Stats show that an average Facebook user clicks on 11 Ads per month, and with approximately 2.41 billion monthly active Facebook users, it’s clearly the place to be. Unfortunately, the most effective way to become an expert is to do it on the job and this leaves room for mistakes. The best way to avoid this is to know about them in advance so here are 8 common mistakes that a novice might make with Facebook Advertising.
1. You Haven’t Determined Your Facebook Advertising Objective
From Page Likes to Lead Generation, it’s important to know what exactly are you looking to achieve from each Ad. This means that when the time comes to review and analyse the results, you’ll know what you’re looking for. High results and low cost per result is always a good place to start! If you’re directing traffic to your website then make all of your links trackable so you can also see what’s happening when a user leaves Facebook and browses your site.
2. Your Targeting Is Too Broad
If you’re utilising the targeting options within Facebook (and not a Custom Audience, for example) then it’s easy to get carried away with all of the potential keyword options and keep increasing your estimated reach. However, the broader you get the more unlikely it is for Facebook users to complete the desired actions. If you’re looking to capture leads then your targeting needs to be super relevant for people to submit their details. Even with website traffic Ads, you want to ensure you’re driving the right kind of traffic to your website otherwise it’s a waste of budget.
3. Your Budget Is Too Small
Talking of budget… the bigger your audience the more money you need to put into the Ad to maximise your reach and therefore your potential return. Take a look at your Frequency to get an idea as to whether your budget is big enough. A huge Reach but low Frequency and Impressions means people are seeing your Ad maybe once a month. This greatly decreases your chance of getting their attention and engaging with them.
4. Too Much Main Copy
The majority of your audience will view your Ad on mobile and Facebook have now reduced how much text shows at the top of your Ad on Mobile View to 3 lines before your copy is hidden behind a ‘Read More’ link. Ask yourself what point do you need to get across as a priority? Make sure your key message and call to action are above the cut-off point to increase your chances of people reading it.
5. You’re Using The Wrong Ad Format
With Carousel to Collection, Video to Instant Experience, there are a lot of options available to utilise when setting up a Facebook ad, which is fantastic from a Marketing perspective but it also then opens up more potential mistakes. Consider points 1-4 above and think about which format is best suited to your objective, target audience, budget and how much copy you need to include. For example, a Video Ad might work best for a large audience as your cost per result tends to be lower but make sure your video is short and sweet with subtitles as people often view these with the sound off.
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6. Your Creative Is Uninspiring
Is your Ad going to stop people scrolling long enough for them to take in all of the information and complete your desired objective? The chances of this happening will increase the more interesting your imagery or video is. Get something that stands out but is also relevant to the objective and copy. If you’re running a Carousel or Instant Experience with lots of imagery, do they complement each other and accurately represent your products or services?
7. Too Much Text On Your Image
Previously, Facebook has had a 20% rule whereby your Ad won’t be approved if more than 20% of the image contains text. This appears to have been relaxed to an extent but you will still be penalised if there’s too much text and Facebook will restrict your reach. If you need to get a lot of information across on your Ad then consider an Instant Experience which is almost like a mini Facebook Landing Page. There’s plenty of room for copy, images, buttons and more.
8. You’re Not Failing Fast
You’re not going to get it 100% right 100% of the time and that’s okay as long as you learn to be reactive and, if your ad isn’t working, are you ready to tweak copy/imagery/targeting or turn it off and move on to the next one. Facebook is constantly making improvements, introducing new features and updating which means you need to be too.
To conclude, we all make mistakes but often they can be avoided by a little research and a lot of planning.
Want to improve your Facebook advertising game? We have the right social media training course to suit you.
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