Especially Entrepreneurs that need to get clients using Facebook ad campaigns…
Sometimes we get started with our Facebook ad campaigns too quickly, not realizing that there are so many things that could go wrong and negatively affect how your ads respond, your landing page conversions, and the most important result, if your offer is profitable. Knowing the symptoms of your problems can really help you in identifying the right solution for fixing them or knowing the problems can help you to avoid them…
Are Your Ads Denied?
It’s not public knowledge how Facebook approves or denies ads. Since there is not clear understanding, there has been discussion that there is a combination of automated approvals and manual intervention, where an actual person will apply the standards and guidelines to your ad. The best way to avoid getting your ad denied is to understand what causes them to be disapproved in the first place…
You’re probably not thinking about your users first…
Always remember, your first objective is to maintain a user-friendly experience for each of your ads. Facebook is setup as, and continually promotes, a community oriented environment. With this said, you’re going to find that most of the problems that you encounter with an ad that is denied is going to originate where you deviate from that idea…
When you create your ad, think about how that ad is going to effect the user when it comes across their newsfeed. You want your ad to first add immediate value to their experience, not detract from it…
Facebook name…
You may have a very good reason why you use the Facebook name in your ad copy, if this is the case, you need to understand that it needs to be used in only the ways that are allowable. You must maintain the correct spelling and presentation of the name, such as not using a lower-case or in a possessive tense. You also can’t use the font size to draw greater prominence to the name in your ad copy…
Non-functional icons…
You shouldn’t use icons that represent functions that don’t exist, such as a play button over an image that does not play a video in the newsfeed. It’s a common tactic that you may see on other ad platforms, but Facebook doesn’t allow such methods that are seen as a way to trick the user into a click…
Differing URLs…
You don’t want to use differing URLs within your ad, and more importantly different from the click-through URL. Facebook doesn’t want to allow nebulous advertisers that portray an intent in one way on the ad and then has a completely different intent on a landing page, differing URLs is a clear red flag that this is exactly what will happen…
Bait-and-switch…
You never want to create a bait-and-switch scenario, where you make an unbelievable offer, such as something for free, in your ad copy but when the user clicks on the URL, they are taken directly to a sales page, where they must purchase, that does not represent what you previously offered. This would be detracting from the user experience and create a deceptive practice that is not tolerable…
You’re probably calling out your users in your ad copy…
When you think about the Facebook community, you should look at it in terms of how you personally interact with others in your life. Imagine if you were at a local shopping center and someone standing outside of a pharmacy began drawing attention to your chronic illness, or as you pass the fitness gym, another person is loudly addressing the few or more extra pounds you appear to have on your body…
Personal traits…
You never want to use in your ad copy or ad image what can be considered a personal trait to grab the user’s attention. More often than not, it’s going to cause negative emotions and increase the user’s insecurities…
Possessive terms…
Your ad copy is driven by personalization, but if that is done alongside a personal trait, it can certainly give the impression that your inspiring the emotion to offer the solution, not directly promote the problem. If you do use a possessive term, such as”your”, be sure to not do so in a manner that calls-out the user…
Insecurities and negative emotions…
Your ads shouldn’t intentionally promote an insecurity in the user or cause negative emotions that are intended to be used as part of your sales process. This only continues to build an unsafe environment that is counter-productive to the community oriented platform that is being promoted…
You’re probably making unsubstantiated statements…
Sometimes we get overly excited and a bit ahead of ourselves when we start to put our thoughts about how our amazing solution can solve the most obtrusive problems that a customer faces. The claims we make inside our ad copy should not be outside the realms of reality, but given creative and marketing license, it can be stretched where necessary…
The difference between creativity and making a false claim really lies in the statement of relief, therefore, this is where you need to make sure that you’re not exercising too much creativity in how your solution can go about relieving the identified problem…
