5 Mistakes Businesses Often Make While Using Facebook Advertising (And How to Avoid Them)

Over 1 billion people use Facebook daily, and 2 million businesses are already using Facebook advertising.

So if someone says “Facebook is one of the best advertising platforms for reaching a huge portion of your target audience” – don’t be surprised.

However, businesses stepping into Facebook advertising for the first time often come across a common challenge: inability to drive sales from the platform that still looks new to them.

Are you one of those who hasn’t had any return from your Facebook ads?

When you’re new to Facebook advertising (or advertising in general), things usually won’t work perfectly. More than likely, the mistake you’ve made is a common one. It’s also more than likely that it’s tied to your overall Facebook advertising strategy.

Here’s the good news: Facebook advertising blunders can be fixed.

Let’s explore the most common mistakes business make while advertising, and how to avoid those mistakes.

Mistake 1: Not knowing who your target audience is

Imagine you’ve placed a captivating ad on Facebook. You’re waiting for the clicks. You get the clicks. But the clicks are so less that you shouldn’t even consider those. Perhaps, you’ve targeted the ad to the wrong audience.

How to avoid this mistake

Forget about how market segmentation is done in traditional advertising. When finding out which of the Facebook users will be your potential customers, you need to spend some time online so you can observe their interests and target them accordingly.

To conduct your target audience research, spend some time on Facebook and explore what interests your potential customers the most. An effective way to do this is putting yourself in their shoes.

While doing this, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do they search online?
• Which of the Facebook pages do they “like?”
• Which of the apps do they use?
• What kinds of blogs are their types?
• Are they buying from your competitors?

Start off from a Facebook page they like. Log in from your own Facebook account and like that page. Once you do, you’ll find Facebook’s suggestions related to more/similar pages that you can like.

This way, you’ll get an idea of more interests of your target audience.

Mistake 2: Thinking “everyone” is your customer

It’s understandable. While using paid advertising, you’re paying to create brand awareness of your product. However, this doesn’t mean you should pay the hard earned money to reach the people who aren’t your customers at all.

That’s what most businesses often end up with: while choosing paid advertising on Facebook, they target almost all Facebook users – even those whose interests don’t match the interests of your target audience.

But why waste money targeting everyone – even those who aren’t interested in your product or service?

How to avoid this mistake:

The ideal size of having a target audience on Facebook lies between 500,000 to 1.5 million Facebook users. If you stick to this size, you’ll be able to reach almost all your potential customers who are using Facebook. However, if your audience is bigger, you can always narrow it by using the options, “Exclude people” or “Narrow audience.”

Mistake 3: Optimizing your ads even when you shouldn’t

You’ve chosen Facebook’s paid advertising. If you aren’t getting results, you might get frustrated right away – thinking that you’ve spent money but aren’t getting sales at all.

In this scenario, it’s a natural phenomenon to control your ads the way you want. This is when you begin to optimize the ads so they can yield better results. However, this may even worsen the situation.

How to avoid this mistake

As a first-timer, the key is to begin with “gathering insights” from your Facebook ads. The trick is to place an ad, wait, and watch. This is how you’ll be able to determine how much you should spend to win a single customer.

If your target audience doesn’t respond to your ad according to your expectations, don’t pause or tweak them. Instead, wait till you’ve managed to reach 1000 people. Even if this doesn’t generate sales, reaching at least 1000 Facebook users means you’ve got a lot of data and insights to evaluate the performance of your ads.

Secondly, install the Facebook Pixel on your website. You don’t have to do anything here because the platform will do all the work for you. Once you’ve placed the ad, Facebook will use the Pixel for tracking the performance data. It will improve the targeting accordingly.

Mistake 4: Underestimating your competitors

You’re targeting the right audience. But what if your ad isn’t powerful enough to influence your target audience to purchase your product or service? Perhaps, your competitors are designing appealing ads on Facebook.

Always remember that your competitors also use Facebook ads. They might snatch your customers from you without you even knowing about it. The only reason could be a poorly designed ad copy because you underestimated your competitors.

How to avoid this mistake

Learn how to create a Facebook ad that sells itself. Implementing the following tips will help you craft a compelling ad copy:

• Make sure it grabs the audience’s attention. Having a focal point within the video thumbnail, image, or copy is the key.
• While running the ad, include social proofs such as comments, likes, and shares.
• Don’t make it boring. Instead, add personality to the ad copy by using relevant emojis.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment various ad formats.

Mistake 5: Placing an ad when your target audience is NOT online

You’ve worked hard on designing an ad that deserves drastic sales. But what if nobody even sees it? This may happen if you choose the wrong delivery time, e.g. your ad will be visible also during the weekend and at night.

How to avoid this mistake

Adjust your ad’s delivery time. Go to the “Audience Insights” to know when most of your target audience will be online. After this, go to “Ad Scheduling” and choose the option, “Run ads on a schedule.”

To ensure you don’t waste money when there is low traffic, you can select specific times and days when your ad should be delivered to your potential customers.

Concerned you may have made these mistakes already? We’d be happy to give you a complimentary review of your advertising accounts.

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