11 Mistakes Marketers Make When Using Facebook Ads

Facebook can be a great place for small businesses to market themselves online, especially if they want to expand their influence to people within their target market. But it can also be a huge waste of time and money if you don’t know how to use it correctly. If you’re promoting your business on Facebook and you’re not making as much of an impact as you would like, you should take a closer look at your strategy because you could be making some common mistakes that are hurting your chances for success.

Facebook is like any other marketing platform. It’s all about how you use it. And if your strategy is flawed, you won’t get good results. Here are some of the mistakes that many people make when they run Facebook ads.

1. Not Knowing Their Ad’s Objective

Before you run your Facebook ad, you should know what you want. Figure out your end goal. Understand your brand, look at your website, and figure out how you can get an offer or product to convert. Not only will your results improve, but you will also be able to narrow your options. Not being clear about what you want will not only put you on the wrong path in Ad Manager but will also cost you more money than you need to spend.

2. Targeting the Wrong People

 One of the greatest things about Facebook ads is that you can get very specific about who you want to target, but many people end up going after the wrong people. According to AdSpresso, there's a 1000% difference in the cost per click when an advertiser targets the right audience. So, how can we tell if we’re reaching the right people?

Find out the basic demographic information of your current customer base, which can include the following:

• Age
• Location
• Gender
• Purchasing behavior
• Lifestyle
• Occupation

Getting this information will give you a better idea of who you should target in your ads, and you can use Facebook Ad Manager to filter potential buyers. Take advantage of the Audience Insights feature in Facebook to get a better idea of who your audience is, and send out a customer survey to your current client base.

3. Their Target Audience is Too Broad or Too Narrow

 You want to look at the size of your audience, because you might be targeting too many (or too few) people. And to fix this issue, you should take a look at its potential reach. You should ask yourself if that many people are interested in what you have to offer. And if the answer is “no,” you’ll need to narrow it down by gathering more demographic information.

You don’t want to be too specific about your audience, because you may not have enough reach to get meaningful results. You should adjust your targeting so you can find the right combination, and Facebook has a dial that will show you if you’re on the right track in terms of audience size.

4. Not Excluding People That Have Already Converted

 Many people forget about this feature, and this mistake is made more often than you think. Look at what you’re promoting in the ad, and see if you can remove anyone you have already converted. Keep track of people who have been to the offer’s Thank You Page, and you can use the Custom Audience feature to exclude those people from seeing your ad.

5. Not Understanding the Importance of Images

 Images will determine about 75-90% of an ad’s performance, so you need to pay attention to what type of visual material you’re adding to your Facebook ads. You can choose from a variety of formats, and most of them will allow you add at least one image. If you use a carousel or slideshow format, you add several images that can help you to grab someone’s attention.

Research has shown that images are seen and absorbed before someone reads any amount of text, so it’s an important part of your Facebook ad. It can catch a person’s eye while he or she is scrolling through a news feed, and it can persuade someone to look at your ad more closely.

The image should relate to what your offering — whether it’s a product or service. And using random stock photos that don’t add value to the offer won’t help you to deliver your message, even it catches the eye. The image should also be clean and with a minimal amount of text.

6. Having Bad Headlines

 Many people think that writing headlines is easy, but it’s not true. Your headline needs to explain the benefits of your product or service in a way that will make them interested in learning more about what you have to offer. And there’s one rule of thumb that you should never forget — that shorter is better. Studies have shown that headlines that are within 40 characters in length get 86% more engagement, so you should do your best to keep them within that mark.

7. Not Communicating Your Product’s Value

 Every Facebook ad need to communicate the product’s value. It’s the most important part of your ad, because it will determine whether someone will continue further. And if your offer can’t grab someone in five seconds or less, the ad won’t be effective.

If you want your ad to have a clear value proposition, you should make sure that your content:

• Is clear and easy to comprehend.
• Can communicate the results that someone will get from the product or service.
• Avoids any clichés, superlatives, or business jargon.
• Explains how your product or service is different or better than everyone else on the market.

Think about how your target market may respond to the ad, and adjust it accordingly.

8. Running an Ad at the Right Times

 You may not want to run your ad all the time, so you should consider adjusting its delivery time. Check your Audience Insights so you can see when your audience is usually online, and use the Ad Scheduling section to run your ads during those times. You can choose to run it on specific days and times, so you don’t end up wasting your budget.

9. They “Set It and Forget It”

 Every marketer has been guilty of this at some point. You don’t want to set up your Facebook ad, and walk way. You need to check its performance every single day. And even if it has been properly targeted, you don’t want the ad to appear the same way every single day for weeks (or even months) on end.

If you want to keep your ad from getting stale, you should check the following metrics:

• Ad frequency
• Relevance score
• Click-through rate vs. conversion rate
• Number of leads
• Ad performance by placement
• Clicks by interest

It’s important to check your analytics so you can maximize your ad’s performance.

10. Choosing the Wrong Ad Format

Facebook is always changing their ad formats, so it can be hard to know which one will work for your audience. You need to stay updated on ads that have been running for a long time, so you can make sure that the format is still effective. Different ad types can be effective for different reasons, so you need to research each format to make sure you’ve chosen one that will work best for your audience.

11. Having Only One Set of Ads

Facebook allows you to group your ads according to specific parameters — whether it’s your budget, schedule, bid type, or any other piece of targeting data. And while having everything in one set may be convenient, it can affect its reach. While you can put a bunch of ads into one group, Facebook will most likely give only one of them the most reach. And it won’t give you good insight into which one is the most effective. If you want to maximize the performance of your ad sets, you separate them into categories. And you shouldn’t have more than five ads in a single set.

Final Thoughts

 Having an online presence is essential in today’s business landscape, and social media plays a major role in getting your product or service to your target market. If you use Facebook ads correctly, your business can get a ton of exposure. But if you make any of these common mistakes, you could be hindering their potential. So, make sure you take the time to create ads that will give you the most return on your investment.