5 Mistakes That Could Be Derailing Your Facebook Ads

#1. Not Thinking Strategically

It is relatively easy to go onto Facebook and create an ad, which is why many busy business owners and managers jump into Facebook advertising without putting much thought into it. The result? Disappointing outcomes.

Before you begin your first (or next) Facebook advertising campaign, answer the following questions:

• Who is your target audience – demographically, geographically, where they are in the sales funnel, etc.?
• What is the goal of your Facebook ad – build awareness, drive traffic to your website, create leads, etc.?
• What is your long-term plan? Of course, everyone wants to get to the sale, but sometimes you need to nurture your audience through the sales funnel before that can happen.
• What story are you telling to build a stronger connection with your target audience?

#2 Picking the Wrong Facebook Objective

Facebook offers six advertising objectives to choose from, and many are similar. However, you must choose the right objective to get the desired results:

1. Awareness
2. Traffic
3. Engagement
4. Leads
5. App promotion
6. Sales

To pick the right objective, you need to consider your goal and where your target audience is in the sales funnel. Facebook offers these guidelines. 

#3. Too Many Calls to Action

You want to get the most bang for your buck with all of your marketing efforts, which is why it’s often tempting to include more than one call to action (CTA). A CTA tells your audience what you want them to do when they see your ad. Common examples of CTAs include “Buy Now,” “Sign Up,” and “Register Today.”

Your CTA should be based on your audience (such as where they are in the sales funnel) and your goal or objective. Having more than one CTA in an ad may confuse your audience and not achieve the desired result. Instead, determine ONE CTA for each campaign and use it in your ad copy, button, etc.

If you can’t choose just one CTA, create a single ad set with multiple ads with a different CTA in each ad (but still just one CTA per ad). 

#4. Linking to the Wrong Destination

Your CTA should include a link to a landing page or in-app destination. For example, when someone clicks on the “Buy Now” button, you should take them to a page where they can actually buy something. Likewise, if your CTA is meant to encourage people to register for an event, your CTA button should send them to the page where they can register for the event.

Like the CTA, your CTA button should send them to a specific landing page based on your goal and audience. Rarely should they be sent to your home page, which is too general.  

#5. Picking the Wrong Facebook Budget Option

Facebook offers Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) to simplify campaigns for busy business owners and managers. “Instead of setting individual ad set budgets, you set one overarching campaign budget,” Facebook states. “This budget has flexibility to spend more on ad sets with the best opportunities, and less on underperforming ad sets.”

However, if your campaign includes several ad sets with varying audience sizes, CBO may result in spending too much on large ad sets, ignoring smaller ad sets. This could result in some audiences rarely seeing your ads. In this situation, you would be better off turning CBO off and setting your own budget for each ad set.

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