How to Find a Facebook Ads Consultant

Social media has become one of the most important digital marketing channels in the past decade. Several years ago when I started in the industry, Facebook Ads management was seen as a minor task. It could be delegated to an intern or entry level team member. But today, Facebook ads are a major part of any online marketing strategy. Finding the right Facebook Ads consultant is critical to your success. If you don’t, you could spend thousands of dollars and get nothing in return.

It has become more difficult to get good results due to Facebook’s tracking changes. This makes it more difficult to see what results your ads generated and increases the cost to get those results. 

Finding the right Facebook Ads expert can be the difference between knowing what results your ads are generating and being left in the dark.

That’s why we wanted to create this article to provide you with useful tips for finding your future Facebook Ads consultant.

What do Facebook Ads Consultants Do?

The short answer is a lot these days, but let’s break it down. Any seasoned Facebook Ads consultant that’s worth working with should be able to do the following:

• Basic Persona Research & Audience Creation – this is probably one of the most hard skills to have because audiences on Facebook are becoming increasingly broader. Social media is also a form of interruptive marketing which means that people usually aren’t thinking about your product or service. They want to connect with their family/friends or pursue their own interests. That’s why it’s so important to find people with interests that align with what you have to offer. Otherwise you’re not going to get nearly as much out of your ad spend.

• Develop Ad Messaging & Review Ad Creative – besides finding the right people, sharing the right messaging is important. Any Facebook advertiser worth their salt will know how to attract people’s attention, give them a relatable message based upon what they care about, connect what they care about with what you offer, and get people to take action. 

• Create & Optimize Campaigns – Once the first two skills are covered, it’s important to have someone that knows how to set up campaigns that will give you the most bang for your buck. What separates the novice from the expert in this case is a strong consideration for what data your account has and how to put it to use based upon your marketing goals. Without this experience, you could be wasting a lot of your budget.

• Understand How Facebook’s & Instagram’s Algorithms Work – it’s not necessary to know all the in’s and out’s of the algo. Though you should look for someone that knows how Facebook picks ads in its ad auction, how your ads will show, and what you can do to optimize your campaigns to get your ads to show more.

• Reporting – is important for understanding your progress towards your goals. Yet having effective reporting on Facebook is becoming increasingly difficult due to tracking changes. Hiring a Facebook Ads consultant that knows how to review both in-platform & back end results to see whether your ad campaigns are successful is important.

• Soft Skills – besides the basic skills mentioned above, we firmly believe that any Facebook Ads consultant needs to be an effective communicator, take pride in their work, work well with your team, and prioritize your success.

You might not understand all of these concepts and that’s perfectly natural. After all, if you want to find someone else to manage your Facebook Ad account, you don’t need to know all this information. If your potential consultant can’t provide you with meaningful answers to show how they manage an account, then that is a clear sign that you need to find someone else.

What do Excellent Facebook Ads Consultants Bring to The Table?

Every business has their own unique goals, target audiences, value propositions, and services. Nowadays there are thousands of people out there that have managed Facebook ads accounts. Here’s are some particularly rare qualities that elite Facebook Ads Consultants have:

• Experience managing $1000 to +$500,000 in monthly ad spend. This drastically varies on Facebook, though you should have someone that has managed a variety of accounts with a variety of budgets that knows how to manage these budgets effectively at scale.

• Over 5 years of experience managing Facebook Ad accounts – this is one of the defining differences between the recently experienced ad managers (minimum of 2 years experience) and the seasoned ad manager.

• Managing accounts in your specific industry and knowing what’s required to manage accounts in your industry. 

• Prior case studies that show an ability to achieve meaningful results. Like our case studies here.

• A track record of effective communication to help you when you need it the most. 

• Project Management skills with a sensible organizational path to success. Seeing that someone is able to plan out the first month or 90 days of their work with you is a good sign they can stay on top of the work & their team.

• Advanced Persona Research Skills – someone that is able to take insights from Facebook, analytics tools like Google Analytics, and other back end sources/3rd party reports to develop meaningful persona insights. 

• Tracking Implementation Skills – someone that can help set up tracking on your site/CRM then provide you with an ability to send conversion data back into your account. Furthermore, having someone that can diagnose your tracking is a huge bonus that can save you a lot of development time.