Prohibited content list…
Here is a full list of the prohibited content by Facebook that is not allowed to advertise on their platform:
1. Illegal Products or Services
2. Discriminatory Practices
3. Tobacco Products
4. Drugs & Drug-Related Products
5. Unsafe Supplements
6. Weapons, Ammunition, or Explosives
7. Adult Products or Services
8. Adult Content
9. Third-Party Infringement
10. Sensational Content
11. Personal Attributes
12. Misleading or False Content
13. Controversial Content
14. Non-Functional Landing Page
15. Surveillance Equipment
16. Grammar & Profanity
17. Nonexistent Functionality
18. Personal Health
19. Payday or Cash Advance Loans
20. Multilevel Marketing
21. Penny Auctions
22. Counterfeit Documents
23. Low Quality or Disruptive Content
24. Spyware or Malware
25. Automatic Animation
26. Unauthorized Streaming Devices
27. Circumventing Systems
You’re probably promoting something that isn’t allowed…
The Facebook platform is an incredibly powerful tool for any advertiser that wants to reach a very specific audience, but it’s also not open to all of them. If you operate as, or along with, one of these advertisers that promotes a prohibited product or service, there really isn’t a fix or a work-around for it…
Even if you were able to get a specific prohibited product or service to be approved by Facebook, your more than likely going to be placed on a manual ad approval process, those ads will be constantly scrutinized, and you would have to apply strict audience targeting where necessary. So, as much as offering fixes for these issues would seem advantageous, the reality of the matter is, you will be fighting a no-win battle, and for the benefit of the community, perhaps it is best kept that way…
Restricted list…
Here is a list of the most popular products or services that are continually seen as restricted by Facebook to be allowed to advertise on their platform:
1. Alcohol
2. Dating
3. Real Money Gambling
4. State Lotteries
5. Online Pharmacies
6. Supplements
7. Subscription Services
8. Financial Services
9. Branded Content
10. Student Loan Services
Keep in mind that these lists are updated at the discretion of Facebook, therefore, make sure that you monitor their guidelines if you operate where you may fall into one of these lists…
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Ads Have Low Distribution?
A common symptom of a poor performing Facebook ad campaign is low distribution, which in essence, is your ads not reaching a wide enough audience. A lot of speculation can be had about what is the real cause of a low distribution ad, there is the initial set of issues, which consist of poor campaign planning, for instance, where there is not enough effort that is placed in the audience development. The other set of issues are going to be functional, where your ad elements are not created properly or the options set in your campaign are the cause of the restrictions…
Find your right audience…
If you enjoy fishing, you’ve probably heard of it as not being called catching, it’s probably an overused analogy, but fitting for audience building…
Your target audience is not fleeting, it’s not going anywhere, and as a matter of fact it’s currently in the same place that it’s been for a long time. So why can’t you catch it?
You’re probably suffering from audience fatigue, where you keep trying to find them in all the wrong places, but guess what, I have the solution: Do a better job of drawing attention from your prospect, give them value, and you’ll catch them every time.
Start by fishing for your audience…
You’re going to start by finding big pools of fish, but you only want to catch certain species, not all of them.
So, you create your customer profile, this is going to be an elaborate list of interests that the vast majority of your customers share. Remember, Facebook works by targeting interests, demographics, location, and behaviors, therefore, these will be the correlative characteristics you’re looking for, not the broad interests.
A really simple example would be, if you were targeting the core Basketball fans, you probably wouldn’t start with Lebron James, because he’s reached celebrity status and would draw too broad of an audience. You would want to target, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Dwayne Wade, no disrespect to them in terms of celebrity status. The idea is to maintain control over the size of the pool of fish so you can find only the specific species you’re looking for.
Just to make sure you understand the concept, here is another example. If you wanted to target car enthusiasts, while Jerry Seinfeld owns a very prestigious car collection, he is a celebrity in comedy and classic cars. He would take your audience into a very broad span, you would be better suited targeting Mecum Auto Auctions, Worldwide Auctioneers, and Barrett-Jackson, since these are specific auction companies that sell classic cars.
