Are you thinking about learning Facebook ads? I don’t blame you. Facebook ads are one of the most powerful forms of advertising. They can be something you can become obsessed with in a good way (or in a bad way) and Facebook ads can literally transform your traffic and revenue overnight.

All it takes is that one winning ad to make things take off for your business. All you have to do is find it! 

With that said, as you dive into the adventure of navigating Facebook ads, I wanted to share some great resources for learning Facebook ads and these 5 things you might discover along the way.

• The 20% rule
• Testing is crucial
• Targeting can be simple
• The Audience Insights Tool is a hidden gem (and free!)
• Trying images AND video

Why learn Facebook ads?

You may be interested in starting Facebook advertising for your own business or if you’re shifting careers or looking for a side hustle, running Facebook campaigns for other businesses is a nice way to make up to $1,000 to $2,000 (or more) per month, on the side.

Whatever your reason is, you know that Facebook ads are a great way to advertise products and increase brand presence online.

Here’s more on the learning process and what you have to look forward to.

How long does it take to learn Facebook ads?

This is a tricky question. It really varies from person to person. The reason the answer is variable is because it’s based on how much time you have.

Someone with 4 hours of free time every day can learn Facebook ads at a faster rate than someone with 1 hour of free time every day. The best way to start learning Facebook ads is to just get started. With more experience and exposure to ads on Facebook, your learning can start.

To start the education process, we recommend you begin with learning the basics of Facebook ads so you have a full understanding of it before you begin investing your money into running ads.

Education comes first, then experience.

And yes, you can fully master Facebook ads with a single campaign. You don’t necessarily need multiple ad campaigns to feel at home with Facebook ads and run them effortlessly.

But, is it hard?

How hard is it to learn Facebook ads?

There are so many components that make up the ad:

• The campaign type
• The targeting
• Image or video
• Headline
• Facebook pixel
• The auction and bidding process

With all this, your head might be swirling but the truth is, learning Facebook ads is not hard. It just takes time and patience.

You don’t need a specialized background, education or experience to understand how Facebook ads work.

In the beginning, it may feel foreign to you but, the more you learn and the more you become acquainted with Facebook ad manager and running ads on Facebook, the easier it all becomes.

How can I learn Facebook ads?

Now, you’re ready to dive into learning Facebook ads.

How do you start?

There are many places you can go to for learning Facebook ads. There are free routes and paid routes you can take to further your education.

Free places you can go to learn Facebook ads include YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, Google, and other social media platforms and search engines online.

But, the place you can get a great free education about Facebook ads is through the Facebook Blueprint course.

This free online training teaches you Facebook advertising. You can also get a certification at the end.

It consists of 90 elearning courses, giving you the skills to learn a solid foundation about Facebook ads.

• Prepare to bring your audience online
• Establish your presence
• Attract an audience
• Build relationships
• Optimize your efforts
• Improve your creative strategy

It’s a well-fleshed out training library that will teach you the basics about Facebook ads.

This is a route we would recommend over some of the above alternatives because it’s free training provided by Facebook and you are given a full education without having to jump around or figure out the right sequence of training so you don’t miss anything.

For more training materials and resources on how to learn Facebook ads, consider investing in a paid course.

What paid resources are available for help in learning Facebook ads?

Free resources are great but the problem is that you don’t get any support. If you have an issue  you need help with there is no one to ask. So, instead, you might want to look into a paid course.

The FB Side Hustle course was created by Bobby Hoyt and me and it lays out a step-by-step plan for earning an extra $1,000 to $2,000 per month running Facebook ads for local businesses.

The benefit of this course is that you will get proven strategies from a team that runs Facebook ads for others!

Companies know that Facebook ads work. But, they don’t know how to execute it for themselves. It’s too time-intensive or they don’t have staff that can run ads effectively and they don’t know how to teach them. So, it’s at a stand still and many companies never start advertising on Facebook.

