Digital ad spending is set to increase in 2025. Agency owners believe that search engine optimization, content marketing, and digital channels like Facebook will bring the best returns next year.
We used to think of companies as “going viral,” but the real question is, how did they achieve such rapid growth? How did they create huge consumer interest?
If you’re running an advertising agency or working in digital services, you must stay up to date with the latest trends.
Where to begin? Start by streamlining your internal processes so your team can focus on building relationships rather than constantly putting out fires.
This guide will walk you through how to run Facebook ads for digital marketing agencies, along with a few practical tips and tools that help you fully realize your ads’ potential.
Why use Facebook ads for digital marketing agencies
Do you want to show off your skills to everyone? Advertising on Meta’s platforms could be the way to do it.
Marketing agencies need to be good at promoting their current clients, but they should also show off what their own agency can do. They often demonstrate their value by delivering exceptional results for their clients. But it’s equally important to showcase their internal capabilities.
Exploring full-service creative agencies can reveal a range of innovative strategies that blend branding, design, and digital marketing to help businesses stand out.
This is true for your clients’ businesses as well. A sure way to stand out is to promote the brand (yours or theirs) across Meta technologies (Facebook and Instagram) to attract more clients fast.
Promoting your client’s businesses
Companies grow faster by showcasing their product’s value and delivering great customer experiences to drive global demand. The ads you create should reflect this value.
Showcase ‘brand expertise’ by sharing insights, expert-written blogs, free webinars, and live sessions to attract potential clients. Make sure to reply to every comment, mention, and question on Facebook.
Also, remember to post regularly and share success stories to build trust with your followers. By consistently appearing in potential clients’ feeds, you’ll easily build trust and recognition, which can translate into conversions and sales down the line.
Here’s the ultimate guide for agencies and freelancers on how to run Facebook ads for clients.
Promoting your own agency
Facebook ads aren’t just for your clients; they’re also a great way to promote your own services. For instance, you can use Facebook ads to display your agency’s successes through case studies and testimonials. This lets you capitalize on new clients who are looking for proven results.
If you’re running out of fresh ideas for inspiring or ever-green ad content, look at what successful agencies are doing.
Check out your competitor’s social media campaigns, learn about their strategies for generating leads, and boost your email marketing by providing high-quality, targeted content to nurture your leads.
All this is to help your customers move through your Facebook ads funnel. Then, use your CRM’s user journey insights to regularly send relevant emails about the latest promotions, product launches, special offers, and more.
Find out more about how to scale your Facebook ads here.
How to get clients for a Facebook ad agency: Top three tips
A big problem for many agencies as they grow is spending too much time promoting other businesses. What they overlook is that they need to put in enough time to also promote themselves. It’s all about finding the right balance.
One thing that can get in the way is not having enough experience with business-to-business (B2B) marketing. If you’re not used to B2B marketing, it could slow down your agency’s growth. That’s why you need to know, for instance, how to get clients for Facebook ad agencies, or how to nurture your existing clients.
1. Generate referrals (the easy way!)
Happy clients are your best advocates! Just ask your current and past clients if they know anyone who might need your services. This is a win-win solution to get more business!
You can also offer a referral program with an incentive to encourage them. This could be a discount or a free service. Make it easy for them with a simple referral form, and send a reminder to your clients if they don’t get back to you in time.
2. Show off happy customer reviews
Get your satisfied clients to leave you positive reviews on platforms like Google or even your Facebook page. You can ask directly, add review links to your website, or even send out opinion emails after a successful campaign. Don’t forget to respond to all reviews (positive or not). This shows you care and helps build trust with future clients.
3. Network with complementary businesses
Partner up with businesses that complement your services. For example, if you specialize in Facebook ads, you might need services from web designers, PPC agencies, or content creators who you can team up with for ongoing projects. The idea is that you help them, and they help you.
How to categorize Facebook ad costs for an agency
If you have any experience with Facebook ads, you know that there’s no one-size-fits-all price tag. Meta uses an auction system where ad costs vary depending on factors like your bid, ad relevance, and audience competition.
So, how do you break these costs down for your agency’s clients and bill them?
Let’s take a look at a few tips:
1. Understand Facebook ad costs
Facebook ad costs are decided by key factors, including:
- Your bid or the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for a result (like a click or view). You can use automated bidding or set manual bid caps.
- Higher ad relevance to your audience means you’ll pay less. Basically, Meta rewards ads with high relevance by lowering their costs.
- Estimated action rates by Meta about how likely users are to engage with your ad. Higher predicted engagement often results in lower costs.
2. Bill your clients based on performance metrics
Do you have any key performance metrics that align with your client’s goals? Add those to your billing details. Here’s what this means:
- CPC (Cost per Click): If their goal is to drive traffic to their website, bill based on the average cost per click.
- CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions): For brand awareness campaigns, calculate based on impressions.
- CPA (Cost per Action): For conversion-based goals (like purchases or sign-ups), charge based on the cost per action.
3. Set clear budget expectations
Most of your clients might be asking themselves, “How much should I spend on Facebook ads?“
It’s important that you help your clients understand what they’re paying for. You can do this by:
- Providing a detailed breakdown to show them how much of their budget goes to ad spend and how much covers your management fee.
- Deciding on budget flexibility. Some clients may want to stick to a set budget, while others are open to scaling up based on results. Clarify this in your agreements.
- Using retainers to offer clients a flat monthly retainer that includes a set amount of ad spend and your management fee. This keeps billing predictable and avoids any surprises.
Tips for running effective Facebook ads for digital marketing agencies
1. Optimize your ad content
Your ads need to stand out in a crowded feed. High-quality visuals paired with compelling copy can make a big difference.
You can upgrade your Facebook ad content and achieve better conversions. For starters, focus on crafting content that truly resonates with your audience.
Your content should also be relevant, original, and insightful, providing real value to your readers. Make sure that your articles are well-researched and showcase your business’s expertise in the field.
Incorporate exciting visuals like infographics, illustrations, and images to make your content more appealing. Additionally, using videos can especially improve engagement levels by adding an element of storytelling that captures and retains the audience’s attention.
Keep these factors in mind:
Here’s how to create ads that grab attention:
- Use high-quality images or videos and avoid stock photos that look generic.
- Your ad’s message should be easy to understand. Instead, focus on the benefits you offer.
- Include a strong Call-to-Action (CTA) to encourage users to take the next step.
Combining these elements can help your Facebook ads stand out and drive better conversions. Let’s take a look at this example of Facebook ads for marketing agencies by Trifecta Marketing Agency.
A fun visual that grabs the attention, a detailed explanation of their offer and a clear CTA with an exciting 25% discount offer. It has everything to convince the right audience to jump right in.
2. Leverage Meta’s targeting options
One of Meta’s greatest strengths is its advanced targeting options. LeadsBridge allows you to sync your CRM segments with Facebook to target, retarget or exclude certain audiences.
Make sure you’re using these features to reach the right audience when running your example Facebook ads for marketing agencies:
- Custom audiences: Upload your client’s customer list to target people who already know their brand.
- Lookalike audiences: Create audiences that resemble your client’s best customers.
- Behavioral and demographic targeting: Use Meta’s detailed targeting options to reach users based on their interests, behaviors, age, gender, and location.
- Conversion leads optimization performance goal: This helps you improve marketing campaigns’ performance and increase the number of successful conversions.
However, you’ll need to implement the Facebook Conversions API to be able to take advantage of this option.
Check out this example of Facebook ads for a digital marketing agency by Elevate Marketing Solutions.
The copy directly addresses the audience, plus the problem and its solution, in less than 10 seconds. A video format offers more information for high-intent leads (chiropractors) who want to know more.
3. Set up automation for seamless data management
Having successful client relationships relies on more than just managing their likes and comments. It depends on real data from marketing reports that provide deeper insights into your team’s performance.
Digital marketing apps are a valuable investment for marketing agencies of any size, as the right tools allow you to deliver high-quality content quickly. However, managing this volume of data requires a system.
Apart from audience targeting, here’s are two more aspects where LeadsBridge can support your agency:
Seamless data synchronization
Automated integration adds efficiency to your team’s efforts and helps prevent your lead generation efforts from going to waste. For instance, LeadsBridge email notifications alert you the moment a lead comes in, enabling immediate follow-up.
You can also build integrations to automatically transfer leads from Facebook lead ads to your CRM or other agency-specialized tools. This allows you to score your leads as they come in and then nurture them with campaigns that are most relevant to them.
Creating more precise campaigns
Conversions API is a powerful tool that can marginally benefit digital marketing agencies. It sends event data directly from your server to Facebook.
It also means bypassing likely issues with browser-based tracking like ad blockers or cookie restrictions. This results in more accurate data, which enables better performance tracking and campaign optimization.
First, you’ll need to integrate it with various CRM systems and marketing tools via LeadsBridge. This gives you ample data to make sure all your customer interactions are tracked. Also it can be used for creating more personalized and effective marketing actions.
Final thoughts
Meta is a gold mine for agencies when it comes to advertising. However, as an agency owner, it’s important to recognize that improving your digital marketing services begins with boosting your agency’s productivity.
To do this, you’ll need to invest your time wisely in developing strong project management processes that center on both customer and employee needs.
Automation is a key factor in this equation.
Discover LeadsBridge solutions for agencies to streamline and enhance your campaigns.
