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How To Create Effective Fitness Facebook Ads

fitness facebook ads

Whether you’ve just started your own PT business or are struggling to attract new clients, fitness Facebook ads are an essential tool for any fitness professional. 

But if you’ve never used them before, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve compiled the ultimate guide to Facebook ads for your fitness business, covering:

Before we get started, expand your clientbase and enhance your business with OriGym’s Level 4 personal training courses! Enquire today, or download our free course prospectus here to browse the full range of courses we offer. 

Why Fitness Facebook Ads Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Strategy

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Before we get into how to create fitness Facebook ads, let’s first establish exactly what they are and why they are so effective. 

Facebook ads are simply paid ads that appear on Facebook and are targeted towards a specific demographic. 

They work on a Pay Per Click (PPC) or Per Per Impression (PPI) basis. 

Pay Per Click is when companies pay Facebook for every click their advert gets. PPC is the payment model that is mainly used by companies wanting to drive traffic from Facebook to another website. 

Pay Per Impression is when you pay Facebook whenever someone simply sees the ad. This is the model mostly used for increasing brand awareness or generating leads. 

Facebook advertising can grow your business by helping you to:

  1. Get more engagement such as likes, shares and comments on a post
  2. Drive more targeted visitors to your website
  3. Get more Direct Messages from prospective clients on Facebook or Instagram itself

Facebook ads can be in a variety of formats, including:

  • Images
  • Videos 
  • Carousels (several images)
  • ‘Instant experience’ (a full-screen advert that opens up when someone clicks on your advert on a mobile device)
  • Stories ads
  • Collection ads (opens up an eCommerce widget allowing users to browse your products)

We will explore some of these in more detail later in this article!

Facebook ads are quickly becoming one of the most popular and effective marketing tools for all types of small businesses- including in the fitness sector!

Whether you’re a self-employed PT wanting to advertise your services, or you’re a gym owner wanting to create gym Facebook ads, there are many reasons why you should use Facebook ads for your fitness business. 

So, here are 4 key benefits of using Facebook ads for your fitness business: 

#1- Fitness Facebook Ads Allow You to Reach a Huge Number of Potential Clients

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Perhaps the main reason why fitness Facebook ads are so effective is due to the huge number of potential customers your adverts can reach. 

With 2.93 billion active monthly users, it is one of the largest advertising platforms in the world. And this number is constantly growing!

Plus, these users spend a huge amount of time on Facebook, with an average daily usage of 33 minutes- which is more than any other social media platform!

Facebook users also span across a wide range of demographics. Whilst most users are between aged 18 and 24, there are also a significant number of older users, even above 65! 

This means that you can use Facebook fitness ads whatever your target audience, from teenagers to personal training for elderly adults

These users also come from all over the world, meaning that your fitness Facebook ads won’t be limited by country, giving you access to potential clients all over the world!   

The vast scope of Facebook ads is what makes it such a popular and effective advertising method compared to other forms of advertising.

Compare this to printed advertising, for example.

Things such as posters, flyers and business cards will only reach a certain demographic in a certain place. For example, putting posters for your personal training business in a local gym will only reach potential clients who happen to see your poster on their way out of the gym. 

Whereas if you put the same information into a Facebook ad, the chances of your target audience seeing it are much higher. The same person who left the gym and didn’t see your poster, may then sit in the car, check Facebook on their phone and see your personal trainer Facebook ad instead!  

It is therefore much more worthwhile putting your time and money into Facebook ads for your fitness business. 

#2- Facebook Fitness Ads Allow You to Micro-Target Your Exact Audience

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We have established that Facebook ads allow you to access potential clients from a huge quantity and range of demographics all over the world. 

But what makes Facebook advertising so effective compared to other forms of advertising is that you can then narrow this wide range of people down to a highly specific target audience- more so than any other advertising platform.

This is possible because Facebook allows you to specify exactly the type of Facebook user you want your advert to reach. 

You can target audiences based on factors such as:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Interests 
  • Behaviours (i.e. their browsing behaviours, such as whether they have visited your website before)
  • Connections (target people who already like your page or have connections who do)

For example, say your business is personal training pregnant women. You could therefore use Facebook advertising to target specifically pregnant women. This could be determined by factors such as women who have searched for pregnancy-related topics and products, or women of a certain age. 

