I love helping businesses get better results from their Facebook ad spend so they can drive awareness and sales, and ultimately reach their business objectives.
However, before you jump right in and start to run Facebook ads here are some of the most common mistakes/pitfalls people make. If you’re not careful these mistakes could cost you time and money.
1. You don’t spend enough time understanding your customer’s journey
Walk through the digital journey a customer takes with your business. From first seeing an ad to then going on to purchase or book in a call with you. Is there a consistent brand message and identity? Is each step in their journey clear and can it be improved in any way? By reviewing this you stand a better chance of your ads delivering the best result possible.
2. You haven’t installed the Facebook Pixel
The Facebook Pixel sounds very techy, but ultimately is a piece of code that sits on your website and enables Facebook to link to your site. The recent Apple IOS 14 updates have had an impact on how Facebook tracks activity on your website, but nonetheless it is important to install it before you run ads. It is super quick to do and will help you to measure the results of your ads and create new audiences to show your ad to.
3. You hit the Boost button
Boosting a post can be so tempting, but there are so many limitations. I always recommend running ads through Facebook Business Manager as it puts you in full control. This includes building out a strategic ad campaign, creating a wide range of audiences it is shown to, editing the ad to ensure it is the right ad for the right placement and retargeting people depending on the actions they take. In addition, Business Manager enables you to make data driven decisions to improve and refine your ads strategy.
4. You don’t understand your way around Facebook Business Manager
Yes, it is a very grey space and there are lots of different sections, but it is important to get an understanding of how to navigate around Facebook Business Manager. You need to be able to understand how to use and what to look at in Ads Manager to analyse the success of your ad campaigns to optimise their performance and get the best results for you.
5. You haven’t reviewed your Facebook Business Manager set-up following the IOS 14 updates
There are some essential updates you need to do in Facebook Business Manager following the IOS 14 updates. These don’t take long to do, but are important. You need to verify your domain and ensure that you have configured your top website events in events manager.
6. You don’t focus on your customer in the ad
Really spend time thinking about what your potential customers need to know from you at different stages in their journey. Is your ad aimed at potential customers that haven’t yet heard about you or your brand? Or, do they know about you and need a nudge to take action? Does your ad creative and copy reflect your target audience and is it on-brand?
7. You have set the wrong objective for your campaign
At the Facebook ads campaign level you need to tell Facebook what you want to achieve from the campaign. If you want people to watch your video then you need to select a video view campaign (these can be great for building audiences to retarget), if you want to get sales then you need to set a conversion to purchase objective. Facebook’s AI is smart and will find people that will take the action you want (as long as you have reviewed the other points above). But, it takes time and testing to optimise any campaign.
What now?
Now you understand some of the most common mistakes many businesses make you should be in a far better position to save yourself time and money and get better return on investment from your Facebook ads.
If you would like my help to get better results from your Facebook ads spend then get in touch.
