I first learned about the AIDA model from one of my favorite faculties while doing MBA at IBA(DU). (Hang tight, I will explain each and every details of the AIDA model soon, but let me share this story with you first)
That was my pre-facebook ad era, long before we started an ecommerce business. In our Marketing 101 (or whatever the name of the course was), our teacher explained the AIDA model. Being an engineering background student, this was the first time I was introduced to the concept of funnel.
And I loved it immediately!
If you know me well, you are already aware that I am a huge proponent of funnel, and I am obsessed with conversion. In fact in Idean we strive to create 'Conversion focused MarTech & Business Strategies' for companies.
So that's when I started to dig deep with the AIDA model. I started researching and finding each and every bit of information about the AIDA model.
Interestingly, few years later we started facebook ads for one of our ecommerce business. It was the early days of ecommerce industry. Facebook organic reach was unbelievable high, and the ads result much more better than now, thanks to less competition in the market.
Most of the people at that time just used the 'Boost' button to run facebook ads. Being a power user, and with my love for tools and MarTech, I went to use Facebook Power Editor (now it's Ads Manager).
That's when I found very interesting discovery. I found that the Campaign Objectives in the facebook follows the AIDA Model!
Now, this is not what your formal education directly teach. Formal education teaches you theories, but rarely they succeed to point out to a real world application.
On the other hand, Facebook doesn't explicitly teaches you what is AIDA. They are more focused on application, and they work on the theories backword.
So these are the things you actually need to figure it out yourself, these are the dots you need to connect.
And once you combine you knowledge, BOOM! You hit a goldmine. You learn why something works, you know how to make it work better, and you know what to do exactly.
And that's what I am going to share you today.
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When you are finished reading, you will understand the 'why', 'how' and 'what'. You will learn the theories and the real application, the rare combination that will help you outperform your competitors.
Now, there are many 'experts' out there who claim to bring you higher reach, engagements etc. They will tell you don't need to learn the science behind the ads to get result. The thing is, it works...until, it doesn't. Some feature design changes, algorithm updates, and the results got buried under ocean for them.
But you and I are not like them. We love to go deep, tear down everything, find the insider psychology and then make things happen. We know that features change, algorithm changes...but science persists.
So let's dive deep.
The AIDA Model
AIDA stands for Attention or Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action.
The AIDA model describes the stages that occur when a person first becomes aware of your offer, become interested and feel desire, and then finally take action, like purchasing. Your customers mostly become aware of you via marketing communication. And the AIDA model helps you understand how you can engaged with a customer in different stages properly.
Attention:
This the first step in the funnel, also known as Awareness stage. Your audience is not aware about your product, service or brand. They have never heard about your before. You need to grab their attention and inform them that you have something to offer. Find out their pain point, make them aware that they have a problem, and you have a solution for that. This is the first time they will learn about your brand, your product and offers.
Interest:
The prospect is aware about your product or service or brand. They found something that's interesting. Now they are looking more closely, trying to research and find out more details. They are evaluating different options and getting more engaged with your brand.
Your goal at this stage is to engage with the prospect with different marketing channel. Have a phone conversation, let him/her message you, try out a demo or trial. You need to provide sufficient information and make compelling offer that will help to take the decision.
Desire
The prospect feels that your produce or service can address his/her specific pain points. S/he is considering to get your product or service and satisfy the need. Now s/he has an emotional connection with your offer, and really want to get it.
Your goal in this step is to make your offer irresistible. It's so good that the prospect feels s/he can't do without this, it's not about the features anymore, it's the emotional connection and desire to get.
Action
The prospect is convinced and ready to take action. S/he is willing to purchase your product, service.
Now you have to guide the prospect properly about how to complete the process effortlessly and convert to a customer. You need to provide the final offers, pricing and appropriate call to action and finish the process.
So as we described above, we can see that according to the the AIDA model - Awareness leads to Interest, which leads to Desire, and finally, Action.
Facebook Campaign Objectives
Let me give me a confession first. When I started running facebook ads around 2015, I struggled a lot in deciding which campaign objective to choose.
In ads manager, Facebook shows three different columns, and each column has different campaign objectives. I was so confused at the beginning. I kept using either the reach or the post engagement type, and was not sure exactly which one to choose. And the info wasn't as available as it is now to figure it out.
Well, the answer seems pretty obvious now.