I want to add one more example, just because I think it adds to the explanation of the subject. You might be interested in targeting bloggers, but only those that are actually producing content on a regular basis. So, would WordPress be a good start? No, it’s too broad to target because it is so large of a brand that you’re going to have an audience that includes non-bloggers, developers, and maybe even random people that have no interest in blogging.
You would be better served to target actual authority bloggers, software to distribute blogs, and even services to help optimize blogs. Using this strategy would take your audience from a large pool with the specific species of fish you’re looking for to a more refined pool with the same specific species of fish.
Build your customer profile…
Your know your potential customer better than anyone else, therefore, when you planning your target audience, you need to put together a list of demographic traits that they share. You want to be able to create a list that will give you the most ideal audience, but not too restrictive that you missing outlier audiences that may still be interested in the solution you’re offering…
Personalities…
Think about the people that have the biggest megaphones, the ones that are actively in the spotlight. This doesn’t include include Oprah, while she may have an incredibly loyal fan base, she will be much too broad for your audience. As it pertains to an industry, for cosmetics, this may be Kylie Jenner, for auto, this may be Dale Earnhardt Jr., and for Internet Marketing, this may be Neil Patel. You need to start with the authority figures that are active participants in your industry and the thought leaders that are considered the trend setters or futurists and have the potential to be followed or liked by your customer base.
Brands…
In every industry, you’re going to have brands that are standouts, these are companies that offer products or services that have established themselves as staples for successful operation. Industry examples would be, for watches, this may be Rolex, for tools, this may be Craftsman, and for Internet Marketing, this may be MOZ. The brands that your customers follow within an industry are not like those they follow for entertainment. Usually, there’s a strong passion behind their loyalty, such as extreme sports enthusiasts that choose a particular energy drink or software developers that choose a certain programming language.
Media…
Consider the media, such as books, magazines, and newspapers, that your customers consume on a daily basis. With just this interest, you can come away with deep understanding of personal tastes, political views, and how they spend their time. We do want to be careful, since a TV show, such as The Price is Right, or a newspaper publication, such as the Washington Post, have such a board appeal, you would have a hard time finding your target audience. If we were to look at it from an industry perspective, for home building, it may be Builders Magazine, for lawn care, it may be Turf Magazine, and for Internet Marketing, it may be Social Media Examiner. From where your customers choose to digest information is like a water cooler, where employees gather to take-in office gossip.
TV shows and movies…
If you were to use TV Shows or movies as interests, you can really hone in on your customer, but you’re also run the risk of targeting passive interests. TV shows, such as American Idol or Law and Order, and movies such as Star Wars or Godzilla, reach such mass appeal, it’s would be hard to distinguish from an actively interested or passively interested customer. Depending on the industry, you may be able to focus on TV shows, for auto, it may be MotorWeek, for home building, it may be This Old House, and for cooking, it may be Iron Chef. As it pertains to movies, you might be looking for more cult followings, the best example would be for sales, they may be Glengarry Glen Ross ( 1992 ), Death of a Salesman ( 1985 ), and Boiler Room ( 2000 ).
Websites…
While, you may listing media websites already, your could missing out on so many interest possibilities with popular examples in general, or those that operate in your industry. At this point, you may think that Buzzfeed may draw way to broad of an audience, you would sort of be mistaken. While, BuzzFeed does a great job of segmenting it’s content into popular categories, they also operate Tasty, their video heavy food initiative. If you customer has characteristics related to food, then this would be a key interest. There are other examples, such as Conde Nast, they are considered a premiere publisher, and on the face may be too broad for use in audience building, but they also operate many different websites that cater to a wide variety audiences, some that may intercept with your customers.
