You’ve likely experienced watching your favorite influencer go live on Facebook. As you’re watching the video, it’s inevitable that it cuts to an ad right as you’re getting to the best part. This is a Facebook live ad, and it’s an excellent tool for both influencers and marketers.

With Facebook Live videos, you can get as many as 6x more interactions than traditional videos. This means an incredibly engaged audience. But how do you leverage this type of engagement with your own Facebook Live ads?

Facebook Live ads present a unique opportunity for both content creators and digital marketers. Content creators can earn ad revenue, while marketers can run ads on highly visible videos. It’s a win-win for both.

We’ll go more in-depth further down, but here’s the gist of Facebook Live ads: A content creator goes live to their audience. Then, shortly into the feed, they take an ad break.

While it’s simple in theory, Facebook Live ads have two sides. This includes the content creator or live streamer side and the marketer who’s running the ad on the other side.

This article will help you learn how to use Facebook Live ads as an influencer or marketer.

• The basics of Facebook Live ads
• Why Facebook live ads work for influencers
• How marketers use Facebook live ads
• Step-by-step guide for creating a Facebook Live ad
• How to break for Facebook live ads
• Best practices
• Test and track for Facebook Live Ads

Read more at How to Make Money Posting Ads on Facebook: 4 Legitimate Ways to Make Some Dough.

The Basics of Facebook Live Ads for Streamers

Facebook live ads were first rolled out in 2017 for beta testing. They were only available for pages with at least 2,000 followers. However, those pages also needed to have recent live videos with at least 300 concurrent viewers to be eligible for Facebook Live ads. 

After 90 seconds of their live video feed, the creator could click a button that allowed them to take an ad break.

Then, in 2017, Facebook made changes to how pages qualify for Facebook Live ads. You had to be streaming for four minutes instead of 90 seconds. You also had to have at least 50,000 followers to use the feature.

Facebook is constantly updating the guidelines regarding who qualifies for live ads. To make it easy, here are the exact qualifications as of right now:

• You need at least 10,000 followers.
• You must have 600,000 total minutes viewed within the last 60 days. This can be a combination of on-demand or live videos.
• Your page must have at least five active videos.

It’s important to confirm your eligibility and make sure you are always operating within the Facebook rules for monetization. 

Learn more at Building Audiences with Video.

Why Facebook Live Ads Work for Influencers 

Facebook Live is an excellent tool for pages and influencers. Regular folks can use Live as well. But, if you have a large following, you can leverage Facebook Live for a variety of programming. 

You can host Q&A sessions, conduct mini-webinars, do a big reveal or host a giveaway. The live video aspect creates a sense of excitement you can’t get with a pre-recorded one.

All the surrounding excitement means engagement, with viewers commenting and clicking buttons. 

If you’re an influencer, what do you know to be true about engagement? That’s right. It usually means money.

So, the most obvious answer to how a live streamer can benefit from Facebook Live ads is cash. Facebook Live ads allow you to monetize your content even more. You earn ad revenue when you take a break with a Facebook Live ad.

But, Facebook Live videos do require work! You’ve got to set up for the video, drum up interest, and be ready to interact with everyone who’s watching. The longer your video is, the more work it takes.

Wouldn’t it be nice to take a break every few minutes to take a deep breath or grab a drink of water? Facebook Live ads let you pause your live content for a short break. 

Phew… don’t you feel better now? Plus, the break feels even better when you know it’s backed by cash.

Related: 5 Essentials You Gotta Know About How to Create a Landing Page on Facebook

The Downside of Facebook Live Ads for Influencers

The biggest risk to any new strategy is losing part of your audience. The fear is that a viewer might say, “I came for your video, not an ad!”

This is a valid point, so here are a few things you can do to mitigate that risk:

• Warn them about the break. Let them know before you cut to break (we’ll explain how to take a break shortly), and tell them it’s only 5-15 seconds long.
• Create a teaser. Tell your viewers why they need to hold on during the ad. It sounds simple because it is — and you’ve seen it before on TV shows. “I’ll be right back with the answer to _____.” “I’m going to share my top tip right after this short break.” This makes your ad breaks feel more natural and encourages your viewers to stick around.
• Make sure your video is engaging before you break. Clicks, comments, and a steady number of viewers are signs it’s okay to take a break. If you’ve captured their attention for at least four minutes, you can probably hold it during a short break.
• Be honest and transparent with your audience. You can expect them to do the same.

You’re probably going to get some feedback about your ads, and that’s okay. Tell your audience why you’re doing it, even if that answer is to earn more revenue. That’s what you need for better equipment, support, and growth. That, in turn, creates better content for them.

