5 Common Mistakes People Make With Facebook Ads
So you’ve put some budget aside to try Facebook Ads. You’ve heard they can be really beneficial to your business and would love to give them a go. But… running paid ads on Facebook or Instagram for the first time can feel really overwhelming and you’re not really sure where to start.
If you’re a small business and only have a small budget for Facebook Ads, every penny counts. I don’t want you to throw money away by taking the wrong approach - so I’m here to tell you the most common mistakes people make so you won’t make them too. Read on to find out more!
1) Boosting posts rather than using Ads Manager
Repeat after me: Boosting. Posts. Doesn’t. Drive. Tangible. Results. It’s important to remember this!
Whilst they’re a super easy way to set up advertising, and can be great to reach new audiences that may interact with your content, they don’t bring the money in. You might gain a few likes or a few followers, but if you’re looking to drive a return on investment and grow your business, they’re not the avenue to go down.
2) Not setting up the pixel
If you’ve set a campaign live but haven’t actually set up your pixel yet, go pause it. Right now. Implementing the pixel is super important because not only does it allow you to track actions on site, it also allows Facebook to use this data throughout the learning phase. Facebook uses the learning phase to gather data and optimise your campaign so that performance can reach optimal. No Facebook pixel = No optimal performance for you.
Click here for help on where to get started when it comes to setting up the pixel.
3) Having a lack of varied creative
Different pieces of creative will appeal to different people. What you might think looks fab, might not necessarily appeal to everyone. Going live with only one piece of creative can really hinder your performance - because you’re relying on the fact that the creative in your ad WILL perform and appeal to everyone. But that might not be the case!
I would always recommend going live with multiple pieces of creative every time you set a campaign live. This allows Facebook to have more creative to work with and optimise towards the ones that are most likely to drive purchases. There’s also been tests ran in partnership with Facebook to show that having varied creative in your campaign produces stronger results than just having the one. So make sure you take this learning forward!
4) Putting too many ads live
On the flip side, having too many ads live can also hinder your performance because this can lead to your budget being spread too thin. If you have too many ads within a campaign, it may struggle to exit the learning phase. Each individual ad may not have enough spend or learning behind it in order to reach optimal performance, and so you can get stuck in the learning phase. Depending on your budget, I recommend having 3-5 ads live per ad set.
5) Constantly disrupting the learning phase
If you haven’t driven any revenue after a day or two of running ads, it can be tempting to switch your creative or change your audience targeting in an attempt to drive revenue quicker. Please don’t do this!
When you first put activity live, it will always go through the learning phase. Throughout this phase performance can be unstable, but once you have exited the learning phase performance will improve. Any significant changes you make to your campaign - like changing your creative, copy, audience etc - will re-set the learning phase.
If you’re in a habit of making changes every couple of days to try and improve performance, then you might be in a constant cycle of re-setting the learning phase. Consequently causing performance to be unstable for yourself! Try and leave you campaign for at least 7 days before making any changes. If things still aren’t going well after 7 days, only then is it time to have a re-think and make some changes.
If you’re wanting to run Facebook Ads soon but are feeling a bit baffled and need some extra guidance - you might want to think about booking a Facebook Ads Power Hour with me! We can work together on a campaign plan so you are set up for maximum success. Get in contact with me to enquire about this service (it’s currently running at an introductory price of £60 per session up until 31st March 2021. After this, the price will rise to £120)