Events…
You may operate in an industry that has many opportunities to get together for conventions, strategic symposiums, or learning seminars. These targetable events, in terms of audience building, these are key places where your customers are converging. To use these events for your interests is comparable to finding the exact spawning grounds for the species of fish you’re trying to catch.
Geography…
Some businesses may not have geographical borders or other may only operate in a confined space, which probably is the reason why most just consider this a default qualifier. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While, geography may have confining characteristics, it also has telling one as well. For instance, if your customer has a higher probability of purchasing during the winter months of the year, you can fence off your audience to only the regions that suffer more severe weather, not just specific months.
Gender and age group…
You know your customer and the limitations of your offer, so the gender and age group can help you locate them in the right places. Building an audience shouldn’t be singular, and the gender and age group are an important reason for it. While the other qualifiers, in a broad sense, can be shared across genders and ages, you may want to segment for identifying trends.
Product purchases…
Your customer has certain tastes when it comes to the purchase and consumption of products. Identifying popular products that they have an interest in will allow you to associate certain traits that you can use to build your audience. You can start with dietary, lead into package goods, and even into home improvement. Each of these tell a good story about your customer, as an example, for dietary, they may like the Real California Milk products, this is telling because the advertising is only served within the California region, therefore it’s safe to say they reside on the West Coast, so you can draw the conclusion that they may not be a good audience for cold weather products.
Personal traits…
Your audience may share beliefs in a variety of different things, the most obvious might be religious. They also might have strong opinions on a particular subject, They may participate in regional and national activities You might even find them in groups oriented towards causes. You can’t forget that your customer is human, targeting characteristics shouldn’t stop at behavior, they also have a need to fill their emotional bucket.
Cast the lure at your audience…
So, now you have your audience, what do you do next? It’s simple, you need to give them something valuable. The value that your customer wants needs to meet their immediate need. What is their immediate need? It’s a pain they’re experiencing, that you have a solution for.
You have two choices, one is going to attract a lot of the fish you want, and the other is going to scare some away, but some will stick around. If you put together a really, over-the-top piece of content, not only is it accessible, it’s immediately consumable. The alternative is a lead magnet, where you create a digestible e-book is delivered after the customer enters in an email address.
The best strategy depends on your ability. If you can write an incredible blog post that is filed with quality information that address the customer’s need, keeps them captivated, and wanting more, then this is a great option. You’re going to need to look at what type of content already exists for the subject, how good is it, and can you create something that an ultimate version over those.
If you feel you can’t write a blog post to that level of excellence, then try writing something that is as high in quality, that addresses the customer’s pain point, offers a solutions, and put in a PDF format. This strategy may not require much of your writing skills, but you still need to put together a better than decent layout for your PDF.
The objective for either of the two strategies is to fulfill on the promise of solving the customer’s problem. They are in need and really want you to help them, whether they are aware of it or not. It is important that you follow through with that promise, you can’t under-deliver, you really need to wow them with a great delivery.
Catch your audience…
Now that you have the perfect value to offer your customer. You’re going to need to setup a Facebook ad campaign to drive traffic to your blog post or lead magnet landing page. The objective of the campaign is going to be to get website clicks, because you need Facebook to do it’s job in finding the best possible audience for your offer.
You’re going to need to have your Facebook pixel setup on your landing page, so you can start gathering custom audience data. For every customer that lands on your page, they’re going to be added to your custom audience and that’s important.
So, let me recap what has happened so far. You built an audience of interests that either matched your current customers or customers that you want to target. That audience you built is what you used to target your ad that is promoting your blog post or lead magnet.
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Found right audience, but still have low ad distribution…
So, if you have the right audience, and you’re sure you put together all the right demographics to target the exact set of users that are looking for the solution you’re offering, then, you probably have a functional issue that needs to be addressed. A functional issue is going to consist of either one of the elements that make up the ad itself, or one or more of the options that you chose when you setup your ad campaign…
Ultimately, you want to create a positive experience, but if you’re seeing negative engagement towards your ads, it could be happening for a variety of reasons. You always want to start with the audience, but assuming you have that figured out, you’re going to have to look at the current state of the campaign and each element of the ad itself as well.
