The social media giant offers an easy way for any business to quickly launch an ad campaign displaying business content as users browse Facebook. You can create ads to attract new fans to a page, ensure that users see certain posts, or even direct visitors to a website.

As with most pay-per-click campaigns, businesses must set a budget that indicates how much they are willing to pay in a limited period of time. Costs vary, but on average they cost less than a dollar each, depending on your audience.

Campaigns on Facebook are easier to monitor than search engine pay-per-click ones, because they require much less day-to-day work. They are also cheaper than traditional media. And is that, done correctly, Facebook ads can generate many new fans to your page and more visits to your website. But, most importantly, they can attract new customers.

10-step guide to creating effective ads on Facebook:

1. Access your personal account on Facebook

To start, go to your Facebook and click the Create an ad button that is displayed in the down arrow, right next to the “Home” tab. You don’t need to have a fan page to create an ad, but the owner – or the ad manager – must have a personal account (although the ads do not target personal profiles).

2. Decide what you want to advertise

At this point, Facebook will want to know where your ads should go. You can send users to a website or to your business blog. You can also link them to your fan page or promote other pages of yours on Facebook, such as events and places.

3. Choose your advertising goal

Once you’ve chosen where your ad should lead, decide what you want to do with it. If you want to build a greater presence of your brand in social networks by attracting fans to your page, choose Get more “likes”. If you want to promote specific content, for example your blog, select Promote Page Posts. If you want to drive traffic to your website, click See advanced options.

It is worth experimenting with all the options, although for this demo we will focus on advertising a website.

4. Design the ad

Now is the time to design. Facebook ads consist of 25-character headlines and a 90-character description, plus a photo. Facebook automatically suggests the texts, but it is usually better to rewrite it. This can be updated in real time, so don’t be afraid to be wrong.

The site displays a 100×72 pixel image, so make sure to use a photo that looks clear in this format. Facebook recommends that your image be this size, although the site makes the adjustment. Facebook has numerous standards regarding what you can and cannot post. Therefore, before making your announcement, visit the Advertising Rules.

5. Choose your audience

You can limit the audience of your ad so that it only reaches certain users. You can segment them to certain zip codes, then to age, gender, and interests. In the advanced options you can catalog by language, workplace, relationship status or simply connect with your fans.

6. Establish the name, budget, and calendar

Now, it’s time to name your campaign and define your budget and schedule. The name is indistinct, but you should choose something related to the audience you are targeting. Then tell Facebook how much money you are willing to spend; this can be daily or for the duration of the campaign.

Payment can be per click (each time someone clicks on your ad) or per number of impressions, that is, each time a thousand people see the ad. You can set ads to run continuously or choose exact times to appear.

7. Pay for the ad

After reviewing your first ad, Facebook will ask for your payment information (credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Facebook Ads coupon). The charge is monthly. Facebook can hold your ad for up to one day to approve the content.

8. Monitor your campaign

Now that your campaign is running, you must follow its process using the Ads Manager tool, which is accessed from the left side of your personal account. This shows you information about your campaigns, including your budget, expenses, and calendar.

By clicking on an ad campaign, you can enter to see more information, including graphs and metrics. From here you can see how many people have seen your ad, how many times it is shown in updates and the number of clicks. The two metrics you should focus on are clicks – what you are paying for – and actions, which shows how people are interacting with your ads.

9. Generate a report

You can export reports from the Reports tab in Ads Manager. These consist of spreadsheets or HTML files that can be used to compare ads.

This feature provides information that gives the business an insight into your campaign, including demographics of the people who click on the ads and the amount of time it takes for a user to “like” a page.

10. Manage your ads and make changes on the fly If an ad is not achieving good results, change its attributes by selecting the campaign it belongs to and then clicking on the specific ad. You can edit the text, increase, or decrease the bid and adjust your audience. You can also take advantage of your most successful ads by clicking Create a similar ad in the editor. This will launch a new page to Create an ad with the default characteristics.