5 Most Common Facebook Ad Mistakes, Exposed

Businesses have grown to love using Facebook for their social media marketing. And it makes sense, considering the platform has over 2.9 billion active users, making it the leading platform on the market today (followed closely behind by Instagram, which is owned by none other than the mega-giant Facebook itself).

Many businesses go into Facebook advertising, however, with little to no direction, just giving it a try and hoping for the best. Sound a little too familiar?

We’ve outlined some of the most common Facebook Ad mistakes that businesses have been making far too often, as well as tips for how you can improve your Facebook Ads (like yesterday).

1. You’re not targeting the right audience.

Facebook Ads give businesses ample opportunity to target very specific audiences, but the mistake that many businesses make is that they fail to use all of the targeting options available.

For instance, the first option you have been selecting the age, location, and gender of your target audience. Many businesses stop there, thinking that is enough to reach their ideal customer.

But thinking about it realistically, this audience is still way too big for you to hit the specific people who are actually seeking after the product or service that you are advertising. This can result in a waste of your advertising dollars.

The next step that you can take to better target your audience is to use their interests, but don’t limit it to just one. For example, if you own a yoga studio and are planning to promote a new member special, you can select “yoga” as an interest, and also include perhaps DIY, if your target audience is found to be interested in do-it-yourself projects (and therefore, possibly more likely to opt-in for new member pricing).

2. You’re not running the right type of Facebook ad.

Facebook Ads have expanded to provide a variety of types to match the needs of your business and get the attention of your customers. Some of the more popular types of ads include photos, videos, and carousels.

It’s a given that your ad will include an image of some kind, but businesses can truly benefit from incorporating something that is more attention-grabbing — like a moving picture (also known as a video).

Videos immediately capture the attention of anyone scrolling through Facebook. In cases where your audience is not able to listen to the video at that moment, it helps to provide captions on the video so that they can still read along to understand what is being said.

More recently, Facebook Ads have also incorporated carousel posting. Carousels include multiple images that can be scrolled through by the user.

This is very effective as you can use a single ad to promote various products and services and include a description for each one of them. You can also drive traffic to different links for each specific product or service. For this reason, businesses should give carousel ads a try.

Facebook Smart Ads by Practina allows you to run carousel ads simply and include each specific product or service on each slide, which makes it easier for the user to learn more.

Also Read: How to Create Facebook Click-To-Call Ads

3. You’re not actively monitoring your Facebook Ad’s performance.

Running your Facebook Ads without checking back in on their performance is a little like throwing a ball outside your window and expecting it to magically return to your living room.

Since you are spending money to run your ads, it makes the most sense to monitor their performance to make adjustments accordingly.

Facebook has an incredible feature that allows you to perform A/B testing on ads to see which formats resonate the most with your target audience.

A/B testing is exactly what it sounds like: comparing two versions of an ad (or a webpage, blog post, or headline) to see which of the two versions perform the best. That way, you can produce future ads in a similar format to the more successful version.

Facebook Ads A/B testing will show different variations of your ad to smaller segments of your audience to determine which version gets the best engagement. Then Facebook will automatically send the ad with the most engagement to the larger portion of your audience.

4. You’re running your Facebook Ads with the wrong objectives.

Objectives are included in Facebook Ads to help businesses reach certain goals with their ads. But if you do not have a clear objective for the ad that you are running, it will lead to your ad budget being spent frivolously without a clear purpose.

Are you trying to drive traffic to your website? Is the goal of your ad to get more likes or followers on your business’s Facebook page? Do you want to generate leads for your business?

Depending on the goal that you have for a particular campaign, you want to make sure to select that objective, partner with the correct target audience, and be creative that matches that target audience.

For example, if you are trying to get more likes on your Medspa company’s Facebook page, based on the target audience of middle-aged women and their specific interests, you can include a video testimonial in your ad of a middle-aged woman talking about all that she was able to gain from your services.

Businesses should also make sure to give lead generation ads a try, as it is a simple way to get the contact information of people who show interest in your ads.

Practina makes lead generation ads easy and gives you the opportunity to create your own lead forms to pick which information to gather from your potential customers.

5. Your Facebook Ad creatives are mediocre at best.

While all of these mistakes make a negative impact on your ad’s performance, this is one that will absolutely affect your ability to get your potential customer’s attention in the first place.

If your ad creatives are not captivating, then it will give no reason for anyone to stop and read about your products and services.

Business owners can benefit from using professional stock photos that draw the user’s attention, or you can hire out a photographer to photograph your products and services to have a library for use in your ads.

Practina allows you to pay a small fee to get a graphic designer to produce high-quality content for your Facebook Ads that are sure to get anyone’s attention.

Closing remarks

Facebook Ads are a strong tool when used effectively for your business. However, it can be too simple to make a mistake if you do not know what you are doing.

Social Media Automated tools like Practina simplify the process of Facebook Ads so that anyone can do it, even with little to no social media marketing experience.

Run a Facebook Smart Ad now to see how easy it is.