Text in ad image…
Your ad image can have too much text in it. It used to be that Facebook limited the amount of text in your ad image to just 20% of the surface area, we’ll, that’s changed, it’s less about the amount of area used and more about how much value it provides the user. In essence the 20% rule still applies, but if your text over the ad image is beyond that percentage, it will be categorized according to their ( 4 ) different levels, OK, Low, Medium, and High, where High is the most offensive, resulting in your ad suffering from a low reach across your targeted audience and higher ad cost.
Set right bid…
You may be letting Facebook manage your bids or you’re probably setting the bid that you think is best, given your budget restrictions. Allowing Facebook to automatically set your budgets will cause your ads to be distributed based on those options that you have set, such as your campaign budget, daily budget, and the bid they have determined to best.
On the other hand, if you’re setting your own bid, you’re probably not setting a high enough amount to keep winning each auction. All things being equal, if you have everything else figured out, your bid price can very well keep your ad distribution low if you’re in a competitive vertical…
Wrong message…
You might have the right audience, and the right solution for their problems, but you might not be communicating it correctly. If you’re using a generic ad copy across a single or multiple audiences, then you can’t expect to hit a homerun on your ad campaign. Your message should be written with the right audience in mind, answering their needs specifically, using the tone that best fits how they would like to be spoken to…
Wrong time…
You very well may have a right message, just being delivered at the wrong time. Depending on where in the sales process your reaching your consumer, your message may be too advanced for where they are currently at in terms of qualification for what you’re offering. Varying examples of ad copy length, mixed with the right messaging, and media type, such as an ad image or video, can encourage an action from your consumer…
Wrong audience size…
Even if you have the right audience, you may be experiencing one of two issues. First, you might be operating in a vertical where your audience is just not large enough to have a high distribution rate. In this case, your going to be at a continued disadvantage because you’re never going to be able to increase that distribution under your current conditions, you would have to look at an alternative plan for offering your product or service to a larger audience…
The second issue you’re probably facing is not expanding the characteristics of your audience enough to have a large enough base for distribution. Often times, during the planning process, the audience size that is produced according to the Facebook tools used, is large, for example in the hundreds of thousands, but when it comes time for initiating the ad campaign, it’s slow to ramp up distribution. In this case, you have a reach problem, of which can be fixed by either reevaluating the audience demographics in the ad campaign or creating an entirely new ad campaign with new audience demographics…
Audience overlap…
You may have multiple ad campaigns with similar targeted audiences or audiences that are sharing targeting demographics. When you consider low ad distribution in relation to other campaigns, you want to look at your audiences to make sure that you’re avoiding overlap.
To fix overlap, you can use the same Facebook tools to plan a new audience for a poor performing ad campaign, or your can take that audience and add it to your better performing campaigns. Ultimately, you don’t want an ad campaign that doesn’t have positive long term opportunities…
Ad blindness…
If you have a mature ad campaign, your ads could be reaching their maximum effectiveness because they have been seen several times. In this case, you have a frequency problem, and this can certainly be the cause for low distribution because you’re going to continue to experience low engagement.
The best solution for fixing ad blindness is going to be gradual updates to your ad campaigns, without stopping them. A good start would be to update the ad image to a creative that maintains the same message, but changes the look and feel, so that it appears as a new ad. You might want to continue with an ad copy update, again the message can remain the same, but you might want to use differing ad lengths, call-to-actions, or even titles and subtitles…
Stopping ad campaigns…
If you’re in the habit of stopping your ad campaigns, perhaps because you make changes or maybe because you’re protecting yourself from overspending, you’re going to experience the consequences from the Facebook optimization starting over after each stop. The optimization, depending on all of the circumstances of your ad campaign, can take up to 3-5 days, if not more, to reach an optimization level where you will begin seeing a higher distribution. It’s best that you update your ads without stopping them…
Ads Have Low Response or Engagement Rate?
