• How long of a time period do you want to capture and/or compare? Does the time period for your report contain enough information to accurately depict trends, rather than temporary fluctuations?

Why Are Segments Valuable?

Segmenting your visitors can help you identify how behavior patterns differ between groups. This makes it easier to understand how to appeal to different sets of visitors and how to tailor your digital campaigns to that segment of visitors particular needs.

For example, seeing what pages are visited by users who complete a goal vs. users who do not complete a goal can reveal a critical webpage in the buyer’s journey.

What You’ll Walk Away With

In this lesson, you’ll learn:

• What Google Analytics segments are
• Why they are valuable
• How to use them

What Is a Segment?

In analytics, a segment is a subset of your data that is grouped based on a shared characteristic.

There are two types of segments.

• Segments based on users. A user segment groups site visitors together based on a characteristic that can describe the users.For example, a user segment could include visitors who are located in the U.S. or those who used a Mac to access the site.

• Segments based on sessions. A session segment groups sessions together that have a common trait.For example, a session segment could include sessions that lasted more than 10 minutes or sessions in which more than 5 pages were viewed.

How to Create New Segments

The option to create a segment is located at the top of the page in Analytics and is labeled +Add Segment.

You’ll then be in the segment builder. Here you can choose to apply a preformulated segment or create your own. Let’s start with building our own. To build a segment, follow the steps listed below.

1. Click the red +New Segment button.
2. Now you can choose which characteristics will serve as the basis for the segment. There are many options, which are organized into the following categories.

Keep in mind that every option you select will build on the others. So if you select US users and users with Windows OS, your segment will only include visitors who are both in the U.S. AND use Windows.

Since the majority of these options are fairly intuitive, we’ll focus on the advanced methods of creating a segment which include using conditions and sequences. You can review what’s included in the other options by reading this help page.

3.  Once you’ve selected the traits you want your segment to have, click save. Your segment will now appear at the top of the page throughout Analytics so you can see the data that describes just that segment.

Advanced Segment Options

The Advanced Segment options “Conditions” and “Sequences” give you the opportunity to build a segment using any metric or dimension. Their features include:

• The ability to use the logic functions OR and AND
• The ability to include or exclude data
• The ability to create a combined user-based and session-based segment, which will show data that meets both requirements.

To see how Google describes these options, click here.

Conditions

You can set up a segment that meets specific requirements, called conditions or filters. You can set multiple conditions and, using logic operators, require that any or all of the conditions be met. This section also offers the ability to use regular expressions, or “Regex,” to build your segments. You can learn more about Regex here.

For example, we can set a user segment that includes returning visitors who visited our help page. This could tell us how many users can’t seem to find the information they want after multiple visits. To make this segment, we have to:

1. Navigate to the Conditions tab in the segment builder.
2. Set the filter to Users.
3. Select the dimension User Type in the first dropdown, then Exactly Matches in the second dropdown, and click Returning User in the field that follows. We then need to click AND to add another condition.
4. For the second condition, we need to set the first dropdown to the dimension Page, the second dropdown to Exactly Matches, and click or type the URL for our help page. Then click Save.

Sequences

Data can also be segmented using sequences. With sequences, you can:

• Choose to show only sessions or users who completed specific actions on your site, either in a particular order or any order.
• Set the sequence to start at the user’s first interaction with the site or any interaction they had with the site.

Here’s how we could make a sequence that would show the number of sessions in which the user came to the site either directly or from Google, and then either submitted a contact form or visited the contact us page.

1. Navigate to the Sequences tab in the segment builder.
2. Set the filter to Sessions.
3. Select the dimension Source for the first dropdown, then Exactly Matches for the second, and choose direct in the last field. Then click OR.
4. Select the same options for the first two dropdown menus, and then choose Google in the last field. Click Add Step to add the next step in the sequence.
5. For the first dropdown menu, choose Submit Form under the Goals dimension, and per session in the second. Then select the greater-than symbol and type 0 (zero) into the last field. Then click OR.
6. Select the dimension Page, then Exactly Matches, and then click on the “contact us” page. Then click Save.

How to Use Existing Segments

Using existing segments is much simpler than creating new ones. Once you’ve clicked Add Segment at the top of the page, just check the box for the segment you want to apply to the data and click Save.

Try This Tracking Exercise

Complete the exercises below before moving on. You’ll gain critical hands-on experience that will help you become the marketer you were meant to be. Plus, it makes completing the quiz at the end of the lesson even easier.