• They are or have been certified through Facebook’s Blueprint program. Unlike Google’s free certification program, Facebook’s certification program for ad buyers & planners is a decent sign of experience. The reason for this is you have to study all of the applicable material Facebook gives in its courses. Then you have to pay to take a 2 part exam to become certified. That’s not to say that all elite Facebook Ads marketers are certified. There are other bootcamps/courses/certifications that show a degree of expertise. However, it is a very good sign that you’ve found a good Facebook Ads expert if they have become certified.

•  A Creative Mind – anyone can create an ad, people see a lot of ads. Not everyone can create ads that can attract someone’s interest, get them to read/see more, then inspire them to take action.

• A Data Geek – you need someone that can read your account’s performance data, see where the opportunities are to improve, then use that information to effectively optimize your campaigns/ad sets/ads.

It’s hard to find all of this in one consultant or even in a group of consultants. Most importantly, we are sponges for feedback that constantly seek to learn from our successes and challenges. We are not perfect, though I will say that we possess nearly all of the skills that were mentioned. If you would like to discuss any of these points further, I would be happy to make time for you on a 1:1 call.

So what does that mean for your business?

If you don’t know how to use Facebook ads you’re facing the risk of losing money. Regardless of the platform, social media campaigns are complex and intricate. Hiring an expert to manage these in your place can help improve their effectiveness and overall chance to target the audience you’re looking to reach. Moreover, the right Facebook Ads consultant can manage them in a manner where they perform at the best level so your budget is being allocated effectively. 

Let’s be honest, you have a business to run and other companies may be using a Facebook expert to leverage their campaigns. It only makes sense to produce ads that are more influential than your competitors. The only way to do this is by hiring a Facebook expert that has the technical prowess and expertise. 

Nowadays, social media is the second largest market for digital ads with $153 billion in worldwide revenue in 2021 (only behind search advertising). Which is why it’s increasingly important to have an experienced Facebook Ads expert to help you generate more revenue from social media.

There are quite a few stats that support our claims. Though here are few top stats that show how important Facebook advertising is for your business:

• Through Facebook ads manager, your campaigns can reach over 3 billion people on Facebook & 1.8 billion on Instagram.

• 78% of American consumers say they discovered products on Facebook & the average user clicks on 11 ads per month.

• As businesses have discovered the potential of using Facebook, they have increased their ad spend to get more revenue which has slowly resulted in more competition.

Established Trust Between Both Parties

Every business owner needs to establish a level of trust when it comes to hiring any marketing consultant. In order to feel confident, you need to understand the fundamentals of Facebook ads. 

If you don’t know about paid media advertising, how can you determine if its a good fit for your business?

Almost every business owner wants to know what questions they need to ask before they sign the contract. Moreover, because they lack the knowledge surrounding social media advertising, they don’t feel as confident in who to go with. 

What you really need to do is establish a baseline level of trust between yourself and the prospective consultant. You’ll want to carefully listen to what they’re offering and the questions they ask. For example, an experienced Facebook expert knows that your ad campaign success isn’t solely tied to digital ad management. Rather, how well your marketing and sales funnel intertwines with your ads is a better indication of performance. 

Before a consultant even sets up a campaign, he or she needs a fundamental understanding of your business model. Who are you targeting? What are your current social media processes? This means a great Facebook consultant will end up asking you a lot of questions to leverage their expertise. They will want to know more about your business and what you’re trying to achieve with your account first. They’ll take this information and figure out how they can use Facebook Ads to achieve your goals.

Experience Matters

Speaking of trust, we believe that experience is important for establishing trust. Before hiring a Facebook Ads consultant, it’s important to know what kind of experiences they have. Here are some questions you should consider asking your prospective consultant:

• How long have you been managing paid social accounts for?
• Are you certified & what do you do to maintain your understanding of Facebook Ads accounts?
• Do you have any previous case studies? Ideally ones that relate to your industry.
• Do you have testimonials from past or current clients?
• How do you choose which audiences to target?
• How do you create ad copy for your clients?
• What do you do to improve cost efficiency?
• What will you do to help me achieve my marketing goals?
• Do you offer complimenting services such as SEO & Paid Search?

It’s important to hire a consultant that works toward the same goals that you’ve set for your business. The wrong hire could lead to misplaced ad spend, poor conversions, and most importantly a waste of time and money. Keep this in mind when you’re talking with different consultants. 

Choose Centaur Consulting Group to Manage Your Facebook Ad Campaigns

Hiring a Facebook Ads consultant is an investment that can pay off big if you choose the right consultant. If you want to learn more about working with the right Facebook Ads consultant, then I would be more than happy to help. Schedule time with me today to find out more.