We will outline exactly how to create a Facebook ad targeting fitness in the next section of this article! 

Being able to target such a specific audience has major benefits for your PT business. This is because the people that see your fitness Facebook ads will therefore already fit your target audience, in terms of their demographic, needs and interests. In other words, they are already potential clients!

This therefore means that they are much more likely to click on your ad and ultimately turn into a paying client!

#3- Facebook Fitness Ads are Quick to Set Up and Get Results

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Another great benefit of Facebook fitness ads is that they are easy and quick to set up- and quick to get you results!

Once you have set up an account with Facebook Ads Manager, the process is quick and easy. In fact, we will explain how to get started with Facebook ads for your fitness business in the next section of this article.

But in summary, according to Facebook, once you have set up your advert, it will only take up to 24 hours for it to be reviewed and go live.

This quick set-up therefore means that you can start attracting new clients and growing your business straight away!

#4- Facebook Fitness Ads are Affordable for Any Budget

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Finally, Facebook ads are one of the most affordable forms of advertising out there.  

In fact, one of the unique things about Facebook ads is that you will only spend whatever your budget is. 

For example, if you only have £5 a day to spend on Facebook ads for your fitness business, it will never cost you more than £5 a day! We will explore the cost of Facebook fitness ads in more detail later. 

This means that even if you have just qualified and are starting a personal trainer business with no money, Facebook ads are still an accessible form of advertising. 

As we have said, Facebook advertising works on a Pay Per Click or Pay Per Impression basis, meaning that you pay each time a user clicks on your advert.

It varies across countries, but in the UK, the average cost per click is £0.78, whilst the average cost per thousand impressions is £5.23.

This means that you will essentially only have to pay if your ad is successful and generates a lead. This therefore makes it much more cost-effective than other forms of advertising where you would pay a set fee, no matter if your ad generates leads or not.

For example, you could spend a lot of money on print advertising such as posters. But if no-one enquires or contacts you off the back of it, the money you have spent will have essentially gone to waste!

This is what makes fitness Facebook ads so budget-friendly! 

How to Set Up Facebook Ads for Your Fitness Business

Now that we’ve explained why they are so successful, you’re probably wondering how exactly to set up Facebook ads for your fitness business. We’ll outline the process in 6 simple steps! 

Step 1- Create a Facebook Business Page and Facebook Ad Manager Account

best fitness facebook ads

In order to use Facebook ads, you will first need to set up a Facebook business page for your fitness business. 

We have a whole article here detailing how to create a personal trainer Facebook page. But in summary, you will first need to create a personal Facebook account. 

  1. Create a personal Facebook account.

personal trainer fitness ad 1

2. You can then create a Facebook business page by clicking on the ‘Pages’ tab, then clicking ‘Create New Page’. 

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3. You can then fill in features such as:

    • Description of your business or a personal trainer bio
    • Your location 
    • The services you offer and pricing
    • Logo and profile picture

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Once this is set up, you can then create an ad account using Facebook Ad Manager

Facebook Ad Manager is simply a tool that helps you create and manage your Facebook ads.

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The Facebook Ad Manager tool will be automatically added to your business page. You can find it by clicking on ‘Ad Center’ on the left hand side of your business page, then choose ‘All Ads’.

At the bottom of that page, then click on ‘Ad Manager’. 

You can access this on desktop, or there is an app version of the software if you prefer to manage your ads on the move!

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Step 2- Add the Facebook Pixel to Your Website

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Once you have a Facebook Ad Manager, you then need to add a Facebook Pixel to your personal trainer website

A Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that you integrate into your website. It collects data to help you track conversions from your Facebook ads to your website. In other words, how many people arrive at your website from clicking on your Facebook ads. 

Facebook has a guide to how to set up a Facebook Pixel here, and we will discuss this in more detail later in this article. 

Step 3- Determine the Objective for Your Facebook Fitness Ads 

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Before you create your Facebook ad, you will need to select an objective for your advertising campaign. 