At this point, if your ads are getting a low response or engagement rate, than you more than likely have a problem with a combination of your media type, which consists of your image or video, and your ad copy. You can’t adjust one without taking into consideration the other, they both have to work together to capture the user’s attention.
You probably don’t have a compelling ad image or video…
You’re more than likely using an image as part of your ad campaign, it’s the most commonly used, and most often the start of a problem. A really good ad message plan takes into consideration the visual message that coincides with text. Your image really needs to catch the user’s attention within their newsfeed, and then the text you use needs to have an immediate emotional connection.
The most effective media type is video, it really can impact your ad campaign in a positive way if you use it correctly. If you’re using video in your ad and you have a low engagement rate, than, you’re probably not taking into consideration how your ad functions in the newsfeed.
First, a video ad does not play sound automatically, therefore, what is playing needs to do the same as an image ad, capture the attention of the user, plus one more thing. You need to get the user to initiate the sound function on the ad, so you need to be creative in our video to get them to do that.
Second, you need to add very relevant text to your videos so that the user sees it when it starts playing in their newsfeed. That text can contain your creative message to turn up the sound, or you can use that opportunity to identify the problem that their suffering from. Ideally, this is your moment to offer relief, so you should use it to put together a really compelling message…
You’re probably not writing ad copy that converts…
Writing ad copy is an art form that should be done with a lot effort and focus on the user. You really want to be able to not just capture their attention, but also be able to keep them captivated long enough for them to digest your message. You ultimately are going to need to ask them to respond to a call-to-action, which in itself, is a journey in psychology and creative writing…
Sell the solution, identify the problem…
You probably don’t have a message that is clear and to the point, such as, asking or telling the user they have a problem, and offering a relieving solution. You can get into a more creative, if not psychological, way of drawing out the problem emotionally and providing a self-esteem building method for getting the solution, but at the end of the day, simple is better.
Effective ad copy always takes the user to where they and you want them to be, better said, if you’re selling a solution that has immediate relief, than your going to take them to that feeling of exactly when the problem is no longer present. It’s the “ahh” moment, where relief has been fully experienced, but you’re doing this with text or a video, so you need to really think about how your solution can capture that moment…
Make message specific to your audience…
You can’t use a single ad copy across all of your campaigns, it simply will not work over a long-run. The most effective method for writing ad copy is to speak to the audience that your ad is going to be targeted to. If your target audience is made up of a general population, than your ad copy may consist of a language that best relates to them. On the other hand, if your target audience is made up of a small, technical population, than you might do better if your ad copy is written using very specific industry terms.
Your objective is to create a scenario where your ad copy simulates a conversation that they would typically have, therefore, your message is better received. Having a really good understanding of your audience will make writing your ad copy a lot easier and more effective.
Include a clear intent, tell them what to do…
You may not be creating a clear call-to-action, where you tell the user in your ad what it is you want them to do next. This is often overlooked or passively added into the ad copy. Your call-to-action needs to have definitive wording that does not leave any opportunity for a question. If you did a good job with ad copy up to this point, than nudging the user to do what you want shouldn’t be very difficult, but it should be clear…
Ad campaign to landing page to checkout page congruency…
You’re probably not applying congruent messaging across your entire ad campaign, landing page, and if possible, to your checkout page. This is a very, very important factor with, first, creating familiarity, and second, consistency in your messaging.
As it pertains to familiarity, as soon as you have your user’s attention captured from your ad in their Facebook newsfeed, you need to maintain that attention as soon as they arrive on your landing page. This is where most problems start from the ad, a confusion as to what the user just responded to and what they are reading or seeing on the landing page. If there is a disparity, than you can expect a low engagement rate to occur, simply because the user may feel a deception occurred.
