The internet loves videos. A recent survey found that 44% of those surveyed watch 5 or more videos a day and 6% watch too many to count. With so many of us already naturally engaging with video, it’s not surprising that video ads are a really effective form of advertising. On Facebook it’s easy for viewers to like, comment and share video ads, so you’re likely to get engagement on top of the views you’re paying for.

Facebook’s advertising platform, Ads Manager, is fairly simple and intuitive to use. Follow the instructions and you can create your first ad in 15 minutes provided you have your target market in mind and the video and copy for your advert ready to go.

Facebook advertising is one of the best options for reaching a specific audience for two reasons. Firstly, Facebook has the largest user base of all the social media platforms, with over 2 billion monthly active users. Secondly, the targeting can get really specific. You can target by location, interests, followers of specific pages and even things like ‘Friends of people who recently moved house’ which would be a perfect targeting option for a house plant delivery company.

Generally, views on Facebook are cheaper than those on YouTube. And while it used to be a common criticism that Facebook views were counted after just 3 seconds (we did it ourselves in our What Is A View post) Facebook have progressed their ad offering, and now you can specify that views are only paid for after 15 seconds. So, if your video is 15 seconds or less, you will only pay when the whole thing has been watched through – this option is called ‘ThruPlay.’ Naturally, ThruPlay is more expensive than the 2 second view option (of which only those that watch the ad for an additional second will actually show up as a view.) But, if you’re working to a limited budget and Facebook meets the needs of your campaign, it might be the better option for you.

Once your campaign is live you can monitor its progress in Ads Manager and tweak accordingly. Say you’re looking to reach a nice split of people from London and Manchester, but your ad has been live for a day and 90% of views are from London, you can pause London and let the Manchester ad catch up.

At the end of your campaign you’ll have heaps of information to sift through; who watched your video, for how long, where they live, what device they watched it on, as well a breakdown of any additional targeting put in place. All this information can be really useful for planning future campaigns.