9 Facebook Ad mistakes that are killing your campaign performance.

Through Facebook Ad Manager it is possible to publish ads on Facebook and Instagram. This tool has become extremely popular and powerful because it provides the opportunity to increase content visibility and generate sales.

However, it is common that many entrepreneurs get frustrated with the results they get, as they don´t know how to properly optimize their ads or how to properly set up a campaign.

Although Facebook has an intuitive and easy to use interface, 7 out of 10 advertisers fall into very basic mistakes which doesn’t allow them to achieve their goals.

If your Instagram or Facebook ads haven’t generated conversions or you feel that you aren’t getting the return on investment, you may be making some of the following mistakes.

What mistakes are made often when creating advertising campaigns?

1. Select a very generic audience

Setting up a generic target audience will result in your campaign being shown to a large number of people, where the majority might not be interested and it can damage the reputation of the company or brand. What can you think of a company or brand that fills your newsfeed with ads that are not of your interest?

Now, through a CPC model, cost per click, only people who want more information will click on the ad, and it won’t affect your budget.

Therefore, when planning your SEM advertising campaign, you have to set up only a target audience that can really have interest in your ads.

2. Optimize too often 

It’s common to create an ad and after 5 days see that the results are not as good as the first day and this usually alarms the new advertisers. So before making changes because you consider that the ad stopped working, analyze your metrics.

For example, through impressions you can determine the number of times your ads are shown before the user clicks. If the number is too high, you may be facing ad fatigue, which occurs when the user has seen the ad so many times that they have lost interest. In this case you can implement a change.

On the other hand, according to statistics, it is estimated that a user may see an ad between 7 and 10 times before making a purchase decision, so analyze what is happening before you start implementing changes.

3. Do not perform A/B testing

A/B testing consists of running different versions of the same ad, in order to identify the preferences of your target audience and improve the results of your campaign.

If you have one ad per campaign you will not get enough information about your audience’s interests, and you will not know if another version of the ad would produce better results.

Always create different versions of your ads, play with different images, copy, titles, call-to-action buttons, etc.

4. Use the same image for different formats

Thanks to the advances in Facebook’s ad manager, now it’s possible to run ads in the News Feed, right column, stories and Instagram updates.

Each of these formats has different sizes, that’s why using the same image in all can cause some ads to appear distorted, denoting unprofessionalism.

5. Using the promote button without knowing its real function.

The Boost button on Instagram and Facebook is quite new, and through it you can promote posts and obtain greater brand recognition.

However, if you use it for the wrong purposes, such as increasing your sales or sending traffic to a landing page, you are making a big mistake.

As its name suggests, the purpose of this button is simply to promote a post, if you want to create ads with specific objectives, the best option is to go directly to the ads manager.

6. Targeting by interest only

When there were no other options, the best way to reach your target audience directly was segmenting by interests. However, this has lost relevance due to 3 new options, which are:

• Custom audiences: allow you to show your ad to users who have shared their email or phone number with you.
• Audiences of your website: these are ads that are shown to users who have previously visited your website, so they already have an interest in your brand.
• Similar audiences: through this option, you can create groups of followers similar to the previous ones, even if they do not know you yet.

7. Use your competitors´ audience for targeting

Although showing your ads to the same target audience as your competitors is a good strategy, you must be sure that it will actually work.

Many times the quality of your competitor’s audience can be low, inactive or a purchased audience. Out of every 10 profiles on Facebook, it is estimated that 3 are fake.

Therefore, it is important to check the quality of this audience. A high interaction can be synonymous with quality, but also, when facing a low interaction, it is better to use other techniques.

8. Not including buttons

Call-to-action buttons encourage the audience to click on the ad. It is essential to include this button, since many times users need to be told what action they have to take.

Facebook allows you to add call-to-action buttons, which will be displayed below the image. Some examples of buttons are: “buy”, “see more”, “download”, “more information” and “book now”.

9. Focus on the solution and not on the pain

The text of the ads is where most mistakes are made in Facebook Ads. This is because many advertisers focus only on the benefits of their product or service and not on the user’s problem.

It is essential to add pain points, as they work as purchase triggers, which can make users aware that they need your product or service.

Now that you know the Facebook Ad mistakes that are killing your campaign performance, have you ever been identified with some of them? 

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