In this lesson we’ll talk about the mistakes to avoid with Facebook Ads.
Running ads on Facebook may look easy, because almost every day on your page you’ll see phrases like: reach more people with 5 euros, or: your post performed 90% better than your other posts, inviting you to boost it.
Now, we completely agree that this sounds tempting, but you need to know that advertising on Facebook doesn’t mean throwing your ad together in two minutes and putting it online without planning your budget and strategy, without keeping an eye on the results, and much more.
We’d like to help you understand what the real mistakes to avoid with Facebook Ads are.
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The first mistake to avoid with Facebook Ads is not having planned a strategy to put into action.
Even before you start, it’s important to have set up a strategy that defines the goals of your Facebook campaign, to have prepared material you can use for your Facebook advertising (for example the images and copy you’ll use), and to have established the budget you’ll spend.
This information and this planning help you decide which type of campaign to invest in (as you know, there are several campaign types available to you — we talked about them in the previous lesson of the Facebook Academy), how to set it up and manage it, and then review the results you’ve achieved and improve.
It’s important to be able to understand what’s not working in your campaign so you can optimize your results.
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This is a mistake you might be tempted to underestimate, but I’d advise you to take it seriously. Not staying up to date with Facebook’s changes — and more specifically with Facebook Ads — is a mistake that can cost you time, energy and, most likely, wasted money.
Is it really that important to stay on top of the changes Facebook rolls out?
The answer is yes, because you need to know that Facebook is constantly changing and evolving. When Facebook introduces new features it doesn’t announce them — it’s usually the industry experts who spread the word — and you need to be in the know.
It’s essential to pick up on Facebook’s new features (in this case, the ones related to ads) and know how to use them, because it will make your work better — and if you happen to be one of the first to use them, it could bring you great results.
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Before we talk about the big mistake of not activating the Facebook Pixel, let me explain what it is.
The Facebook Pixel is a tool Facebook puts at your disposal to track the results of your campaign. The Pixel also gives you information about the actions users take on your website.
Through the Pixel, if used well, you can trace the conversions generated and therefore compare how much you spent with how many conversions you got, ultimately working out the ROI of your campaign.
To learn how to set up the Facebook Pixel, head over to this page, which will walk you through it step by step.
Installing the Facebook Pixel is also important for building lists of users interested in your product/service.
So from this explanation you can see that not activating the Facebook Pixel is a mistake: without it you won’t be able to properly track your campaign data or build lists of users interested in what you offer.
Need a list of Facebook tools?
Looking for a tool to schedule your Facebook posts in advance?
Need a tool to create quizzes and contests?
Want to use an analytics tool and discover the best ones?
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Get your free Facebook tools list
This is another aspect that doesn’t always get much attention — but why?
If you run a Facebook campaign without running tests on the campaign type, on which kinds of images perform best, or on different objectives, you’ll never do a proper job!
You should know that tests are useful precisely for optimizing your campaign and knowing which direction to take to get the results you want.
Don’t rely on that friend or the classic cousin who already knows everything — unfortunately it’s impossible to know everything before you’ve even started. You have to run tests, because results and approaches will change from business to business. Even the most experienced consultant needs to run tests if they’ve never worked with you before!
The goal of testing is to figure out the best investment-to-result ratio and which creative achieves it. We recommend setting aside some budget for the tweaks — and therefore the improvements — you’ll end up making to the campaign.
Doing boosts directly on your posts, instead of using the Ads Manager panel, is not a great idea! Boosting posts isn’t doing Facebook Ads — it’s just looking for a simple but highly ineffective shortcut to get something done. And it can even turn out to be counterproductive.
I’ll agree with you if you tell me that boosting from your page is very simple and intuitive — sure, but remember that it’s a heavily simplified method for people who don’t know much about ads, and the features it offers are limited. Very limited.
If instead you take the time to discover Facebook’s Ads Manager panel, you’ll see that everything changes — it no longer feels like the same thing. It’s certainly more complicated (though I wouldn’t say difficult), but we can guarantee it’s far more effective, including in terms of the data on your campaign’s performance.
While boosting from your page will only get you a handful of unspecific data points, in Facebook’s Ads Manager you’ll understand in detail whether your campaign has been successful in terms of conversions, leads and so on…
The platform will definitely scare you at first, because you’ll immediately notice how much more complex it is compared to an ad you set up from your page. But don’t worry, keep going — in no time you’ll understand how it works and you’ll be able to take advantage of everything it can do.
Free image from Pixabay
Another mistake to avoid with Facebook Ads is not creating different placements for a campaign.
Facebook tries to give visibility to users’ ads, but it’s also true that if you don’t organize your campaign well, that visibility may end up scattered across contexts that aren’t a good fit.
Testing multiple placements for a campaign can therefore be a good choice.
We suggest creating placements for desktop as well as for mobile, rather than for tablet, or the Instagram placement. Desktop and mobile placements seem to be the ones that deliver the most results, but then it’s up to you to test them and figure out which one is best for your product/service.
We’ve reached the end of this lesson: take the mistakes to avoid with Facebook Ads to heart!
Conclusion
With this lesson you’ve learned what the mistakes to avoid with Facebook Ads are. From now on, please, pay closer attention to the points we’ve flagged!
When you’re just starting out, it’s easy to get carried away by the encouraging phrases Facebook shows you when you publish a post on your Facebook page, tempting you to boost it with just a few euros in a very simple way.
Let’s just say that, as you’ll have gathered from our tips, it doesn’t quite work like that!
In the upcoming lessons we’ll cover increasingly advanced and specific Facebook topics. Stay tuned and keep following your favorite Facebook Academy!
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