Daily active users on Facebook (DAUs) reached an average of 2.11 billion in December 2023, showing a 6% increase from the previous year.
As of 2022, Facebook’s daily active users (DAUs) remained steady at 2.11 billion on average in December 2023, marking a 6% year-on-year growth. Facebook stands out as a major player in the world of social media, offering a robust ad management system.
Using Facebook Ads is advantageous for two key reasons: they target specific audiences effectively, and they usually cost less compared to other types of ads.
In summary, if Facebook campaigns aren’t already a part of your advertising strategy, they should be.
However, it’s crucial to be mindful of potential challenges, especially if you’re new to the platform.
The Facebook Ad Manager is usually easy to use, but there are simple mistakes that might end up costing you money. In fact, 62% of small business owners think their Facebook ad efforts don’t work well.
Why does this happen?
It’s often because people miss an important part that really matters in their marketing, like targeting the wrong audience without realizing it.
In this article, I’ll guide you on steering clear of the most common Facebook ad mistakes and preventing unnecessary spending on your online marketing. As a basic rule, use this post to make a simple plan for your next Facebook advertising campaign.
Mistake #1: Not Using a CTA in the Ad Copy
As people in the world of online promotion, we know how important it is to guide your audience with clear instructions. One powerful tool for this is the call to action (CTA). These short messages play a big role in determining whether a potential customer takes the next step in getting your product or service.
In the realm of Facebook ads, the CTA is what motivates someone to click on your ad and find out more. It’s like the basic rule of putting your name on a school assignment – you just don’t skip it.
Even after reviewing lots of Facebook ads for more than six years, I keep noticing businesses forgetting to add a CTA in their messages. It’s a missed opportunity for them to guide their audience to the next stage.
Even when you spend money on an ad, it’s crucial to tell visitors what you want them to do with a CTA. If not, you’ll end up paying Facebook for ad views, not clicks, traffic, or conversions.
This becomes more troublesome when you consider the costs of Facebook ads. Unlike PPC ads on Facebook that use cost-per-click (CPC), here you get charged based on impressions, which is the number of people who see your ad in their feed.
Therefore, if your ads don’t have a clear call-to-action, you’re probably not using your marketing budget effectively.
We checked the Facebook Ads Library and found three ads without a clear call-to-action (CTA) in the text.
You’ll notice that these ads are eye-catching and nicely written. However, they’re not as powerful since they don’t guide Facebook users to do something specific.
Correcting The Mistake
Do your Facebook ads look like the ones shown above? If they do, don’t stress; the fix is easy.
Start by checking all your Facebook ads to find any without clear calls to action (CTAs). Ideally, your ad copy and headline should both have a CTA.
Wondering why it’s essential to have a CTA in the headline?
A study by computer experts at Columbia University and the French National Institute found that 59% of people share or like Facebook posts just because of the headlines.
It’s no wonder we’ve become immune to commercials when we’re bombarded with an average of 5,000 ads or branded messages every day.
Fail to grab attention with your Facebook ad headline, and you could lose up to 80% of your ad views.
Ensuring the CTA (Call to Action) grabs attention is crucial. If it’s not spotted in the text, it should pop up in the headline. When crafting a CTA, clearly outline the next steps for your customers in simple language.
People decide quickly, often within 90 seconds of meeting someone or encountering a product. Surprisingly, between 62-90% of these judgments are influenced solely by color.
No need to worry about being too obvious (remember, it’s an ad, not a blog post), because your main goal is to attract customers.
Now, let’s take a look at a successful Facebook ad in action.
In a nutshell, you don’t have to create something entirely new for your ad words. Keep it short, focused on action, and finish with a strong Call to Action (CTA).
Mistake #2: Neglecting to Track Results
Tracking your ad performance is crucial. If you don’t keep an eye on how your ads are doing, you won’t know if you’re wasting money or not. So, pay close attention to your analytics and key performance KPIs. These numbers also show whether your Facebook marketing is reaching the folks you want to reach.
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool, especially for keeping tabs on conversions. Make sure it’s linked to your website. Additionally, set up the Facebook Pixel – it provides valuable metrics for your success.
This tool helps you monitor, evaluate, and improve your advertising efforts. You can even tweak your audience targeting if you think you’re not reaching the right people.
Using Facebook Pixel
The Pixel is a small piece of code that you put in the header section of your website. Once it’s in place, the Pixel keeps an eye on what people do on your site after they click on your ad. This helps you make sure your ads are doing what they’re supposed to.