Even if you get the familiarity from your ad to your landing page right, you still might be getting the consistency wrong all the way through to your checkout. You might have technical challenges that will not allow you to keep a consistent headline, bullet points, or even images visible across the ad, landing page, and checkout page. Consistency is important, but it’s not completely necessary, with that said, if you were to engage your user at that level of an experience, than you would eliminate any confusion throughout your sales process…
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Ad Costs Are High?
If your ad costs are increasingly high, so much that your ad campaign continues to be unprofitable, you may have to look at several items that could be causing the problem. You’re not going to be able to pin down the issue specifically and immediately, but if you use the analytics data that Facebook provides and your conversions, you should be able to methodically determine where you can make adjustments…
One objective at a time…
You’re probably trying to maximize your ad spend by adding as many objectives in your ad copy as possible. If you do not have a singular focus for your ads, then your going to create further confusion for the user. For instance, if your message is promoting a Free case study, but you are also adding an option to purchase a hardcopy of your bestseller book, and you also want them to sign-up for a newsletter. Which of these objectives is going to win?
The best approach is to create ads to the same target audience that are focused on only one objective. Each ad is going to have specific results and each is going to be valued differently, therefore, determining allowing you to be able to determine how effective it is…
Ad frequency…
You could have an ad that is being distributed to your target audience multiple times. If this is the case, your ad is being delivered to the users newsfeed and they either are not responding or they did respond and that ad is being seen another time, or multiple times over. Facebook is going to use it’s optimization engine, along with the options you have chosen when you setup your campaigns, and your conversation data to determine when, where, and how many times your ads show up…
If you look at your ad frequency in terms of your entire campaign, it’s not a problem if your ads are viewed multiple times, given the amount of distractions that a user experiences when they are logged into Facebook, much less, in their daily lives. But, if your ad frequency is high, let’s say between 3-4, in context of your ad you may be experiencing an issue with your image, copy or audience targeting…
Ad relevance…
You probably have an ad that does not have an audience that is engaging with it, in other words, they are not clicking and visiting your website, sharing, or liking it. If this is the case, you have several problems, starting with your targeted audience, it may not be specific enough for your ad or it’s possible that you didn’t get your audience targeting right when you were planning…
Another issue might be that you don’t have the right message aligned with your targeted audience. For instance, if you were targeting bloggers and not the software they use, your message might be focused on the software, so there wouldn’t be an interest to respond. In these cases you can easily identify the issue if you go back to your audience planning and adjust your messaging…
You might also see that your call-to-actions are being used at the wrong times, as an example, if you were to ask for a purchase in the your ad copy before the user even know who you were or why they need your solution. In this scenario, you’re not going to get the response you’re expecting because you haven’t fully qualified them or led them down a sale funnel…
Split testing…
It’s not uncommon for advertisers to not use split testing on their ad campaigns. You’re probably suffering from so many different ad issues, but you don’t know it, because you’re not split testing. If you were to use variations of your ads, changing only one element in each ad, you would have valuable data to determine which of those elements is most effective at getting that response from the user…
Split testing is tedious and for some, it’s difficult, but if you want to have an efficient and profitable ad campaign, you need to know what in your ad is working and what is not working. You can produce ads that add value to the user experience but also get you the much desired engagement…
One audience per campaign…
You might be compiling your entire audience into one campaign, making your target size, not just too large, but also eliminating any possibility of ever determining which ad messages are going to work best and even less finding sub-set audiences that you can target individually. It’s not a best practice to put all your audiences together for an ad campaign before it is optimized…
The ideal method for assigned audiences to an ad campaign would be to create subsets during your planning and then add those to individual campaigns. This would allow you the opportunity to determine which audiences respond best to specific audiences. You would then look at the results and determine which would be advantageous to continue with…
Using fresh ads…
You’re probably still using the same ad dating back to when you started the campaign. Generally, an ad will stop being effective because the target audience will have seen the message over and over again and continue to not respond. ideally, you can keep updating the ad image and ad copy, for the duration of the campaign to ensure that the audience does not get tired of your message.
