Marketing is vital to successfully selling more online courses, but organic marketing can take time. Instead, you may want to consider paid advertising. It’s a straightforward marketing tactic that gets your message in front of the right people quickly. 

One of the most popular platforms for paid advertising and course promotion is Facebook. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, makes the process intuitive so advertisers and creators can get their paid ads live as quickly as possible. You can use Meta Ads Manager to create and manage ads on Facebook and Instagram, but in this article, we focus on Facebook only. 

Let’s explore why and how you should use Facebook ads to sell your online courses. 

Why should you advertise on Facebook?

Facebook offers a lot of benefits for creators using the platform. Not only is Meta Ads Manager intuitive and robust, but Facebook is one of the largest social networks. In fact, it has over 3 billion monthly active users globally. With such a large number of users, you’ll be able to connect with new audiences fast–especially with paid ads. 

Some other reasons to use Facebook ads include:

• Cost-effective advertising
• Objective-based targeting that drives users to take certain actions
• Targeting based on demographics, interests, behavior, and more 
• Simple setup and management for accounts, campaigns, and ads

If done correctly, advertising on Facebook ultimately helps drive awareness, course sign-ups, and revenue. 

Types of Facebook ads 

Before advertising on Facebook, it’s important to understand what it offers. 

Facebook uses objective-based targeting that aligns with typical business goals. So, think about what you want to achieve. Do you want to build trust and familiarity? Do you want people to message you or sign up for your email newsletter? With your specific goal in mind, you can choose from six ad objectives:

Objective	Typical business goal
Awareness	• Reach the largest number of people  • Build familiarity with your brand
Traffic	• Increase traffic to a destination, such as your website or course landing page
Engagement	• Increase engagement with your brand and business • Find people who will take a desired action, such as messaging you, clicking your ad, and more
Leads	• Obtain more leads  • Get more signups or messages
App promotion	• Increase installs to a mobile app  • Increase in-app purchases
Sales	• Find people who will likely purchase your course or other offerings

In addition to these objectives, Facebook has multiple ad formats to pick from:

• Image ads. Use your own graphic or stock photos to share high-quality visuals. According to Facebook, images work best when you want to drive website traffic, raise awareness, or quickly publish an ad. 
• Video ads. There are a few video options available, including in-stream, in user feed, and as Stories. 
• Carousel ads. These ads combine images and videos. Share up to 10 images or videos, each with its own link. They can be shown in a specific or automatic order. According to Facebook, carousel ads work best when you want to show multiple products, highlight product features, or explain a process. 
• Collection ads. These ads are more immersive. Users are shown a video, and if they click, they will see a new screen with a grid-like layout. While primarily used for physical products, collection ads can also be used to drive conversions or specific actions on your website or landing page.  

Facebook offers quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to its ad objectives and format. You can ensure that it has something suitable for your business. 

How to set up your first ad 

Now that you understand the types of ads, let’s explore how to set up your first one. You’ll need to do a few things before you start. Then, you can create your campaign, ad set, and ad. 

Before you start 

Facebook does require some steps before diving into advertising. Here’s what you’ll need:

1. A personal Facebook account. You likely have one already, but if not, you’ll need to create an account.
2. A Facebook Page for your business. This Page is exclusively for your business. In addition to a personal account, you’ll also need information about your business to set up the Page. Once that’s done, you’ll automatically have an Ads Manager account.
3. A payment method on file. 

You can also add the Meta Pixel to your website. It’s a piece of code that helps you better understand your customers and analytics. But it’s not required, so you can skip it or add it now. 

After that, you should have other things in mind, like your desired audience, goal, budget, and offer. Have an idea of who you want to target and what to entice them with. You should also have that landing page and ad creative ready to go. 

Campaign creation 

Now, you can set up your first campaign! Your campaign drives the objective of your ad. Campaigns can consist of multiple ad sets and ads with the same overall goal. 

1. Navigate to Meta Ads Manager, and then click Create. You should see this screen: 

2. Next, choose a campaign objective: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App promotion, or Sales. 
3. Pick a buying type. Auction, the default buying type, will most likely be the best option for your campaign. 
4. Choose a campaign setup. “Recommended settings” is automatically selected.

5. Fill in campaign details, like the campaign name.

You also have the option to add a special ad category and A/B test or turn on the Advantage campaign budget. The Advantage campaign budget setting distributes your budget across your ad sets and helps optimize your overall campaign spending. If this setting is left unchecked, you’ll need to set a budget on the ad set level. 

Ad set creation 

Now that your campaign is created, it’s time to make your first ad set. An ad set must be part of a campaign and consists of ads that share similar audiences and other settings. Its settings mostly include where, how, and when your ad will be shown. 

1. Give your ad set a name. 
2. Depending on your campaign objective, you may have to identify a conversion location. This can be your business Page, ad, website, or other destination. You may also need to specify the results you want. 

3. If you didn’t select the Advantage campaign budget, you’ll need to set up your daily or lifetime budget for this ad set. 

4. Audience controls allow you to choose where ads will be displayed. 

5. You can further customize your audience in the Advantage+ audience section. Pick from audience demographics, interests, and behaviors, as well as age and gender. 

6. If you prefer to add block lists, topic exclusions, or other brand suitability controls, you can do so in the Placements section. 

Ad creation 

Once your campaign and ad set are ready, you can select the creatives you want shown and create an ad. You can have a variety of ads in one ad set. 

1. Give your ad a name. 
2. Select Partnership ad, if it is one. 
3. Select your associated Facebook Page. 
4. Choose if you’re setting up a new ad or using an existing post. If it’s an existing post, you’ll need to choose which one. 
5. Choose your ad creative. You’ll need to select the media and text.  

6. You also have the option to add translations and tracking. 
7. Preview your ad. 

If the ad preview looks good, hit Publish, and you’re ready to go! 

Facebook advertising tips for course creators 

Now that you know why and how to advertise on Facebook, here are some extra tips to make it easier and more effective: 

• Monitor results often. Not only is Facebook’s advertising robust, but so is its reporting. Take a look often to see how you’re doing. You may find areas of improvement. 
• Try Meta Blueprint. Facebook offers free resources and courses on how to succeed on the platform, either organically or through advertising. 
• Boost posts for quick promotion. If you don’t want to create an entirely new ad, boost a post from your Page. 
• Start with Meta’s recommended settings. Default and automatic settings can help you get your campaigns up and running quicker, likely producing good results. 
• Switch it up. After you start advertising, don’t be afraid to switch things up, such as your budget, ad creative, and more. Advertising can take experimentation if you’re unfamiliar with it. 

Build on LearnDash to advertise on Facebook

For quick results, advertising can be a part of your overall course promotion strategy. It’s a great way to sell more online courses, whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned course creator. But you’ll also need a great course to advertise. 

If you’re looking for a way to build beautiful, effective courses, take a look at LearnDash LMS for WordPress. It has everything you need to engage learners and grow revenue. And if you don’t have a WordPress site, LearnDash Cloud has you covered. 

Try the LearnDash demo for free now!