Checking how well your ads are doing is really important. Analytics can tell you if your ad is working or if it needs some changes to reach the people you want. And, of course, you want to make sure you’re getting value for your money.
Most digital advertising networks have a tracking tool. You’re probably already using Google Analytics on your site, but if you’re running ads on Facebook, you’ll need to set up the Facebook Pixel too.
Facebook Pixel comes with several powerful advertising tools, like:
- Lookalike audiences
- Facebook Retargeting
- Ad optimization for conversions
- Many more
You can also try Pixel’s A/B testing to test different ad versions. It’s another way to enhance how your ads are set up.
Correcting the mistake
You’re in luck; setting up Facebook Pixel is a breeze and won’t take more than a few minutes. Just follow these easy steps – it’s as straightforward as copying and pasting a line of code. Don’t worry if you haven’t done it before; it’s not complicated.
Start by checking if Pixel is already active. Make sure it’s installed correctly. You can do this using the free Facebook Pixel Helper plugin. It’s a handy tool to verify the installation.
When a Pixel is detected, the plugin will turn on. Clicking the plugin will show details about the Pixel, like whether it was set up correctly.
After finishing, you can check your website’s conversion pages to see what’s currently happening. The example below displays the possibility of new leads from conversions.
Pixel is a great tool for checking each campaign goal to make sure everything is set up right before it goes live. You can also review your teams and use Pixel to start conversations with potential clients. Additionally, you can monitor how well your projects are going to prevent spending too much money.
Mistake #3: Targeting the Wrong Audience
With 2.98 billion users worldwide, Facebook stands out as an ideal platform for promoting your business or product with advertisements.
Mastering audience targeting is a crucial part of any ad campaign, regardless of whether you use Facebook or not.
You need to have a clear understanding of who your audience is, what drives them, and what they want or need the most. This knowledge will help you create the most attractive value proposition for your products and services.
We recommend aiming for an audience size of 500K–2 million. If you have a larger budget, you can target more (2.5 million or so).
A common mistake I often see businesses make with their Facebook audiences is either going too broad or too narrow.
The good news is that Facebook Ads Manager has a tool specifically designed for this purpose. It’s called the ‘Audience Size’ tool, and it’s right at the top-right corner of the screen. It will tell you if your audience is too broad or too narrow, so make sure to use it to your advantage.
Learning the Audience Builder
Check out the picture down there.
The default settings in the Audience Builder don’t offer choices for interests or behaviors; they stick to basic demographic details like age, location, and gender.
Surprisingly, Facebook’s algorithm heavily relies on hobbies and behaviors when matching ads to the right audience. So, understanding your target audience’s interests is crucial for crafting effective advertisements.
It’s worth noting that clicking “Show More Options” doesn’t let you modify anything beyond the default settings. However, it reveals a wealth of additional information about your target demographic, which can be invaluable for your Facebook advertising efforts. Facebook gathers a considerable amount of data on its users, so leverage this information to your advantage.
If your ads aren’t tailored to your target audience, you could be spending thousands without seeing the desired results.
Correcting the Mistake
Have you taken a closer look at your audience settings in Facebook Ads Manager? If you haven’t, now is the time to do so. It’s a crucial step to evaluate and optimize your target audience.
Ensure that you’re incorporating a mix of demographics, behaviors, and interests. Focusing solely on demographics might mean overlooking valuable opportunities. The key to success in social media marketing, especially on platforms like Facebook, lies in the precision of your audience targeting.
While you’re revising, feel free to incorporate any fresh hobbies or behaviors you’ve discovered about your target audience through research.
You can trim away information that’s no longer pertinent. Make sure to activate the expansion to highlight interests and behaviors, and explore the additional options available in the “Show More Options” area.
Mistake #4: Not Optimizing Your Ads
A Facebook ad campaign, much like SEO or PPC, needs consistent optimization. If you set up your ads and leave them be, you’re committing a common Facebook ad mistake.
Your target audience is always evolving, so your ads need to keep pace. Just as you would refresh an old blog post, your outdated Facebook ads should undergo a similar optimization.
Countless companies end up squandering ad dollars due to inadequate optimization or, worse, neglecting it entirely. Don’t fall into that trap – keeping your ads updated is key to maximizing their effectiveness.
When optimizing, prioritize driving traffic and converting leads. In this article, we’ll concentrate on traffic, but for discussions on conversions, feel free to schedule a conversation with our team.
Here’s a handy tip: Develop a routine of checking your ad campaigns daily, at least until they consistently generate the desired number of calls, leads, or sales.
Why the daily check-ups?
