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Renee Bull, Facebook Ad Specialist
I have spent the last few years educating and working with small businesses on the profitability of Facebook ads. Facebook ads will increase your business’s brand awareness, reach, sales, and revenue! It is exciting to jump right in, but before you do you should implement these three strategies to avoid these Facebook Ad mistakes and ensure you do not lose time and money.
1. Boosting your posts instead of running ads.
First, boosting your post is not the same as running a Facebook ad. This is an extremely common mistake that small businesses make. I often hear business owners tell me they are running ads when in actuality they are “boosting” their posts from the instagram platform...this is a big NO NO!
The main problem with boosting is that you are not collecting valuable information on your website traffic, your audience targeting is extremely limited, and ultimately you are wasting money because you are only utilizing a fraction of the tools Ads Manager provides when you run ads correctly.
Ads Manager is the platform within Facebook Business Manager needed to run Facebook ad campaigns. If you are not running your ads from this platform you are unfortunately making the Facebook Ad mistake so many have made in the past.
You can visit Business.Facebook.com to set up a Free Business manager account today.
2. Failing to install your Facebook Pixel.
I see this Facebook Ad mistake far too often and it is costing businesses thousands—and for some businesses it is costing millions. Failure to install your Facebook Pixel to your website is causing you to miss out on so much DATA—honestly it pains me to say this. If you do not have a Facebook Pixel on your website I need you to stop what you are doing right now and add one immediately.
A Facebook Pixel is extremely crucial when it comes to Facebook ads. A Facebook pixel is a code that you place on your website to track the behavior of your site visitors.. This tracking is important and necessary, because you want to be able to retarget past visitors who may have, for example, left items in their cart or failed to complete a purchase.
Even if you are not running ads at the moment, your Facebook Pixel should be present on your website.
3. Not defining the objective.
The last Facebook Ad mistake to avoid is failing to establish your objective for running ads, and this mistake can be the most costly mistake of all. Before running Facebook ads you must take the time to define and map out the goals for your ads and what you desire to accomplish with your Facebook ad Campaign.
Some very important questions to ask yourself are:
- What is my goal for ads?
- What am I hoping to accomplish?
- Where am I driving traffic and what action do I want them to take?
- Who is my target audience?
Having a plan and objective is important to ensure that you have a clear understanding of how to measure the success of your Facebook ads. Also, once you define your objective you can better optimize for that specific objective within the Ads Manager.
The Ads Manager lets you choose your objective, so if you are looking to increase leads, traffic, brand awareness, sales, or all of the above, you can define this in the Ads Manager before publishing your ad campaigns. Defining your objective first saves you a lot of money and ultimately time, because you have clarity and direction.
In conclusion, avoiding these common mistakes is imperative to the success of your Facebook ads and campaigns. There is so much to be gained from investing in Facebook ads, but equally so much to lose if you rush into it blindly It is important that you educate yourself on the ever-changing rules and best practices for Facebook ads. It is an ongoing learning process, but it is a worthwhile journey.
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