How to Avoid Common Facebook Ad Mistakes?

With over 1.6 billion daily users, Facebook is undeniably the king of social media. For businesses, this is a lucrative opportunity as the social media platform ensures a global reach and improved brand visibility. There are several reasons why it is worthwhile for businesses to run Facebook Ads:

• It allows you to laser-target your custom audiences
• Facebook has the highest retail Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) of any other social media platform
• Multiple ad types for unique business needs
• Low-cost and affordable

While getting started with Facebook Ads is simple, you will need to watch out for some common pitfalls, mainly if you are a beginner.

Stop making these common Facebook ad mistakes and see your campaigns driving higher ROI.

5 Facebook Ads Mistakes You Should Avoid

Discussed here are five Facebook advertising mistakes beginners tend to make and how to avoid them:

1. Not Having a Clear Objective

One of the key steps of successful Facebook advertising is to define clear and measurable objectives. However, many businesses make the mistake of setting the wrong objectives, and hence, the ad campaigns fail to deliver proven results.

Having a clear objective is pivotal for developing an effective strategy and driving success for your Facebook Ad campaign. Fortunately, Facebook allows you to choose from 11 objectives, encompassing three broad categories of a customer’s buying journey: awareness, consideration, and conversion.

So, specifically, determine what your objective is – whether you want to drive traffic to your website, generate qualified leads, maximize your reach, boost conversions, or just have the contact information of your potential customers.   

Therefore, for each ad campaign, it is important to have the right objective. Based on your goals, you can create an action plan and set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

2. Not Targeting the Right Audience

Audience targeting is an integral aspect of any successful Facebook ad campaign. Who you want to show your ads to can help determine the effectiveness of the campaign. However, one of the biggest Facebook Ads mistakes that businesses make is going either too narrow or too broad when it comes to audience targeting.

For this reason, it is important to understand who your target audience is. The good news – Facebook provides the best audience-targeting features that allow you to reach the right set of people. Here are some factors to consider when defining the right target audience:

• Demographics, including age, sex, income levels, marital status, etc.
• Location of the audience, considering factors like zip code, state, or country
• Is your audience genuinely interested in your brand, products, or service?
• Determine engagement level by considering target audiences who have recently followed, liked, or commented on your post on social media
• Target users based on their behaviors using Facebook Pixel. The targeting tool allows you to track user behavior and display Facebook ads likewise

Once you use Facebook’s different targeting options, you can set the ad campaign for automatic optimization. Additionally, it is important to set the right audience size.

3. Wrong Ad Optimization and Bidding Strategy

One of the common Facebook ad mistakes that businesses tend to do is overspending on ad campaigns. This primarily happens due to a lack of an effective bidding strategy. To address this challenge, use Facebook’s campaign budget optimization (CBO). It allows you to set a practical budget at the ad campaign level which can be then optimized and distributed across different ad sets. Use this tool to identify top-performing ad sets and spend more budget on them rather than wasting your money on ads that aren’t generating profitable results.

Another common Facebook advertising mistake is to set “Optimization for Ad Delivery” incorrectly.

For instance, you are running an ad campaign for “App Installation,” but selected the “Link Clicks” bidding strategy under “Optimization for Ad Delivery.” Facebook will clearly mention that with this wrong option, the ad delivery will not be optimized for maximum conversions. Hence, the entire budget will go wasted. Therefore, it is important to choose the right campaign ad optimization and bidding strategy depending on the type of campaign you choose.

4. Not Optimising the Ad Copy

If you set your ad campaign and forget about it, then you are making one of the biggest Facebook Ads mistakes. As your target customers continuously evolve and change, you should optimize your ads likewise. Remember, Facebook ads also become outdated and people may not be interested in seeing the same ads again and again. In fact, many Facebook advertisers are wasting their ad budget either by not optimizing the ad campaigns or doing them wrong. Even Facebook shows a “Creative Fatigue” status when it feels that audiences are getting exhausted due to a run-down creative.

To avoid this and capture the attention of your target audiences, it is crucial to present your potential customers with something new, unique, and interesting every time. Here are some tips on how to minimize Creative Fatigue:

• Refresh your content every 2 weeks
• Change the ad creative. Use new images. Try new ad formats. You can also test new messaging or angles
• Find new ad placements
• Include Calls to Action (CTA)

Creative Fatigue is not a myth. Therefore, you should know how to avoid Facebook ad mistakes and provide your audiences with fresh and interesting ad content every time.

5. No Split Testing

This is another common Facebook ad mistake – not using split testing. Running a single version of your ad, in the long run, may cause it to fall flat in no time. Therefore, it is essential to split test or A/B test your ad campaigns to help achieve proven results.

Create multiple versions of the same ad creative and test them to understand which one performs best with your target audiences. Not just ad copies but you can even split test different CTAs, images, landing pages, or even videos to see what’s working and what’s not. After all, it is not worth spending your budget on an ad that doesn’t trigger audience interest.

Run limited campaigns for each ad creative and then compare the data. Based on your analysis, create an extensive campaign around the ad that performed the best.

The Final Words

To run successful Facebook Ads and drive proven results, it is crucial to walk the extra mile and connect to your audiences. When done right, Facebook advertising can deliver exceptional results and ensure business growth. Therefore, it is important to avoid these costly & common Facebook ad mistakes and run effective campaigns.

If you need help creating professional Facebook ads for your business, get in touch with a professional agency that can help build, run and manage successful campaigns.