Facebook advertising is one of the most impactful social media strategies that help boost sales. On average, there are roughly 1.59 billion active users on Facebook, as of June 2019. Moreover, around 94% of social media marketers use Facebook for their advertising campaigns.
As an excellent advertising investment, Facebook ads can bring countless benefits to your business. Aside from being cost-effective, it can enhance your ads’ targeting capabilities, help you build your email list, and increase customer attribution and brand awareness, among others.
But while Facebook advertising is proven effective and affordable, it could also put your budget down the drain if not done right.
We scoured the internet for the most common Facebook advertising mistakes marketers commit. Take note of these blunders and avoid it all costs!
1. Forgetting a clear strategy
For your Facebook ad campaigns to succeed, you need to understand your ad objective and see the channel as a full-funnel solution, not just a contingency marketing plan.
A crucial step in planning a clear and holistic Facebook Ads approach is to define your marketing objective. Consider what you want your Facebook audience to do. Are you aiming for site visits, brand awareness or conversions? This should make it easier for you to create and devise an effective campaign that won’t put your spending budget to waste. It should also drive real results.
2. Forgetting Facebook Pixels
One common and easy mistake Facebook Advertising neophytes make is neglecting Facebook Pixels. How can you prove that your Facebook ad campaigns are driving results to your business if you don’t track and report its performance?
This is where Facebook Pixels come in handy. It’s a bit of JavaScript code that lets you track visitor activity and interactions on your site and with your ad. It uses analytics to see your ad’s efficacy in bringing results. It also monitors the actions you care most about, like when visitors make purchases. You can use Facebook Pixels for three functions:
- Optimize your ads for better conversions
- Build custom audiences from your site for remarketing campaigns
- Track conversions on your site or event page and pin them to your ads
3. Using Boring Visuals
No matter how attractive your offer is, dull and bland visuals can make your ad look uninspired. Facebook Ads provides you with a range of ad formats—you have the option for a one-image or a carousel format. Use these opportunities to capture your audience’s attention and boost your chance of click-through-rates or conversions.
When creating image designs or sourcing for images, think about your ad’s purpose and offer. The visual should clearly communicate your campaign message and contain minimal text to avoid distractions.
4. Not Using Targeting Wisely
When building your ad, review if you’re targeting too many or too few people. Do you think it’s realistic to set your ad to reach hundreds or thousands of users? Narrow it down. This is a matter of trial and error.
On the other hand, make no mistake in targeting the wrong audience due to little to no segmentation. You can conduct a survey and use Facebook Audience Insights to help you refine your targets. Using Facebook’s built-in targeting features allows you to set the target to specific audiences, so you can reach the right type of people. The various targeting options that you can use include life events, purchasing behavior, existing contacts, similar or lookalike audiences, interests, demographics, behaviors, and targeting using location.
5. Distributing Your Budget Poorly
Many marketers lose a significant amount of their budget due to inefficient use of their ad dollars. Facebook Ads let campaign budgets be divided and split equally across different ad sets. This sounds good at first, until one of your ad sets underperforms compared to others. This is where things go south budget-wise.
You can set up Campaign Budget Optimization to monitor and disseminate your budget based on the performance of your campaigns. Instead of feeding Facebook how much you want to spend for each target, you can simply tell Facebook how much budget you have for the entire campaign, and the algorithm will do the legwork in distributing it as it fits.
6. Falling short on headlines
A lot of people think headlines are the simplest and easiest part of creating ads. You just write what you offer and hope the message gets across, right? This isn’t the case.
When it comes to headlines, it’s best to keep it short and sweet. Write succinct headlines that communicate an emotional connection and explains how your audience can benefit from your offering. This is where your creativity in ad copywriting is showcased. It’s recommended to keep the length of the post under 40 characters for nearly 86% higher engagement.
7. Creating new Facebook Ads instead of managing successful ones
Having multiple campaigns doesn’t equal to making more money. To ultimately maximize your budget and ads, put your money into tried-and-true campaigns you’ve been running for years. Remarketing is effective and brings proven results, just make sure to spruce it up and write copy and headlines that are relevant to the users within that market.
Avoid These Budget-killing Facebook Ad Mishaps
You can steer clear of these budget-draining mistakes by devising a clear plan and following Facebook Advertising best practices. Think carefully about the goal and purpose of your ad and which placement will deliver the best result.
When in doubt, you can always consult or partner with Facebook Ads experts or with a digital marketing agency to ensure that your advertising strategies are well executed.
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