This will then help Facebook determine the type of advert that best helps you achieve that objective. 

Facebook has 6 main objectives you can choose from, as you can see below:

In more detail, these objectives are:

  1. Awareness. This is the best objective to choose if you’re just starting out with Facebook ads, as it helps generate initial interest in your business and reach your target audience.
  2. Traffic. This is about sending your audience from Facebook to your chosen destination, such as a landing page, website or app.
  3. Engagement. This is about reaching more people with your advert and getting more likes, comments and shares.
  4. App promotion. This is about getting people to download your app through your Facebook ad.
  5. Leads. This objective is about getting people to submit their contact information as a result of your Facebook ad, such as their email address or phone number. 
  6. Sales. This objective is for you if you want your fitness Facebook ad to directly link to your eCommerce store.

Step 4- Define Your Audience for Your Fitness Facebook Ads

Facebook will then ask you to define the audience for your fitness Facebook ads. 

This is one of the most important steps of creating your Facebook fitness ads, as it is what will help Facebook determine who to target your adverts towards. 

The more accurately you can specify your audience, the more targeted your ads will be and therefore the more engagement you will get!

As we have said, one of the biggest benefits of Facebook ads is that they allow you to target a very specific audience, based on the following factors:

  • Location 
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Language 
  • Interests
  • Behaviours 

You can even tell Facebook who you want to exclude from your audience, helping you to refine your demographic even further and target only those who are most likely to convert their interest into sales leads.

As you can see below, this is all easy to do and can be easily changed within the Facebook Ad Manager:

personal training facebook ads 3

Step 5- Set Your Budget for Your Fitness Facebook Ads

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As we have mentioned, you can use Facebook ads for your fitness business no matter your budget.

As you can see below, you can either set a daily budget, or a budget for the entire campaign. 

personal trainer fitness ad 4

In other words, rather than giving Facebook a set amount of money for a set amount of advertising, you are essentially letting them know how much you are willing to spend on the campaign- and Facebook then decides the most effective way to spend that money to get you the results you want. 

For example, say you set a daily budget of £18. Some days Facebook may spend that £18, others days it may only spend £5. This is because Facebook will spend more on a day when it sees that there are more opportunities for conversions, and spend less when there are fewer opportunities. 

If you are just starting out with Facebook ads for your fitness business, we would recommend starting with a daily budget, before you commit to one for the whole campaign.

You can also change your budget throughout the campaign if you find that you can afford to spend more, or need to spend less. 

Step 6- Create Your Fitness Facebook Ad

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Now that you have given Facebook all the information you need about what you want to achieve, it’s time to actually create your fitness Facebook ad!

This is all done through the Facebook Ad Campaign Monitor. This will guide you through the whole process, but in summary, you first need to click the green ‘Create’ button.

personal trainer fitness ad 3

You can either create a brand new ad from scratch, or use an existing post that’s already on your Facebook business page. 

You will then select your objective, audience and budget for this specific ad- just like we outlined in the previous steps. 

You can then determine other aspects of your Facebook fitness ad, such as: 

  • The format of your fitness Facebook ad- i.e. image, video or carousel

personal trainer fitness ad 2

  • The copy- i.e. the words. We will discuss this in more detail in the next section!
  • Schedule your ads- i.e. planning in advance when you want your advert to run.

personal trainer fitness ad

This is also when you can get creative with things like visuals, copy and videos- which again, we will cover next!

This is also when you can get creative with things like visuals, copy and videos- which we will cover next!

Enjoying this article so far? Here’s 3 more that we think you’ll love:

Things To Include In A Fitness Facebook Ad

When you get to the stage of creating your fitness ads on Facebook, you may be wondering what to include in it. 

Whilst the Facebook Ad Manager will guide you through a lot of the ad creation process, here are some things that you should include in your ads:

Calls to Action (CTAs)

One of the most important things to include in a Facebook fitness ad is a Call To Action (CTA). 

A CTA is essentially words or phrases that compel a user to take a certain action. So in the case of Facebook fitness ads, it is the action that you want your audience to take as a result of seeing your ad.

