Creating Facebook ads requires research, strategy, and patience. A lot of patience. It can be frustrating spending time developing an ad campaign just to have it fall flat, but this is more common than you might think.
As an agency that specializes in digital advertising, our team has had to practice its fair share of patience while figuring out how to optimize Facebook ads. Along the way, we’ve learned a few things we’re happy to pass along.
1. You’re not testing your campaigns enough.Facebook makes it easy to set up a campaign. It’s almost so easy that many people think their work is done after their campaign launches. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. When you set up the campaign, that’s when the real work starts.
Advertisers need to ditch the “set it and forget it” mindset. Getting ad campaigns isn’t easy--if it was, you wouldn’t be reading this, right? It’s a cocktail of creative, audiences, copy, discounts, landing pages, and on and on and on. You get the point. All of this is to say, you’ll get your best results from testing constantly.
2. You’re not using the correct value proposition.In short, a value proposition is what makes your product or service (or even your company) look attractive to consumers. Think about what your company can offer and find out what works best with your audiences. That brings us back to our old friend testing!
Some people are lured in by free shipping, others want an exclusive discount, and some might even care more about company values than they do a sweet deal. What can your business offer that stands out?
3. Your audience is too small.Because Facebook has so many options for targeting and hyper-targeting, it can be tempting to want to take advantage of these tools to find Brenda in Connecticut who loves cats and puzzles and is in the market for a baby blue zip up cardigan.
Unfortunately, trying to target super niche markets can come back to bite you. Facebook tends to penalize campaigns that have very small audiences with under delivery and high CPMS. A good rule of thumb we like to follow is trying to keep ToFu targeting between 1-5 million people.
4. You aren’t looking at the big picture.This is a hard pill to swallow, but it’s necessary: not all ads will convert. In fact, maybe not all ads are even meant to convert. The real question is how does an ad fit into your overall strategy?
When planning ad campaigns, consider how a non-converting ad might serve your strategy later on. Non converting clicks at ToFu can be frustrating, but if they lead to conversions down the line, it’s not a bad investment to consider.