The pain is real! It’s a feeling a LOT of businesses go through and most people have hit that wall of despair at some point or another. Incredibly, more than 62 Percent of Small Business Owners Say Facebook Ads are failing
But there are a few pitfalls that are easy to fall into and common issues that we see from business owners and their team on a fairly frequent basis.
So, here are some helpful things to keep in mind if you are pulling your hair out with paid social:
1) Give it time
Be prepared to invest some time, and money, in Facebook or you are setting yourself up to fail from the beginning. You need to give your ad some time to perform and too many tweaks and changes will keep resetting your ad back to square 1. This will make it impossible to get a true picture of effectiveness. If you have only have a small budget to allocate, Facebook might not give you the instant returns you are looking for.
2) Be aware of the Click Through Rate (CTR)
Your CTR is the percentage of times people saw your ad and performed a link click. The average CTR for Facebook Ads is between 1 and 3% and this will vary across industry and sectors. The return on investment for your ads should be based on the lifetime value of your customers, and what you do to capitalise on ad conversions further down the customer journey. So, with this in mind, it is important to be realistic and understand the overall outcomes you are likely to achieve from your paid social media activity.
3) Use it to build on marketing success, not drive it
Facebook ads should enhance and capitalise what is already working well for you on social. You need to have an established, strong and engaged community, know your target audience inside out and have a successful social media strategy in place. And then of course this must all feed into a wider marketing and PR strategy. If you start a Facebook Ads campaign expecting it to ‘fix stuff’ it’s not the right starting point and you will become despondent quite quickly.
4) Set the right goals
Another reason why it’s important to have a marketing strategy – you will need to understand your goals for Facebook Ads, in the wider context of your marketing targets and objectives. For example, is this a brand awareness exercise, or do you want people to buy your product? If this is about straight sales generation you need to set the advertising objective in Facebook Ads so it can work at its optimum level. Selecting the right objective is critical to manage and assess your ad’s performance.
5) Perfect every aspect of your ad
A strong ad will have everything going for it. A striking (and relevant) image, compelling copy and a clear call to action. The timing of your ad drop is also absolutely crucial. Every element is important so spend time getting them right. Facebook gives you the opportunity to test different ads (AB testing) so you can see what works best for your target audience, and make changes accordingly. Another reason why you need to give your ads some time to perform at their best.
6) Create a killer landing page
The landing page can often be seen as an after thought but getting your audience to click through to your website, is just the first hurdle. When your visitor arrives, they need to be convinced to stay, take action and understand what they are being asked to do. A free trial, new product line or time limited offer is a good example of something that is clear and has a direct action attached – e.g., signing up for a subscription service.
7) Don’t forget the pixels
If you are spending hard earned money on advertising, you will need to track the outcome of your efforts. Facebook Pixels is a piece of short code which will track visitor activity on your website. Tracked conversions will then appear in the Facebook Ads Manager and in the Facebook Analytics dashboard, where they can be used to measure just how successful your ads are. This will also enable you to carry out retargeting activity.
So, there’s a few things to focus on, on what is quite a big topic! Remember, Facebook ads can be really powerful, for both large and small businesses. But there is quite a bit to think about from the research phase, planning and setting up your ad, execution and measurement. If you need some help to get it right, we are here to assist.