7 Essential Facebook Ads for Business Strategies: Scaling Your Small Business
If you are following the correct process, you will undoubtedly dedicate a significant amount of time and effort to planning, building, and deploying your Facebook ad campaigns. There are countless steps to consider, and for those unfamiliar with the system, the entire process can become overwhelming, making it easy to lose direction.
To succeed with Facebook ads, advertisers need to define and prepare a clear strategy before hitting the “create ad” button. Without a specific direction, it is easy to get caught up in countless options, scattered metrics, and ultimately deviate from the goal you are optimizing for.
In this article, BlackHatWorld will explore in detail the 7 most important types of Facebook ads for modern business strategies. The great thing is that with these strategies, you can develop a sustainable business, attract the ideal customer profile, grow your email list, elevate your brand, and especially, “appear everywhere.” Imagine your brand covering all of Facebook; that is when you can increase product value, scale your business, and most importantly, overcome the information fatigue that Facebook advertising brings today.
7 Essential Facebook Ads for Business Strategies
When we work with you or advertisers trying to scale their businesses using Facebook ads, we recognize one thing very clearly: running a lot of ads does not automatically guarantee effectiveness. The key lies in the strategy, especially the following 7 ad types and implementation methods. These are the strategies we have directly applied to small businesses, helping them to increase leads, boost revenue, and optimize budgets in the smartest way. Let’s analyze each strategy in detail so you can immediately apply it to your business.
Remarketing using Facebook Pixel
If you have ever viewed a product on a website and then… constantly saw it appear on Facebook afterward, congratulations, you have experienced remarketing, one of the “master techniques” of Facebook advertising. The implementation method is very simple:
- Install the Facebook pixel on the website
- Users visit the product page or the shopping cart
- Facebook tracks their behavior and displays follow-up ads as they scroll through the newsfeed.
Be sure to set up the pixel to track the order process on Facebook, from customers remembering the brand, increasing recognition, and especially making them return to purchase. I personally had a very fun experience: when looking for a 1999 Dodge Viper ACR on AutoTrader, every time I opened Facebook, I saw a picture of that car. And ultimately, the marketing “obsession” won: we actually bought it!
Lookalike Audience Campaign
Facebook possesses a massive amount of data about users: from age, gender, interests, habits, the content they view… to their occupation, favorite sport, or TV show they admire. And you can fully leverage this data source to expand the pool of potential customers through Lookalike Audience.
For example, if you have 1,000 customer emails who have previously made a purchase, you can upload this list to Facebook. Assume about 700 emails are matched by Facebook to real accounts. Then, the system will analyze common points among these customers – such as interests, behavior, demographics – to create a similar audience file (lookalike audience) of up to 1–2 million people. You just need to run ads to that lookalike file, and this is where many small businesses begin to experience explosive growth. Some of our clients achieve results such as:
- Spending 1 dollar on advertising returns 4 to 6 dollars
- Spending 10,000 dollars yields 40,000 dollars
- Some even spend 40,000 dollars and earn 80,000 dollars
Lookalike is one of the most powerful targeting strategies when you want to scale while maintaining reasonable costs.
Custom Audience from Email List
Upload your email list to Facebook and create a custom audience specifically for this segment. Many people wonder: “They are already on the email list, why should I advertise to them again?” The answer is very simple:
- The email open rate is currently very low (many industries only have 10%)
- Meaning 90% of customers do not see the message you send
But when you run a Facebook ad targeting that exact email segment:
- They see the content in their inbox
- They see the content on Facebook
- They see you “everywhere.”
The results are extremely clear:
- Increases credibility
- Increases conversion rate
- Easier selling
- Increases brand value
- Creates stronger trust with customers
This is the number 1 strategy because it is easy to implement, highly effective, and suitable for all types of businesses.
Each Ad Set must be separated.
The first and most crucial thing we always emphasize with advertisers is that each ad set must be separated. When testing ads, the thing you need to think about immediately is all the target audiences (target audiences) you want to test. And each audience must be separated, absolutely not combined. Specific examples:
- One ad set targeting competitor A
- One ad set targeting competitor B
- One ad set targeting competitor C
By doing so, you will know:
- Which audience has the highest CTR
- Which audience responds best to your content
- Which audience brings the lowest cost per lead
Suppose you run a test targeting the fans of 3 major competitors:
- Competitor A: 3 dollars/lead
- Competitor B: 10 dollars/lead
- Competitor C: 25 dollars/lead
Clearly, you will turn off B and C, and the entire budget will be directed to A – the best-performing audience. While many people constantly struggle to optimize images, headlines, funnels…, we always remind you: targeting must be the first thing to optimize. The biggest mistake of many advertisers is putting all audiences into one massive ad set, and the result is… not knowing what is working.
The page likes campaign with the message “Hit like if you love…”
This is one of the campaigns we use to increase real, high-quality likes at a low cost. The formula is very simple: “Hit like if you love…”
A practical example we once implemented: One of our clients did marketing for a radio station in Hawaii. The most loved artist there was Bruno Mars. We created an ad as follows: “Hit like if you love Bruno Mars.” We then targeted exactly the people who had liked pages related to Bruno Mars. Results:
- CTR increased sharply
- CPC dropped significantly
- Cost per like was extremely low (in the golden age, it was 0.01 USD, currently around 0.10–0.15 USD is still very good)
This is an extremely effective strategy for building a quality fan base.