Right media…
It could be that you’re just using the default image ad type and haven’t really given much thought to using a video ad. You wouldn’t be the only one that overlooks the opportunities that only video can produce. Realistically, you need to test both, but if you’re not giving it much consideration, than your not going to see the possibility of your engagements increase…
Too many competitors…
You probably are competing for space in the newsfeed with more competitors than you realize. Think about how many advertisers that want to get in front of your user, all of your targeted audiences overlap. You also need to consider that you may be operating in a very competitive vertical, where other advertisers offering similar solutions have brands that are matured or they may have a better understanding of what their cost per user is…
You need to identify your competition and try to differentiate yourself from them. If you possible, you may even need to rethink your solution and offer something that has greater value or desirability to your audience. You never want to just keep doing the same thing, mainly because you’re just going to keep losing money…
That time of the year…
You probably operate in a vertical where your business sees a surge of interest at multiple times of the year or one specifically, such as Christmas. Your ads need to be even more specific for adjusting to a seasonal message, but you don’t want to only use one. You need to be able to modify your seasonal message according to the audience that is going to receive it…
Ad placement…
Your could be running ads across all the available placements, on purpose or without your understanding, and some of them could be fruitless. You really need to understand how your audience consumes their content, for instance if you’re targeting a segment that is considered to be mobile first, then you don’t want to use placements that are meant for a desktop, such as the right-column. Your audience will dictate which placements should be used to have your message reach them…
Can’t Scale Ad Campaigns?
Scaling an ad campaign isn’t easy, and it is even more costly if you’re not familiar with the best ways to do it. You need to look at several elements of your ad campaign, such as the budget, audience size, and options chosen to really be successful at increasing your distribution. You never want to just increase the budget, or just keep adding new demographic data to your audiences, without really thinking about how it’s going to affect your entire ad campaign…
You probably don’t have an audience size big enough…
During the audience planning stage you should have identified a target audience that clearly defined and a size between 500K – 1 Million users. These are estimates of what you could use as a good starting point for an audience size. When you take into consideration other factors for distribution and competing advertisers, you need your audience size to be enough to manage your growth needs…
It’s common that most advertisers don’t give much attention to the size and just get an ad setup and running. In this case your stuck with low distribution, unless you begin adding new demographics to the existing campaign. If you want to start your optimization from the beginning again, then, this would be a viable solution.
Ideally, you want to copy the campaign and create a new target audience that has is just as clearly defined and provide a much larger size. Using this method allows you to maintain your current optimization, while testing for new target demographics…
Use lookalike audiences…
You’re probably not using lookalike audiences to build up your target audience for your ad campaign. Perhaps the best targeting method would be to provide email or phone lists of your current customers, or website visitors, to allow Facebook to create similar audiences. You have the advantage in this case, since you know the audience you provide is already receptive to your messages, so similar audience should respond positively as well…
You’re probably increasing your budget too fast…
A very common misunderstanding is that if you keep increasing your budget, you’re going to see more distribution. The opposite actually occurs, mainly because your not allowing Facebook optimization to do it’s job. So, if you’re increasing the budget today, your restarting the optimization, if you do it again tomorrow, then you’re going to restart the optimization yet again…
The best way to increase your budgets is to choose an incremental percentage, between 25-50%, that you will be adding to those budgets, every 3-5 days. Your percentages and the number of days you wait are going to be up to you, your ad campaign requirements, and your objectives, but adhering to a strict rule will give you a greater opportunity to benefit from the optimization of your campaigns…
You can’t let any one or all of these issues continue to produce bad results for your Facebook ad campaigns, get the right guidance to fix them yourself or find the right person to do it for you…
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