Exercise: Creating a Custom Segment

Segments allow you to quickly compare the website data of one group of website visitors with the website data of another group of website visitors. So, if you’re trying to understand what sets apart website visitors who complete goals vs. everyone else, a segment is an easy way to view that comparison.

Why Are Dashboards Important?

A dashboard provides you with a high-level view of a website’s performance. And rather than navigating between different reports, a dashboard allows you to consolidate your most important metrics all in one place.

What You’ll Walk Away With

By the end of this lesson, you should:

• Understand what Google Analytics dashboards are and why they are useful
• Know how to pick which elements should be included in your dashboard
• Be able to create and share an Analytics dashboard

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a page that contains summary information from different sections of Analytics that you have opted to view in one place. Dashboards serve as customized overviews that show the data you deem most important, presented in an easy-to-digest format.

How to Make a Dashboard

Dashboards are relatively simple to make, once you know which data you want to include.

What to Include in Your Dashboard

Your dashboard should include information that aligns with the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ve established for your site.

For example, for Things by Bean, our KPIs could be the average length of a session and the average number of pages viewed per session. These metrics reflect our visitors’ engagement with our site, which shows us how interested they are in what we have to offer.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when building your own dashboard.

Anatomy of a Dashboard

Dashboards are made of widgets. A widget is a module that displays specific data you have selected. A Dashboard can have up to 12 widgets. Below is Google’s list and descriptions of the types of widgets:

• Metric. Displays a simple numeric representation of a single selected metric.
• Timeline. Displays a graph of the selected metric over time. You can compare this to a secondary metric.
• Geomap. Displays a map of the selected region, with the specified metric plotted on the map. Hover over the map to see the actual metric values.
• Table. Displays up to 2 metrics describing the selected dimension, laid out in tabular format.
• Pie. Displays a pie chart of the selected metric grouped by a dimension. Mouse over a slice to see the specific metric values.
• Bar. Displays a bar chart of the selected metric grouped by up to 2 dimensions. Mouse over a slice to see the specific metric values.

You can change the layout of your Dashboard by clicking Customize Dashboard in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Widgets can be rearranged by dragging and dropping.

Building the Dashboard

Let’s walk through building a Dashboard using our example greeting card company. We’ll start with getting an overview of the direct traffic to our site including how many sessions resulted from direct traffic and the rate of goal conversions.

1. Click Dashboards in the left sidebar of Analytics, then +New Dashboard.
2. You can then choose to make a dashboard from a blank canvas or a preformulated set, and then name your Dashboard. We’re going to build one from a blank canvas.
3. Click +Add Widget in the upper left side of the screen.
4. Name the widget, select the widget type, and choose the appropriate dimensions and metrics.

We’ll name ours Direct Traffic and use a timeline because we want to see multiple metrics per our dimension, which is Traffic Type.

5. If applicable, we can also use one or more filters on our widget. Since we only want to include direct traffic, we can apply a filter. When finished, click “Save.”

For our example, we’ll select Only show in the first dropdown, then Traffic Type as our dimension, choose Containing in the second dropdown, and type Direct in the field.

6. The widget we just made will be added to our Dashboard. To make new widgets, we repeat steps 1-3, changing the widget titles and types as well as metrics and dimensions to reflect the data we want to see.
7. Let’s add another widget, just for practice. We want our next widget to show if the landing pages for our paid ads are experiencing goal completions and conversions.
   • Click +Add Widget.
   • If you don’t name a widget, a name will be generated based on your selections. We’ll let Analytics generate a name for us.
   • We’ll use a table widget.
   • Our dimension will be Landing Page, and our metrics will be Goal Completions and Goal Conversion Rate.
   • Since we only want to see traffic that came from our paid efforts, we’ll apply a filter like we did in the first example. In order, our selections will be Only Show, Traffic Type, Containing, Paid.
   • Once we click Save, our new widget is added to the dashboard. We can rearrange the widgets by dragging and dropping to get them in the order we want.

Our dashboard now looks like this:

We repeat the process until our dashboard includes widgets for each aspect of our site’s performance. There are dozens of custom widgets you can build. As we mentioned, it’s ideal to have widgets to assess the following:

• Direct traffic
• Organic traffic
• Paid traffic
• Social media traffic
• Email traffic
• Overall traffic
• Most popular pages
• Average page load time
• Mobile sessions

You can find an example dashboard with a widget for each of the above here.

