Avoid Making Mistakes With Facebook Ads

Selling on Facebook seems simple on the surface. All you need to do is access your professional dashboard (helpfully provided by the platform), and find your target audience (again the platform can help here), and voila! You've got an advert with photos, videos or text and it's being shown to your desired demographic... but wait!

How sure are you that you've got the right advert elements? Can you be 100% sure that you know exactly how to target your audience and give them a reason to click on your ad? In this article we'll help you out by explaining some of the common mistakes businesses make with Facebook advertising. Better still, if you'd like us to handle your FB advertising we're experts in this area, just book a call with us today.

Playing it 'safe'

You've probably already been advertising on Facebook or Instagram. It's one of the most popular ways to get noticed. It is also tempting because there's often boost promos where you can get a 'free' £20 ad placed. For someone trying to start up a tiny DIY home business this is fine, but for a growing company? You need to do your research, and start leaving your comfort zone when it comes to trying out new ideas.

Of course some may not perform as well as others, that's just a learning curve, because if you have a preconceived idea (for example) that great photos of your products will get you clicks, and then it turns out to be wrong... what happens next? At Pear Digital we recognise that your audience all have different preferences when it comes to what keeps them engaged – some will like videos, others might like photos. We can split test ads against each other to see what works for your brand... and find the winning combination!

Choosing the wrong objective

As we mentioned; Facebook has a helpful advertising framework that lets you choose elements of your ad so that you can reach your desired customer, and (hopefully) get that all important conversion. Did you know that that each option you are presented with will drastically alter how your potential customer interacts with the ad? It's so important that you match your end goal with the correct objective, otherwise you could end up hurting your as engagement without even knowing it!

Being too selective with your target audience

We've mentioned it in previous blogs, but it bears saying again; as businesses we can become focussed on results and not the people behind them. A fine example of this is stereotyping groups of people. Facebook allows you to choose people with very narrow interests, all you need to do is type in a key word and it brings up all the consumers with that shared interest such as 'wax melts' or 'photography'.

Let's say you're selling outdoor sportswear. You'll be hoping for a target audience of young, up-coming people in their late teens to around 30 years old, people who like the gym and other sports... don't forget that a vast majority of people use sportswear in their daily life for things like dog-walking, lounge wear, DIY, work wear etc. These people maybe be a lot older than your target audience, or they may not like any sports at all but love a comfy hoodie! It's worth trying different, wider audiences when you run an ad.

Ad placements – don't be too picky!

This leads on from the above section. The platforms of Facebook and Instagram are vast. Their reach is global and this huge playing field can seem daunting. With a business mindset you are probably used to breaking down large challenges into segments, so it's not such a stretch to imagine – when thinking about targeting ad placements - you will want to do the same thing.

It's essential to understand that the audience you are targeting will remain the same, regardless of the placement that you choose to display your ads in. Then you should realise that by removing certain placements, it just takes away Facebook's ability to align the algorithm for you, because it essentially has less options to work with and raw data from.

Pear Digital know these mistakes all too well from discussing issues that clients have prior to using our Facebook Ads Service. With so many options it's only natural that things can be overwhelming and you stick with what you assume to be the most logical option. Unfortunately, as social media platforms and the market evolve 'logical' can sometimes lose you money.

Beware of the budget controls

Finally, one of the most misunderstood options when setting up a Facebook Ad is the budget. Firstly, there are two basic types of budgets you can set (in 2021); daily or lifetime. These all have their own positive points of course, it is wise to understand that Daily Budgets for an ad will attempt (via the algorithms and settings you have placed on the advert) to reach your desired goals every single day – no matter if conversion performance is poor!

Secondly, you may think after reading this that a Life Time budget option will suit you better, and while these are good for stretching your spending they are harder to pace. Some days you'll find that you don't reach your target ad spend, and this can make it harder to plan things.

When it comes to budgeting, why not let us take care of the details for you? We can discuss the varying options with you and get you 5x or more return on your ad spend.