Because if you don’t see results within two weeks, it’s likely a traffic issue. Identifying this early on prevents unnecessary spending. Additionally, resolving the traffic problem is crucial for witnessing conversions.
Correcting the mistake
Here are the key metrics crucial for optimizing ads:
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Conversions
- View time for video ads
These KPIs are crucial for assessing the performance of your ad settings. An effective ad is characterized by a remarkable CTR, a high conversion rate, and a prolonged watch duration for video ads.
According to Facebook, adding captions to video ads increases video views by an average of 12%. Another study on Facebook video ads found that 41% of the videos were ineffective without sound.
In essence, the most straightforward approach to enhance your Facebook advertisements is to deactivate those that aren’t delivering results. Further insights on this will be provided in the ‘Split Testing’ section.
You can identify the effectiveness of a campaign in just the first week.
60% of online shoppers in the US come across ads for products they’ve already looked into on different websites.
If your ad is receiving less than 50 hits, start by examining your destination. In the realm of lead generation, focusing on the optimization of your landing pages is crucial. For eCommerce store owners, prioritize the optimization of your product pages.
A valuable tip: Avoid using a Facebook ad to direct traffic to your homepage. The primary goal of your homepage is to enhance brand awareness, not to convert clients. Ensure your ads are linked exclusively to dedicated landing and product pages.
Mistake #5: Not Using Split Testing
One frequent Facebook ad mistake involves relying solely on a single version of your advertising. Ads can be unpredictable, and even seemingly outstanding ones might not perform well without an obvious explanation.
To address this, GREAT Guest Posts advocates for the practice of “split testing” or A/B testing. This approach involves creating multiple versions of the same ad to identify the most effective one. It’s essential that each advertisement possesses distinct elements setting it apart from the others in order to gauge its performance accurately.
Correcting the mistake
Split testing empowers you to try out various versions of your content, including copy, images, CTAs, and even videos.
Focus on design because visuals account for 75%-90% of ad performance.
Conduct a brief campaign for each ad, followed by a thorough analysis of the results. The process is straightforward—select the best-performing ad and develop a more extensive campaign based on its success.
At our end, we consistently leverage split testing in our advertising efforts on platforms like Facebook.
Utilizing the data available, we made the decision to deactivate our underperforming elements to cut costs.
Mistake #6: Not Using Remarketing
At GREAT Guest Posts PPC, we consistently highlight the advantages of retargeting, and this strategy extends to Facebook advertisements as well.
So, what exactly is remarketing?
It’s an advertising approach where you craft tailored ads for individuals who have visited your website but didn’t complete a conversion.
In such instances, they may have taken a look at specific items and possibly left something in their cart.
Leverage this opportunity to redirect their attention through a well-executed remarketing campaign.
Correcting the mistake
While it might seem intrusive, research suggests otherwise. In fact, 25% of online shoppers have expressed a preference for targeted approaches. The majority, however, indicate a neutral stance on remarketing campaigns.
The logic is simple: when a buyer clicks on your advertisement, they’ve already displayed interest in your product or service. This is especially true if they added items to their cart but didn’t complete the checkout. Maybe they realized they lacked the funds at that moment, making a remarketing campaign a helpful tool.
Retargeting them allows you to connect at a more opportune time, potentially leading to a conversion when they have the financial means. It’s also an effective way to personalize the consumer experience, leaving a positive impression on your business.
Mistake #7: Lacking Patience
Good things take time, and the same holds true for a Facebook ad campaign. It’s common for businesses to initiate a new campaign and expect instant success.
One notable benefit of advertising on Facebook is the swift access to analytics. Facebook Ads Manager promptly delivers a report on impressions, clicks, and engagement the day after your campaign is launched.
Correcting the mistake
However, resist the urge to alter your ad strategy within a day or two. Instead, adopt a more patient approach for at least two weeks. This period allows your advertisements sufficient time to reveal their true effectiveness.
Waiting can be challenging for businesses eager to maximize their returns, but this two-week timeframe is our gold standard at GREAT Guest Posts, and it has consistently proven to be effective.
While keeping a close eye on statistics is crucial, making too many changes too soon might have a negative impact.
Final Thoughts
However, refrain from altering your ad strategy too quickly. Adopt a passive approach for at least two weeks. This time frame allows your advertisements ample opportunity to reveal their true effectiveness.
Businesses often struggle with patience as they seek to maximize their returns promptly. However, the two-week waiting period is our gold standard at GREAT Guest Posts, and it has consistently proven to be effective.
While keeping a close eye on statistics is crucial, making excessive changes too soon may have a negative impact.
Author: Jugnu Nagar
SEO Specialist