Shared vs. Private Dashboards

A Dashboard will only be visible to you (i.e. private) until you share it with others. There are several methods for sharing a dashboard, but we’ll go over the ones you’re most likely to use:

• Share with those who have access to the current view in Analytics.
  • Click Share at the top of the page and click Share Object.
• Share with other views and accounts as a link to a template.
  • With this option, you only share the Dashboard settings, not the data itself.
  • Click Share at the top of the page, then click Share template.
  • Send the link to the person you want to have access to the dashboard. Note they must have an Analytics account.
• Send in an email.
  • Next to the Share option, click Email. You’ll be able to email the dashboard as a PDF attachment.
  • You can have your Dashboard be sent at regular intervals by selecting the appropriate frequency in the dropdown. You can set these emails to be sent at that frequency for up to 12 months by clicking Advanced Options.

• Save as a PDF.
  • Click Export, next to Email.

How to Use a Dashboard

Once you’ve created a dashboard that reflects your chosen KPIs, you should be able to click on it in the left sidebar, under Dashboards. You’ll then be able to get an overview of your site’s performance by just scanning the page. If you see something interesting or concerning, you can delve further by clicking into the appropriate section of Analytics.

Try This Tracking Exercise

Complete the exercises below before moving on. You’ll gain critical hands-on experience that will help you become the marketer you were meant to be. Plus, it makes completing the quiz at the end of the lesson even easier.

Exercise: Creating a Custom Dashboard

Reporting frequency is a big factor when considering what data to select for your custom Dashboard; will the reader easily be able to see problems or opportunities that arise between reports?

Lesson Goal

By the end of this lesson you should know:

• How to set goals for Facebook ads
• Facebook’s ad campaign structure
• How to create an ad campaign
• How to monitor and report on performance

About Facebook Ads

Facebook ads can be highly targeted to ensure you’re reaching the best set of potential customers. They can appear in an individual’s newsfeed, on the right side of the page, or Facebook’s mobile feed.

Ads can also show individuals if their friends have interacted with your business.

Elements of Ads

What is included in a Facebook ad depends on its placement. Desktop and mobile newsfeed ads include the following:

• Your business name
• If their friends have interacted with you
• Images or videos
• Description text
• A call to action

A desktop newsfeed ad:

A mobile newsfeed ad:

Ads appearing in the right column of Facebook are smaller and only include images and videos, and your text. Here’s an example of a column ad:

Setting Goals in Facebook

There are several goals an ad can accomplish on Facebook:

• Getting customers to interact with you on your Facebook page or event
• Getting visitors to go to or interact with your website
  • Note that for this goal, you will also need to create a Facebook conversion pixel for your site.
• Getting users to download or use your app

We’re going to focus on the first two types of goals.

Campaign Structure

Facebook’s ad campaign structure is somewhat similar to that of AdWords. Its highest level is campaign, which contain ad sets (like adgroups), which contain ads. Here’s the diagram Facebook provides:

• Campaigns. Objectives are set at the campaign level in Facebook. Each campaign must have an advertising objective, and can not have more than one objective.
• Ad sets. Targeting options, scheduling, placements, budget, and bidding settings are all set at this level.
• Ads. These are the actual advertisements that can contain images, videos, and text.

Creating an Ad

Now we’ll walk through making an ad in Facebook, explaining your options as we go. For this example, we’re going to make an ad for Things by Bean’s Christmas cards.

1. Log in to Facebook with your company account. Click the drop down arrow in the upper right hand corner of the page, and select Create Ads. Note that you don’t actually need a business page to create ads on Facebook.

2. Then choose the objective for your campaign. The options are explained in plain language. For our Things by Bean example, we’re going to set our objective to Send People to Your Website. Then we’ll be instructed to enter the URL for the site we want to promote, in this case thingsbybean.com/christmas

3. We then name our campaign, enter our location and currency information, and finally, our account name (Things by Bean).

4. Next, we choose our targeting options. We want to enter as much information as possible to have our ads shown only to those we think will be really interested in our cards. We’ll target the US, those aged 20-35, and both men and women. We’ll target only those who speak English. There are many more options for demographics we can explore, which are shown in the dropdown menu below.

5. Now we’ll focus on limiting our audience based on their interests and behaviors. Targeting based on these parameters is often more successful than targeting based on demographics because you understand more about the customer.

            We can choose from predefined options, or search. We’ll target people who are interested in family and friendship,           Hallmark, greeting, and Christmas cards.

