Facebook advertising, when done properly, can be a major asset to your marketing efforts. Facebook offers a variety of advertising options for businesses to choose from, and with a network of billions of users, it offers the ability to reach many prospects.
However, there are a lot of moving parts to creating and maintaining successful Facebook advertising campaigns. If you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of the platform, it’s possible to fall into some very common traps. Here are some of the mistakes I see businesses make over and over again on the platform, and what you can do to avoid them.
1. Setting Wish-Washi Goals
Facebook advertising is one strategy within your broader marketing strategy. But that doesn’t mean you can be less intentional about the choices you make when designing your campaigns.
It is not enough just to make a post promoting your business and hope that it will bring some general profit. You need to set specific goals for each of your advertising campaigns. If you are promoting the launch of a new product, set a goal of selling X number of units. If your campaign is designed to drive traffic to your website, set a goal to increase CTR by X percentage points.
By starting with a clear goal in mind, your message within the campaign will be stronger and more targeted. Plus, you’ll know what metrics you should be tracking and how you’ll define success at the end of the campaign.
2. Selecting Wrong Ad Type
Once you’ve set goals for your campaign, it’s time to choose the type of ad you want to run. Facebook offers businesses a variety of options, and different types of advertising can help you achieve all kinds of goals – from more exposure for your brand to facilitating offer claims to more conversions.
Fortunately, Facebook makes it easy for marketers to determine what each ad is designed to do. Don’t try to get creative or reinvent the wheel at this stage; Go with the ad type that Facebook best aligns with your goals.
3. Sticking to Only One Medium
If you’ve ever sat on Facebook and scrolled through your newsfeed, you know how easy it is for that content to just be blurry. That’s why you need to do something unique to stand out from the individual posts, articles, and other ads that fill up users’ feeds.
Facebook suggests that you keep text to a minimum on your images (ideally less than 20 percent). Include images that are bright, eye-catching, and align with your brand tone. Go beyond still images and think about including video content.
But most importantly, mix things up. Even if you’re creating catchy, catchy video ads, they’ll start to look stale after a while if that’s all you do. Mix up your media to keep audiences on their toes and eager to see what comes next for you.
4. Incorrect targeting
Facebook ad targeting lets you identify the audience you want for your ads. This keeps you from wasting your advertising spend on people who will never really be interested in your business, but proper targeting is a tricky balancing act.
Limit your audience too much, and Facebook won’t be able to deliver your ad. Make your audience too broad, however, and there will be many people who are unlikely to see your ads.
The second mistake that marketers make is targeting the wrong audience. You may think you understand who wants to see your ad, but unless you’re using your existing customers as a guide, you may be making some important targeting mistakes and limiting your ad spend. May be targeting the wrong group.
Take the time to analyze the demographics and actions of your current audience. You can even go so far as to send your existing customers a survey asking about their profile and lifestyle. Facebook also gives you the option to create a lookalike audience for your ad. By uploading a list of its existing customers, Facebook can then analyze that group for common characteristics and target similar audiences.
5. Repetitive Efforts
Facebook is very good at identifying the users who are most likely to see your ads. Unfortunately, sometimes this means that people who are already familiar with your brand and who have converted themselves become the target of your Facebook ad.
Of course, this is a waste of your time and budget. If they have already signed up for your newsletter, there is no need to advertise said newsletter again! That’s where the use of Custom Audiences comes in. Make a list of all your prospects or customers who have already taken the action you are expecting with the ad and create a Custom Audience that will exclude these people from seeing your ad. Not only does this save you money, it also keeps you from bothering people who have already said yes to your brand.
6. Letting Ads Go Stale
Even the best Facebook ads tend to lose their luster after a few weeks. Users scroll through and type the same images over and over again, and they eventually start gloating over the content. That’s why it is important for marketers to keep refreshing their ads on the platform. Altering images, changing text, and otherwise making content look fresh and new to viewers is the way to revisit your brand.
7. Forgetting About the Facebook Pixel
The Facebook pixel is a line of code that you put on your website to track customer behavior that results from your advertising efforts. It provides you with measurable data, so you can know whether your ads have achieved the desired results. This data can also help inform your future marketing efforts. When you understand what worked and what didn’t in a campaign, you can make changes to maximize successes and prevent future failures.
There are a lot of moving parts for marketers to wrap their heads around when it comes to Facebook advertising. Understanding some of the most common mistakes businesses make can help you get more money for your advertising and create content that stands out in a crowded newsfeed.
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