Facebook Ads is the first thing that comes in anyone’s mind when there is a question of where to advertise online. A lot of advertisers believe that they can take a backseat after their Facebook ads have gone live. But the fact is that this platform will work wonders for you only if the ad campaigns are constantly monitored and improved. Facebook ads demand your money, effort, and time. 

There is a set of mistakes that many people make even after they have run several Facebook campaigns.

If you are looking to improve the ROI of your existing Facebook campaigns or need to set up a new one for your business, our team of Facebook Advertising experts can help you out!

Let’s now have a look at 10 frequently committed mistakes by marketers and advertisers.

1. Wrong Target Audience

Facebook has people from all over the world with a diverse range of interests. Every type of brand/business gets room to sell their product through their Facebook ads. 

One of the most important aspects of a Facebook ad campaign is targeting the right audience. The ad wouldn’t yield a single conversion if it doesn’t reach its right audience, i.e, the actual people interested in it.

Suppose you intend to sell a professional course that is only applicable to candidates with a graduate degree to enrol. There is no point in targeting a high school student for this ad because it is irrelevant to them.

Target your audience mindfully, do not narrow it to a very small number or widen it to a large one. 

Unlike Google Ads which targets viewers based on keywords, Facebook ad campaigns use demographics, interests, behavior, and more.

2. Narrowing audience too much

Narrowing the audience too much will considerably reduce the number of reach and impression, and sometimes the ads may not even run.

Excluding and including certain demographics, interests, or behavior can help your ad reach the right people, but it also increases the cost of your Facebook Ads Campaigns.

Sometimes the audience becomes too small when you target the people connected to your Facebook page, or the ones who visited your website once or the ones who watched your videos. 

It’s better to exclude your page audience since they get to know about your products/services from the feed itself. One reason is that you don’t have to spend money on them again, and the other is that it prevents ad fatigue for people from watching the same ad again and again.

3. Irrelevant Ad

Facebook calculates a score for ads based on the positive and negative feedback received from 500 ad impressions, called the Relevance Score. The ads with the maximum number of likes, comments, or shares engage people and hence are regarded as positive feedback. Ads reported as spam or hidden by people from their newsfeed fall under the negative feedback list. 

A better ad relevance score indicates that the ad can be interesting and appealing to the audience. This score is measured on a scale of 10 and ads with a low relevance score will cost more. It’s better to get an understanding of what works well for your ad by testing the different combinations of images and copy with different audiences from the Relevance score. You may split test the images to identify the right one from it. At times, certain types of images work well for a group of people and you might have to use different variations of the images for different groups of audiences. The ads already in progress can rework on the ad if the score dips.

4. Wrong campaign objective

Understanding and identifying the right campaign objective is important. Identify your main objective from Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion. Based on this, Facebook will then prioritize your ad’s target audience depending on the action they’ll probably take after viewing the ad.

Awareness:

• • Brand awareness: As the term itself suggests, this is for those who want to improve awareness about their brand. These campaigns intend to reach as many people as possible who will pay attention to your Facebook Ads.

• • Reach: The purpose of this objective is similar to that of brand awareness. These campaigns also aim to reach as many people as possible; at the same time it ensures that each person who sees the ad is different and not the same.

Consideration:

• • Traffic: Improving website traffic is a common concern among many website owners. You can use this objective to attract people to your website without burdening them with any specific action like filing a form or signing up.

• • Engagement: This objective is the best chance to boost your Facebook page. In this, your ads will be shown to people who will most probably like, comment, or share your posts. This way, you can attract more people to view your page content.

• • App installs: App installs have a very specific purpose: urge people to take action to install your mobile application. Also, this can increase the number of installs and further help to rank in app stores.

• • Video views: Video content is booming like never before, and so is their potential in marketing. This objective focuses on your video content being viewed. It can be used as an introductory campaign to spread information about the brand with new customers.

• • Lead generation: Lead generation campaigns directly ask for data from the viewers and the collected data can be used to communicate directly with these people for sales/conversion. The collected data helps to build a database that can be utilized for future remarketing purposes.

Conversions:

• • Conversions: This objective has only a single goal: to increase the sales or complete a particular conversion-oriented action. Facebook ensures that the ad is optimized to yield maximum conversions.

• • Product Catalogue Sales: This objective suits eCommerce websites. This helps to show various products from the product catalog based on the target audience.

• • Store Visits: Suppose you have your business stores at different locations, the store visits objective can be used to help people reach the closest store.

Depending on the intention behind showing your ad, identify and choose the objective that suits the ad.

5. Excessive text on the image

The Facebook newsfeed is crowded with a lot of images, text posts, videos, and more. In that, your ad might be left unnoticed if it isn’t properly designed to grab the viewer’s attention.

The image, the text over it, and the ad copy need to complement each other to make an ad work. People are already busy scrolling through the feed watching pictures of their friends, relatives, and even acquaintances. They simply would ignore your ad if nothing is interesting about it. 