Facebook has a set list of call to action ‘buttons’ you can choose from, such as:

  • Download
  • Learn More
  • Send Message
  • Sign Up
  • Shop Now
  • Watch More
  • Book Now
  • Contact Us

For example, here is how you choose your CTA on the Facebook Ad Manager:

personal training facebook ads 4

By clicking on these buttons, the user will then be directed to a destination of your choice- also 

called a ‘landing page’. We have a whole article detailing how to create a personal trainer landing page for more information! 

The CTA button you choose should therefore align with your campaign objective. For example, if your aim is to get people to sign up to one of your fitness classes, the ‘Book Now’ or ‘Sign Up’ buttons would be most relevant. 

This could then send them directly to a booking page on your website, or there is even an option for them to directly submit a form through Facebook. 

Or if you simply wanted people to learn more about your business, the ‘Learn More’ button could send them to the ‘About Page’ of your website. 

This will all help to further refine your target audience and most importantly, get them to do exactly what you want to achieve from your ad campaign!

An Eye-Catching and Relevant Image or Video

Sometimes called the ‘creative’, this is where you can choose an image or video for your Facebook fitness ad. 

After all, people process visual information quicker than words, so this is a chance to really capture someone’s attention to stop scrolling and read the rest of your ad!

The image or video you choose should be relevant to the aim of your personal training Facebook ad. For example, if you are wanting people to sign up to your outdoor bootcamp class, using a video of your class conveys to the user what they can expect from your class. 

If you are simply wanting more general enquiries, you could use a more general but relevant image, such as a personal trainer stock image or simply your business logo.

The main thing to remember about choosing an image for your personal trainer Facebook ad is that it should be of a high quality. This means no grainy, blurry or dark images!

Facebook gives the following guidance for Facebook ad images:

personal training facebook ads

Many design websites such as Canva even offer templates specifically for Facebook ads, making it easier for you to get the correct dimensions for your image. 

If you choose a video for your fitness Facebook ad, this also needs to be of a high quality. Facebook gives the following guidance for Facebook ad videos:

personal training facebook ads 2

An Attention-Grabbing Headline

The headline of your Facebook ad is a short, 90 character piece of text usually located below your image. 

Along with the image, this is the element of your Facebook fitness ad that can capture attention and make users stop scrolling and look at your advert. It is therefore worth spending the time to create a strong and effective headline!

Your headline should be a short, snappy summary of your advert that immediately tells the reader:

  • What services you are offering
  • How it will benefit them
  • The action they need to take (similar to your CTA button)

With this in mind, your headline should contain an imperative- i.e. a verb that tells the reader what to do. 

For example, using OriGym as a fitness Facebook ad example, we have used the imperative phrase ‘Become a Personal Trainer With OriGym’. This directly speaks to the reader and makes it clear what action they should take. 

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This is also a chance to really get creative with your copy, as you could use things such as puns and play on words- if they are appropriate and fit the tone of your brand. 

Primary Text

Also known as the ‘post text’ or ‘body text’, the primary text element of your Facebook fitness ad is the main body of text in your advert.

Where the headline gives a summary of what you are trying to achieve with your advert, the primary text is the chance to give more detail about your business, product or services. 

It is placed either above or below your image, so this is the first copy that your audience would see. It is therefore worth taking the time to perfect this part of your ad! 

What you include in the primary text will depend on the objective of your personal trainer Facebook ad. But some things you could include in the primary text are:

  • What services you offer
  • A description of your business
  • Details of your pricing packages or a special offer/ promotion 
  • Emojis (if they fit your brand and tone)

But whatever your objective, you should ensure that your primary text is simple and easy to understand. Whilst it is the longest chunk of text in your ad with a limit of 125 characters, you should still ensure that it is concise and to the point!

5 Tips For Creating Fitness Ads On Facebook

Now that you know how to create them and what to include, here are some of our top tips for creating the best fitness Facebook ads! 

Tip #1- Adapt Your Fitness Facebook Ad to Your Target Audience

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As we have said, the Facebook Ad Manager allows you to target a highly specific audience. However, it is not just up to Facebook to do all the work!

You will also need to ensure that the copy, images and calls to action that you include in your fitness Facebook ad are also targeted to your specific audience. 