The solution you provide is running ads for local businesses as a Facebook ads expert, helping them reach more customers, while earning you money at the same time. And the more clients you bring on, the potential for scaling and growing into a full agency can be within reach, if that’s a goal of yours.

In our Facebook ads training you get to:

• Learn how to run Facebook ads for local businesses
• Discover how to find clients to work with
• Find out exactly what to say to close the sale with clients and get them to work with you

And, if you want to hear what students actually think, there are a dozen video testimonials at the bottom of this page, where you can listen to what real students think about the course.

So, whatever your reason, learning Facebook ads can be a valuable education that can pay you back in dividends, for your time investment and money investment.

5 Things You’ll Find While Learning Facebook Ads

In no particular order, some of these things may creep up on you when you’re creating ads, while others will be easy to spot. Keep reading to learn more.

1. The 20% Text Rule

The 20% rule can be the reason why your ads aren’t running. Facebook shares here that they have found that ads that contain less than 20% text perform better. Here’s an example:

And, they’ve made this a rule when running Facebook ads. So, if your ad has too much text, be prepared to have Facebook not run it.

How to avoid too much text in your ad

First, you can use fewer words in your ad or you can try reducing the font size of your text. Smaller text to image ratio means you’re getting closer to 20% or less text on your ad.

Use most of your text in the body text instead of directly on the ad’s image.

And, avoid placing text all across the image.

2. Testing is crucial

Testing is a must with Facebook ads. Even the most seasoned Facebook marketers are constantly testing.

What do you test?

• Ad creative
• Image versus video
• Headlines
• Call to action
• And, more!

You can really drill down deep on this, looking at single ad versus carousel ad, single video ad versus single video ad, etc.

The point of testing is to find the best ad out of all the variations you tested.  You look at the data and performance, turning off the lower-ROI performing ads and keeping the best performers.

To keep yourself organized while A/B testing, try changing only one thing at a time.

For example, test a single video ad against the same single video ad with a different headline or test two single video ads with the same headline and different videos.

You see how there’s just one thing different in each pair.

This can help you easily uncover what part of the ad outperformed its counterpart, so you’re learning in the process, while finding the best performing ad.

If you have two ads with different headlines and different videos you won’t know exactly why one is performing better than the other.

3. Targeting can be simpler than you think

Targeting does not need to be complicated. It can actually be a lot easier than you might think. Instead of targeting several things at once, such as single, loves tennis, and shops at Target, let Facebook do this targeting for you.

Some successful marketers even target broad, general interests like only Netflix or only Walmart, not bothering to limit the age range, gender, other demographics, interests and behaviors.

This can actually be a very effective way of letting Facebook find your audience and serving the right audience for your product.

4. The Facebook Audience Insights Tool is a hidden gem

The Facebook Audience Insights tool gives you tons of incredibly useful information for you to prepare your ads in the best possible way for your audience.

You can compare your Facebook page (people connected to the page) and people on Facebook. With that information, you can see breakdowns of demographics like gender, education, income level, and more.

It will clue you in to what people like, their interests, hobbies, and lifestyle.

It looks like this:

This tool is hugely insightful, as the name suggests, giving you an opportunity to learn as much about your audience as possible.

For example, if you were running Facebook ads for a pet store, it might be useful to know how many people live close to the store, what their interests are, past purchase behavior, and how they shop.

You can pull anonymous, aggregate information from Audience Insights like:

• Page likes
• Demographics
• Purchase activity
• Facebook usage
• People on Facebook
• People connected to your page
• People connected to your event
• People in custom audiences
• Location
• Language

Audience Insights versus Page Insights

The difference between Audience Insights and Page Insights is that the Facebook Audience Insights tool reveals trends about current or prospective customers across Facebook, and not just people interacting with your page, like Page Insights.

You can check out Facebook Audience Insights for yourself here.

5. Test images AND video

This goes back to A/B testing. Don’t limit yourself to only testing images or only testing video, do both!

Some ads are better in image, while others are better as a video ad. You won’t know this unless you test.

Why do you want to learn Facebook ads?

Share your thoughts below in the comments.