Quality images can attract the attention of people. Not just that, Facebook has a  20% Text Rule which allows only 20% of text over the image. Facebook usually doesn’t approve ads violating this rule because such ads may not reach their potential audience. 

You can check this using Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool, where an image-text rating is given. The images with “OK” are ready for the campaign, the ones with a “Low” rating can still be considered for running the campaign while “Medium” and “High” ones may not work well in the campaigns.

But, Facebook does exempt Product Image, Book Covers, Album Covers, Games, Event Posters, Magazine & Newspaper Covers, Movie & TV Show Poster from this 20% Text rule. 

Ads with small images can appear inappropriate if they are used in the sidebar (since sidebar ads appear in a small area). So it’s better to avoid using small images for the ad. 

6. Misconnect between ad and landing page

People click the CTA buttons expecting to reach a place that offers what they want and not somewhere else that has no relation to what they came for. 

The landing page and the ad should be related. Suppose (hypothetically) your ad says that you offer sugar-free ice cream; a diabetic person reaches the landing page hoping to buy sugar-free ice cream. If he/she lands on the page mentioning the regular ice cream, then they’ll probably lose interest to buy and may not even think of finding the sugar-free section. 

The viewer was disappointed when they couldn’t find the offer mentioned on the ad on the landing page.  They bounce back from your website/page without converting. These are instances where the relevance score dips and increase the CPC of your Facebook ad. Always avoid this mistake while setting up your ad because landing page experience does matter. 

7. Poor ad copy

Facebook ads limit the number of characters for the ad title as well as the description. It’s 25 characters for the title and 135 characters for the description. How well you use this limited space defines the success of your ad. 

The ad copy needs to be written effectively so that it convinces the right audience to take action (click on a link, watch a video, sign up, or make a purchase for some product). 

The headline is the most important element in an ad copy. People are always in a hurry and they’ll probably stop by to read the heading of your ad.  If they don’t find the heading interesting, they won’t read your ad copy any further from there. Ensure that your ad heading grabs the viewer’s attention. 

Craft a description including your USP (value proposition) and keywords smartly within the character limitation. Write it in such a way that the viewer feels their need/problem can be fixed using your product/service.

8. Wrong placement

The ad placements function lets you place your ad on spaces of your choice. The ad might have an excellent ad copy and image, but not all ads work well when placed on certain spaces.

If your ad is about a product that common people use daily, placing your ad on the Facebook newsfeed, including mobile phone users would help. 

If your ad intends to sell something that is not bought by people every day, you can place that ad in the Facebook Marketplace where people come with an intention to buy. For example, a used car reseller can include Facebook Marketplace for placement, since products like these have a better probability of finding a buyer there over the newsfeed.

9. High ad frequency

It is annoying to watch the same ad appear over and over while using Facebook. At times, advertisers think showing the ads repeatedly will urge the viewers to take action positively. But if an ad is shown more number of times, it may end up being reported as spam. 

Understand the fact that if somebody saw your ad multiple times, say thrice and didn’t click for a single time, it means that he/she isn’t interested in your ad.

It is necessary to maintain ad Frequency at a medium level. A low frequency would result in the ad missing out a part of its audience while having a high frequency means the ad would turn boring to them.

10. Improper A/B testing

A/B testing is the most appropriate way to check an ad’s effectiveness. Even small variations in the ad creative and copy can render an entirely different result. But doing it the wrong way won’t give a proper result.

Performing  A/B test immediately after launching (maybe after the first day) the campaign is a bad idea since you didn’t wait for the ad to collect enough impressions, reach, and clicks.

Testing too many variations at once can result in complex data. So choose the elements that concern you, and perform a test with them. Also, some marketers stop A/B testing once they figure out what works best for them. But everything is dynamic and there is always a possibility for improvement. Conduct tests regularly and discover new opportunities to boost your Facebook ad campaigns.

Conclusion

Facebook ads have immense potential to market anything to everything around you. It’s a great platform for businesses to grow provided one considers the flaws in the way they use it. 

Always have a clear picture of your buyer’s intent, create ads that have elements that the audience cares about. Many digital marketing experts recommend revising the ad campaigns frequently since the ad becomes stale within 2-3 days of launching. 

Regulate the number of responses you receive by cutting down or adjusting the target audience.

Sometimes people avoid using any CTA, which is a bad idea. A proper CTA is compulsory for any ad. A broad targeting, vague USP, and poor image quality destroy the purpose of the ad. 

The ad copy should be appealing to your target audience and at the same time try not to complicate the ad copy. Even simple, precise, and direct content using keywords that suit your brand works well. 

Always preview the ad before launching them because certain images look odd when compressed.  

Conduct A/B testing if you find it difficult to figure out the placement that works best for you. 

These were the 10 reasons that we think are failing your Facebook ads campaigns. Consider them one by one and polish your Facebook ad to maximize your conversions. Or if you need professional assistance with running Facebook ads for your business, do give us a try.