Cold targeting based on competitor interests
This is the simplest way to reach new people while still ensuring quality. Ask yourself: “Who are my top 3 biggest competitors?” Then:
- Find their Facebook page
- Go to the interest section
- Target each competitor into a separate ad set (this is when the strategy of 7 comes back)
You only need to measure:
- Which ad set is the cheapest
- Which ad set has the highest
Then allocate the budget to the best audience.
Target people who have liked your page (warm audience)
Many of you have Facebook pages with 5,000 – 10,000 likes, but do not realize that posts only reach about 5–10% of that number. This means you have to pay to reach the very people who already liked you. This is an extremely high-quality audience because:
- They understand you
- They like your content
- They engage more → higher CTR
- Higher CTR → lower CPC
Despite this, many advertisers only target people who have not liked the page. This inadvertently causes them to miss a “golden” audience. Practical examples:
- When we run remarketing ads to existing fans, CPC is often 30–50% lower
- CTR is often 2–3 times higher than a cold audience
- Conversion rates are also significantly higher
Therefore, you must have a creative ad campaign for your warm audience on your fanpage. This is an unmissable strategy.
The mindset for running Facebook Ads: Scaling small businesses easily
When working with small business owners or local service advertisers, the first thing we emphasize is that the ad-running mindset is more important than technical skills. Many people solely focus on learning how to click buttons, set up campaigns, and advanced optimization… but neglect the most crucial part: understanding how Facebook operates and how service customers make decisions.
If the mindset is wrong, no matter how much you click to run ads, they will not be effective. But if the mindset is right, with just a simple strategy, you can still sustainably scale your business.
Do not overcomplicate Facebook ads
For a service business, you do not need the 6–7 step funnels that many marketing courses often mention. Such overly long funnels are only suitable when you have an extremely large customer base, and with a local service business, you do not have enough data for the funnel steps to work. Keep everything as simple as possible. A clear invitation, such as:
- Free consultation
- Free quote
…is usually enough to bring in quality customers.
If your funnel exceeds 3 steps, it means you are heading in the wrong direction. We have seen many businesses try to build complex funnels, ultimately just causing customers to drop off along the way.
Do not sell services directly in ads, unless the price is under 100 USD
Do not sell services directly in ads, unless the price is under 100 USD.
Although the funnel should be simple, you cannot sell high-priced services directly from the ad, because customers do not have enough trust to buy immediately. Our rule: Services over 100 USD must have an intermediate step before the sale. Example:
- If you do kitchen work, offer free material: “Guide to selecting the most optimal kitchen countertop in 2025.”
- After the client downloads the material, you retarget them with an invitation to book a free consultation.
- Or simpler: ad → book a direct consultation (2 steps).
For service businesses, the most suitable funnel is 2–3 steps, not 1 step, and not 7 steps.
Showcase your work itself in the ad
Customers do not believe generalizations. They believe in real evidence. Show clients you are truly good through your work itself:
- Kitchen installer → before and after images of the finished project
- Photography → eye-catching portfolio
- Services without visuals → use a video testimonial or genuine written feedback from real customers
- Financial expert → tell an (anonymous) story about helping a client optimize taxes or reduce investment risk.
If you do something well, put it in the ad. This is the fastest way to build credibility.
Featuring the face of the business owner or representative in ads
Service clients want to work with people, not logos. Appear in your own ads:
- Direct address videos
- Photos taken with the product or in the work environment
- You appear in a part of the ad image
We have run hundreds of projects and realized that ads with a “real face” always have a higher CTR, lower CPC, and much better conversion rate than anonymous ads.
Avoiding overly “salesy” ads
Unlike eCommerce, service businesses cannot use gimmicks like fake promotions, false countdowns, flash discounts within 24 hours… because you are only running ads to a small client file. If you do this, the brand can quickly lose credibility, and advertising costs will increase sharply because customers constantly ignore the ads. For service businesses, the most important things are:
- Maintaining a trustworthy image
- Keeping promises
- Professional communication
This is why we always advise you: advertise like an expert, not like a “rushed salesperson.”
Do not run ads to an overly small audience
This is the most common mistake made by service businesses. Here is an example we encountered:
- An advertiser selected all of Gloucestershire with an audience of 420,000 people
- Then, I added the target “Facebook page admin,” leaving the audience with only 5,500 people → And the campaign could not be optimized because the audience was too small
Simple rules:
- Audience under 250,000 people: use open targeting
- Only filter by age and gender if the audience is still over 100,000 – 250,000 people
- If you are in a small city with only 30,000 residents, open targeting is completely normal.
Facebook needs data to learn. If you constrain the audience too much, ads will be expensive and difficult to generate results.
With the 7 essential Facebook ad strategies we have shared, you can completely scale your small business more sustainably and effectively. The key is not just in the budget, but in how you think, allocate, split audiences, nurture, and optimize target audiences. By simply applying them correctly and persevering, you will see costs decrease, lead quality increase, and your brand become increasingly recognized strongly on Facebook.
Frequently asked questions
Start with hot audiences like existing fans and retargeting. This is the cheapest audience group, easy to engage, and delivers the fastest results. Only then should you expand to cold audiences.
You should monitor continuously for the first 3–5 days and only make adjustments when you have enough data. Absolutely do not turn on and off too early because the algorithm needs stable time to optimize effectively.
💬 Contact now for free consultation from BHW!
- Website: https://vi.blackhatworld.io/
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- Email: [email protected]
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