How Marketers Use Facebook Live Ads

Before we explain how to advertise with Facebook Live, here are a few statistics to help you understand why marketers should use Facebook Live ads:

• Adults in the U.S. are spending over six hours a day watching videos
• 45% of live viewers are willing to pay for exclusive content
• Facebook Live content received more than 330% more search in one year

As you can see, Facebook Live creates a captive and engaged audience. From a marketing perspective, that’s great!

Facebook Live ads also give you more options for ad placement, meaning more opportunities to reach a highly targeted audience.

Related: Beginner’s Guide to Running Facebook Ads for Local Businesses

The Potential Risk of Facebook Live Ads for Marketers

It’s really just one risk — you don’t have complete control over what kind of live video your ads are shown in, and we all know just how shocking content has gotten in the past.

However, there are a few reasons that this risk is less of an issue than it might sound like.

Live streamers are required to have 10,000 viewers and previously successful videos, and a marketer’s ads are way less likely to show up in graphic content since the accounts must follow Facebook’s monetization policies.

Beyond this, it’s fairly safe to market using Facebook Live ads because:

• You can create a block list to identify specific publishers whose videos you don’t want your ads to show up in.
• You can exclude categories, like debated social issues, mature content, tragedy and conflict, or others.

Step-By-Step Instructions to Create a Facebook Live Ad

As far as running Facebook Live ads goes, because you’ve probably run ads before (if not, start here), this is going to be pretty straightforward.

1. Start with Ads Manager.
2. Choose +Create.
3. Select the “video views” ad objective when creating the ad. These are going to give you the best results. You will see other choices, such as brand awareness, reach, traffic, and engagement, but video views are what you need. 
4. Fill out the details of your campaign, including the budget, schedule, and target audience.
5. Under placement, select either automatic placement or manual placement.
   1. When you select automatic placement, Facebook will automatically place the in-stream video at the optimal point, based on the campaign objective you filled out earlier.
   2. Manual placement allows you to choose exactly where the ad will appear.
6. Finish setting up your ad as either a single picture or video.

If you want to create a block list or exclude content, those options are right next to one another, which makes it super easy.

Excluding certain categories is a good rule to practice for any type of ad. This way, your ads won’t be shown with any questionable content that could potentially hurt your client or brand.

How to Break for Facebook Live Ads

Now that you understand how Facebook Live ads work for live streamers, it’s time to learn how to use them. Remember, you need at least 10,000 followers and previous videos with views to start.

The process of taking an ad break is super simple:

• Four minutes into your live video, a blue dollar sign will appear. Next to the $, you’ll see, “You can take an ad break now.”
• Click on the $.
• Facebook will show your audience an ad lasting 5-15 seconds.
• Your live stream resumes after the ad.
• After another five minutes, you’ll have an opportunity to take another ad break.

Best Practices 

You now know the benefits and risks as a marketer, so here’s what you need to keep in mind when creating your Facebook live ads:

• You have 5-15 seconds. That’s not a lot of time, so keep things simple.
• Make an emotional appeal. The best way to utilize your time is to provoke an emotional response. Make the viewer feel fired up, make them laugh, or bring them some joy.
• Create top-of-the-funnel ads. Facebook Live ads are more likely going to be seen by people who don’t know your brand, so use this time to quickly say “hello” and what you can do for them. Learn more at The Beginner’s Guide to Creating a Sales Funnel.
• Consider ads that have already performed well. It might take some tweaking to fit the time constraints, but the metrics of other ads can and should inform what you run for Facebook Live ads.
• Use the correct aspect ratio. Facebook recommends a full landscape 16:9 for video ads, so use that. More on Facebook ads specs here!

For more information on running Facebook ads, our Facebook Side Hustle Course teaches you everything you need to start earning $1,000-$2,000/month running Facebook ads for small businesses.

Test and Track your Facebook Live Ads

This final point is for both live streamers and digital marketers.

Facebook loves to gather data (and we mean the kind you can use), so take advantage of your marketing analytics and video stats. Use them to your advantage.

For live streamers, you should review the feedback from your viewers. If you lost some viewers, did the ad revenue make up for the drop? How did you feel about the experience overall?

For marketers, the focus is more simple. Did the ads work, and did you see a return on the revenue spent?

If you don’t like the answers to those questions, you can always try it again. But it’s also okay if Facebook Live ads didn’t work for you. They aren’t for every influencer or marketer. 

This is actually one of the best aspects of Facebook ads — you can try numerous strategies with campaigns and keep testing until you find what does work for you and your audience. 

The Bottom Line on Facebook Live Ads

When done correctly, Facebook Live ads can be helpful for both influencers and marketers. They give influencers the opportunity to earn some extra cash while marketers can reach new audiences.

Just make sure to test and track this advertising method to make sure it’s working for your audience as well as your business goals so that you can adjust your strategy as needed.