Facebook is a great advertising tool for lenders. The platform gives you unprecedented access to majority of the US population. In fact, a survey by the Pew Research Center shows that sixty-eight percent of US adults use Facebook, with three-fourths of those using it at least once a day.
What this means for you is that you are finding leads where they are already hanging out, without them having to search you out for information. This increases your odds of connecting with your target audience and turning those leads into sales.
And Facebook makes it super easy for you to create ads. It’s a step-by-step process that helps you create the most effective ads possible based on your audience and messaging. But that is where the leg work for lenders comes in. It is important to know exactly who you are targeting with each ad and what your are trying to say.
Again, Facebook makes it easy to target specific people using the data it collects on users’ demographics and habits. The platform allows you to narrow your audience by a number of factors, such as age, gender, interests, location, behaviors and connections. For example, you could potentially narrow your focus down to target first-time home buyers, or new parents, or those interested in buying on a golf course. Whatever your intended target, Facebook helps you reach it.
Once you know who you are trying to reach, then you build your ad content around that audience. The most effective ads address specific questions for a target audience. For mortgage shoppers, they are likely wanting the best rates for a mortgage as quickly as possible to move forward with a sale. So focus your messaging around that idea, and tweak the creative to match the audience.
Most importantly, make sure you have a strong call to action that encourages the audience to click on the ad. Once they do, they can learn more information from your landing page.
For as simple as Facebook makes the creation and targeting of ads, there are still potential pitfalls to Facebook ads that need to be considered before investing in a campaign.
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- Lack of trust. Yours won’t be the only ad your audience sees, and with an abundance of ads comes an issue of trust. People are more likely to trust ads from businesses they already know, so take the time to build awareness of your brand with your audience before making a hard sale.
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- Bad landing pages. Don’t point your ad to your website home page. Each ad needs to bring people to a landing page specifically designed to match the content of the ad.
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- Generalized ads. People are more responsive to personalized advertising. While it isn’t practical to design an ad for each person, you can use words that make it seem like you are speaking one-on-one with the person who interacts with the ad.
- Irrelevant ads. As tempting as it may be to create one ad for all of your different audiences, this isn’t the way to go. If an ad doesn’t speak directly to your audience, they will consider it irrelevant and likely ignore any future ads from you.
It is possible to create Facebook ad campaigns that drive new leads. It just requires you to strategically plan and create your ads to be as effective as possible.
Bonus Point:
As a lender, you can target (1) people looking to buy a home AND (2) people looking for a mortgage loan.
We’d love to hear how you do Facebook Ads!
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