You need to consider the marketing funnel, what do you want to achieve, and then choose the objective. But it is also difficult at the beginning, isn't it?
So When you open ads manager, you see the above marketing objectives you can choose from.
In my course "Facebook Ads & Marketing Mastery", created in collaboration with Bohubrihi, I explained in detail how to create Facebook Ads like a master using Ads Manager. So here we will not go in that detail. If you are willing to learn Facebook ads or want advanced techniques, check out the course.
But note that the campaign objectives are divided into THREE categories: Awareness, Consideration and Conversion. Let's compare those with our AIDA model.
Facebook Campaign Objectives & AIDA Model Explained
Below you can see facebook objective campaigns are directly comparable with the AIDA model.
The Attention (Awareness) stage in the AIDA model, is reflected as Awareness in Ads manager. The Interest and Desire, both combined are reflected as Consideration. And finally, the Action stage in AIDA is known as conversion.
Let us break down each of the campaign objective and see how can you the properly depending on what you want to achieve or what's your business goal.
Attention -> Awareness
Awareness is the objective where you create interest in your product or service.
For example, if you are opening a new Food Restaurant in Dhaka, your objective will be to let people know about your restaurant, the food, environment etc. This can be also helpful if you are a startup offering a niche service. You want to let people know that you are providing a unique service that can solve a specific problem for them.
There are two objectives in the Awareness Category: Brand Awareness and Reach.
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Brand Awareness
Increase people's awareness of your business, brand or service with this objective. Use this objective when you want to create awareness, but don't necessarily people to engage with the ad, or click, or purchase.
If you are running ads for a large company, say for Unilever or Grameenphone or Square, you can use this objective when you release a new offer or run a campaign and want people to be aware. You are looking to be on Top of Mind mainly here, not wanting people to go to your website or order something.
If you are smaller and midsize company with limited budget, you may not find this one very helpful.
Reach
Show your ad to as many people as possible in your target audience.
This objective is helpful to reach everyone of a small target audience. Say you are running a Supershop like Agora or Shwapno, and you have a customer list of 5000 people who have purchased from you previously. Now you want to offer them a special discount on a special day or on some items. So you can use Reach objective to show them the offer by reaching maximum people in that list with minimum spend.
These are the people who know you already, so your objective is just to reach out to them, no need to create awareness or engagement anymore.
Interest + Desire -> Consideration
Consideration is the objective want people to think about your business and seek more information.
For example, if you are running an ecommerce marketplace like Evaly or Daraz, your objective is get people visit your website and check all the different products you have.
Currently there are six objectives in the Consideration Category: Traffic, Engagement, App Installs, Video Views, Lead Generation and Messages.
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Traffic
Send people from Facebook to any URL you choose, such as your website's landing page, a blog post, app etc. Facebook will show your ad to those people of your target audience who are most likely to click on the link. Facebook algorithm decides from the past behavior which people has higher possibility to take that kind of steps.
This is great for companies who provide services, say consulting firm like Idean. The goal here is mainly to provide some value through blog and different content.
Engagement
Reach people more likely to engage with your post. Engagement includes likes, comments and shares but can also include offers claimed from your page.
Optimizing your campaigns for Engagement means that Facebook will deliver your ads to those people who are most likely to engage with your ad. For example, a celebrity may want to promote his new video or book or movie, or a newspaper like Prothom Alo wants to promote their news. The Engagement objective will help them to create and get thousands of comments and shares. Again another company may want to promote a contest where people can participate using this objective.
Choosing the Engagement objective can also assist you in building your Facebook Page Engagement Audiences that you can use later to re-target.
App Installs
Use the App Installs objective if you have an app and wish to send people to the app store where they can download your app in android or ios. One of my clients, Styline Collection, released new android app and we used this campaign to grow app user base 10X in a very short period. (Disclaimer - I am also an Angel Investor and Shareholder in Styline Collection)
Video Views
Use the Video Views objective when you are promoting a video and your primary objective is to get more people to view your video. Your priority here is not to click on a link or convert on whatever you are promoting.
Video Views is a great objective to choose when you wish to build up a video engagement audience that you can use for re-targeting purposes in the future.
Facebook Live is a popular marketing technique in Bangladesh now. You can use video views objective to promote your live videos later to larger audience.