In other words, it is no good your advert reaching your target audience, if the advert itself is not relevant to them!

Say you specialise in personal training clients for weight loss. You should ensure that the copy in your website is targeted towards this audience only- i.e. people wanting to lose weight. 

For example, you could do this by including relevant images or personal trainer icons, such as scales or a tape measure, and relevant calls to action such as ‘Lose Weight Today!’

This will not only help to further appeal to your target audience and increase the chances of them clicking on your ad, but also strengthens your brand identity by demonstrating what your business offers. 

Tip #2- Keep Your Fitness Facebook Ads Concise and Focused

Leading on from the previous tip, you should also try to keep your Facebook fitness ads as simple, short and focused as possible. 

It can be tempting to try and include as much information as possible into your personal training Facebook ad. But it is better to convey your brand and the services you offer as concisely and clearly as possible. 

This is because Facebook users will likely see your advert as they are scrolling through their newsfeed. You will therefore only have a limited amount of time to capture their attention before they scroll past! 

Some ways to make your Facebook fitness ads focused and concise are:

  • Use short sentences rather than chunks of text
  • Use simple, easy to understand language
  • Use bright and eye-catching images

To help you know if your advert is concise enough, remember that a user should be able to find out the following 3 things straight away from your advert:

  • What services you offer
  • How it can benefit them
  • What they should do next

For example, OriGym’s advert below meets all of these criteria:

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Tip #3- Run Tests on Your Facebook Fitness Ads

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As well as tracking the success of your ads, another way to get the most out of your Facebook fitness ads is to run tests. 

This can be done through ‘A/B Testing’ on the Facebook Ad Manager. A/B Testing is a type of user experience research used in marketing where two versions of something- such as an advert, are tested to see which is more successful. 

So, A/B testing for your Facebook fitness ads allows you to run two different adverts at the same time to see which is more successful.

For example, you could run two adverts which are the same, except they have two different images. You can then see which advert gets the most likes, comments and conversions to determine which image is the most effective! 

This is an important tip for creating a successful personal trainer Facebook ad, as it helps you constantly improve and ultimately get more clicks from your advert! 

Tip #4- Track and Monitor Your Facebook Fitness Ads

Once you have created your Facebook campaign, your work shouldn’t stop there. In fact, tracking your advert is just as important as creating the advert itself!

This is because it can show you how many conversions (i.e. how many clicks) your Facebook ad has generated. Knowing this can then help you determine if you need to make any changes to your advert to make it more successful.

You can view stats from your advert via the Facebook Ad Manager. For example, as you can see below, this shows the metrics of our Facebook ad campaign here at OriGym. 

This is how the tracking feature looks on Facebook ad manager:

fitness facebook ad examples

Another way to monitor the success of your ad is via the Facebook Pixel feature. This is an analytics tool that you embed into your website.

The Facebook Pixel tool measures not only how many conversions your ad has generated, but can give you data on the type of action users take once they have clicked on your ad.

For example, say someone clicks on the CTA button of your Facebook fitness ad and is taken to your landing page. The Facebook Pixel feature will tell you what they then do from there- whether that’s submit an enquiry form or make a payment for a session. 

This all helps you to get a better understanding of your target audience. For example, if you find that not many users are submitting enquiries once they click through to your landing page, you can then make changes to your marketing strategy accordingly. 

Before You Go! 

So, that concludes everything you need to know about creating the best fitness Facebook ads! We hope that you now have all the information you need to get started with your own.

Feeling inspired? Why not take your fitness business to the next level by studying an advanced personal trainer course with OriGym! Enquire today, or download our free course prospectus to browse the full range of courses we offer. 

 

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Become a Level 4 personal trainer with OriGym today!

Written by Alice Williams

Content Editor & Yoga Teacher

Alice graduated with a First-Class degree in French and Linguistics from the University of Leeds in 2019. As part of her degree, she spent a year living in France where she worked for a lifestyle blog, gaining professional experience in both translation and content writing. 

Alice is also a qualifiied yoga teacher, allowing her write from a place of expertise when it comes to yoga!

When she’s not writing or practicing yoga, she also loves running, cooking and music! 

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