Facebook is still going strong as one of the biggest social media platforms out there. With approximately 2.8 billion monthly users, business marketers have flocked to this platform in droves. You’re no different—you know you’ve got to get in on that action.
You know that more eyes on your ads means more customers, but there are pitfalls everywhere. One wrong step, and it’ll cost you.
When it comes to making social media ads, there is a thin line between success and failure. For Facebook, in particular, there’s a formula to generating user engagement. The skeletal guideline for making your Facebook ads is as follows:
- Have a Detailed Purpose
- Ad Targeting and Strategy
- Authentic Content
With a simple system such as this, how can you go wrong? Well, pretty easily. This article will demonstrate several common mistakes you could make when creating Facebook ads, and how to avoid them.
Not Honing In On Your Audience
Do you know who you’re marketing to? You never want to make your target audience so broad that a majority of people ignore what you have to promote. You only have a split second to grab someone’s attention while they’re scrolling through Facebook.
That split second is wasted when your ad is shown to someone unlikely to buy from you.
Research your target audience. If you can’t guess who would be interested in your product (down to age, gender, lifestyle, etc.), you have a couple of options:
- Trial and Error: who are your repeat customers? What are their interests or “likes”? What do they look like? You can use this information to begin compiling a list of shared characteristics between customers.
- Use Facebook’s Audience Insights: take advantage of Facebook’s ad algorithm! When you make Facebook ads, you can cater to specific demographics.
Ignoring Engagement
Picture this: your ad campaign is quite popular. People from around the country, or even around the globe, are liking it, and they’re commenting on it. If you ignore their comments or messages, you’re ignoring engagement. In the worst-case scenario, you ignore the potential customer, and they never visit your page again.
You don’t have to respond to every comment, of course. But engaging with your audience is key to developing a community on Facebook. What you want is long-term exposure to your consumers. What better way to show them the human element of your marketing strategy than to answer them?
Misleading Ads
This is one rule that Facebook specifically enforces. In short, don’t clickbait. If you advertise for something your product or service doesn’t do, your viewers will not trust you. And worse still, Facebook will drop your ad.
This logic applies to links, too. Make sure to include links that go where you say they’re going.
Letting an Ad Fatigue
Let’s say your ad does well. Eventually, people will interact with it less and less, and unique traffic will decrease as a result. Whatever you do, don’t rely on an ad’s popularity to bring you more conversions. It will peak, and you need to be prepared for when it happens.
Tweak your ad. Determine what worked for that particular campaign and do it again, but in a different flavor. Change the CTA wording. Switch formats: use gifs or a video instead of still images, for example. Every 2 weeks or so, make sure to freshen up your ad campaign. Don’t leave it hanging!
To Wrap Things Up…
Know your audience. Engage with them in a way that’s trustworthy. And above all else, keep things fresh! If you need more marketing advice, we’re always ready to help.