 We do the same thing for behaviors. We’re going to target Trendy Homemakers, Shoppers, those who like entertaining, those who exhibit above average spending and shop online. We’re also going to target those who have purchased gift products, specialty foods and gifts. We’ll leave the connections setting to all, as we want to reach all qualified individuals, and not just those who are already connected to our page in some way.

Facebook keeps track of our settings and tells us how many people we could reach.

This is a very large reach. However, since it is our first campaign and we don’t have much insight about who will come to our site from social media, this is ok. As we get more information, we can further refine our campaigns. Typically a smaller, very targeted reach is best.

6. Next we set our budget. We’re going to keep it small at $5.00 per day, and we’ll have it run continuously. You can also choose to set a lifetime budget, which is the maximum you’ll spend to run your ad set, as well as select starting and ending dates and times for your ad.

Facebook automatically sets our bidding strategy based on our objective. You can see this under Advanced Options in this section. We’ll add Interested in Cards to the ad set name Facebook created to make it easier for us to remember what sets this group apart. With our budget, Facebook estimates that we’ll reach at least 2,500 people per day.

7. It’s time to actually make our ad. Facebook makes it easy by allowing us to simply upload an image or search for one we can use from Shutterstock. Each image we select will create a different variation of our ad. Next, we decide which text and URL we want included. 

We have 25 characters for our headline. Let’s use. Make Christmas special. You have 90 characters for your text above your image, and 200 for the text that appears below your image, if you click Advanced Options. You can also select a call to action button. Note that adding a button might cut off some of the text below your image.

 A live preview of your ad as it would appear in each placement type will be shown on the right side of the page. If you don’t want a specific placement type, just click Remove. 

8. When you’re happy with your ad, click Place order. You’ll be prompted to add your billing info then.

Boosting Posts

An alternative to advertisements is boosted posts. A boosted post is a post you’ve written on your page that you’ve paid to have show higher up in people’s newsfeeds, so they’re more likely to view it. These posts also have the word Sponsored on them, and will not appear in the right hand column.

 To boost a post, simply click Boost Post after you’ve written what you want to say. You’ll then have to option to select whom you want to target, and how much you want to spend on boosting the post. You can boost a post for up to 1 week.

 Note that you can’t delete a boosted post after you’ve sent it live. You’ll first have to unboost it, edit it, and then reboost it.

Creating Offers

If your page has at least 50 likes, you can create offers for your page. An offer can be a discount or other promotion that users can redeem in-store or online. These offers will appear in users’ newsfeeds.

 To create an offer, you can click Offer at the top of your page timeline, or navigate to the ads creation tool and select Offer claims as your objective.

 You’ll then enter your headline, description text, and image for your offer. You’ll also have to choose an expiration date, and a limit for the number of claims. Click More Options to enter a start date, the URL where the offer can be redeemed (if the offer is online), and the redemption code. Add any applicable terms and conditions, and then click Create Offer.

You can create an ad to promote your offer, or boost your offer. Facebook explains how on this page. To see how many people have redeemed the offer, go to your Page Insights.

Monitoring Performance

Once you have ads up and running, you’ll be able to monitor their performance with Ads Manager. This video shows you how to access and navigate Facebook Ads Manager. Ads Manager lets you stop campaigns and ads, edit the budget and schedule of existing ad sets, and more.

 Judge performance based on your campaign objectives. If your objective was to get people to click through to your site, you should focus on that number. Check in on your Facebook ads every week or so to see how they’re performing and check that everything is running smoothly. 

Page Performance

If you just want to see how your page is doing, you can look at Page Insights, which will provide metrics on engagement, likes, and the reach of your posts. You’ll see Page Insights at the top of your page only after 30 people have liked your page.

Boosted Post Performance

You can see the number of unique visitors who have seen a boosted post on the post. To see how many of them saw it organically or through an ad, hover over this number. For more details, you can go to your Ads Manager or Page Insights.

Reporting

Facebook’s Ad Manager also offers the ability to create reports. Once you’re in the Ads Manager, click Reports. A default report showing general metrics will show. You can customize which columns are included by clicking Customize columns. To change the date range, simply navigate to the date and select the starting and ending dates for the data you want to see in your report. Like in AdWords and Google Analytics, you can apply filters to limit which data you see.

 When you’ve organized your report, you can export it as an Excel or CSV file by clicking the blue Export button toward the top of the page. You also have the option to schedule reports, which will be emailed to specific email addresses on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. To do so, click Schedule toward the top of the page.

 For more information on reporting in Facebook, visit their help page.