Also, Video is one of the greatest mode of communication now a days. Facebook has recently doubled down on videos. As many predicted so far, video is the future of digital marketing. We have seen many brands increasingly using videos to promote their product or service. I strongly recommend to increase using video objective in your campaigns. This is one of the objectives you need to explore more and more and get full essense out of it.
Lead Generation
This objective is used to collect leads for your business. Create ads that collect info from people interested in your product, such as sign-ups for newsletters.
Personally I am a huge fan of lead generation techniques. This works specially well with company that provides premium services to clients (like Consulting Firms as Idean Consulting). I have researched some of the best companies in the world that use the lead generation technique properly. Personally I have also spent thousands of dollars on getting recognized certification courses on Traffic Acquisition and Lead generation techniques. Hopefully in the coming days, will write more on those techniques, and will create full courses on these topics. But for now, specially if you are in service business, use this objective to your benefit.
Also, Lead Generation can work great for companies selling online courses. There are several eduTech platform in Bangladesh right now, like Bohubrihi, that offers online courses. This objective can be helpful for them. Also, for niche platforms providing very specialized courses for specific audience, this can be very helpful. In Idean Lab, for example, we offer advanced training and certification courses on MarTech, Digital Marketing and Business Strategies. As we value relationship and quality over quantity, Lead generation is one of the core strategies for us in Idean.
Messages
Connect with people on Facebook, communicate with potential or existing customers to encourage interest in your business. If you are running f-commerce, don't have a website yet, you can use Message objective to drive people in your inbox directly. There are thousands of Facebook pages in Bangladesh right now who are selling products online. This is a great tool for them.
But words of caution here - people don't like to be spent messages from businesses. Think you are watching latest series on Netflix. it's climax time and tension is high - ting. Your messenger gives notification. You open up with high expectation, thinking a friend has replied you back, only to find out one of the telecommunication companies have sent you a sponsored message asking to buy 1 GB internet for 3 days, again.
Crap, I hate these messages! So do our customers. So be very relevant and use Sponsored message carefully.
Action -> Conversion
Conversion is the objective that encourage people interested in your business to opt in, register, use or buy your product or service.
Eventually, we all want to sell something and generate revenue. But that doesn't mean we always choose only conversion objective and nothing else. As explained already, only going through the right marketing funnel and using appropriate objective according to your business goal will give you maximum return on investment.
The conversion objective can used by any company, only when the audience is ready to take the final decision and buy from you.
Currently there are three objectives in the Conversion Category: Conversions, Product Catalog Sales and Store visits.
Conversions
Use conversions objective to encourage people to take a specific action on your business's site, such as having them to add items to a cart, download your app, register for your site, or make a purchase.
Conversion is the ultimate objective for companies that want to sell products or services online. For example, if you are running an ecommerce store or selling online course, you can use this objective to sell you product directly. On the other hand, if you are managing a page for a non-for-profit NGO, this is not a right choice for you.
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Product Catalog Sales
Use the Product Catalog objective when you have an e-commerce store and want to promote products from your product catalog. This objective helps you to show multiple items to your audience based on their interest, activities and your ads performance.
Store Traffic
Use the Store Visits Facebook ad objective when you have multiple business locations and wish to promote your business to people who are nearby. This can be a great way to capture foot traffic to your business, delivering ads that are timely based on people’s current location. Referring to Styline Collection again, we have 4 different location, and thus this objective is very helpful for us.
Design Perfect Facebook Funnel and Convert like Crazy!
So what does a perfect Facebook funnel with AIDA model look like actually?
A Facebook funnel with AIDA means you have to take your prospects through the stages described in the AIDA and Campaign objectives.
Many advertisers make the mistake of running a one time campaign and pray for results. It doesn't work that way. To get better result, it's necessary to go through the funnel.
(Btw have you downloaded our FREE ebook 'The Ad Engine: 7 Step Process for Killer Marketing" yet? If not, get that copy now. It will be helpful for you).
So instead of running one single campaign, first create Awareness, then Engage with your audience, and finally approach to convert. This will help to increase the conversion rate.
And to create a perfect funnel - Test, Test and Test.
There's no one silver bullet that works for all. What works for me just fine, may not work for you at all.
So test different campaign objectives using the AIDA model, and figure out the best combination that works for you.
Once you got a near perfect funnel, keep optimizing and fine tuning.
And finally, never stop testing.
Feel free to comment below to discuss further, I would love to hear your valuable opinion and insight!
