As with any digital advertising, the success of your Facebook ad is dependant on having the following 3 things:A very specific audience to targetA highly-relevant piece of content to send that audience toAn ad which seamlessly glues together the audience, their needs, and the content you’re sending them toOK – this all sounds like marketing BS. What does it actually mean?
Common Facebook Advertising Mistakes
Often, people are disappointed with the results of digital advertising because they’ve been too broad and non-specific in their approach.
Let’s take the example of a pet supplies store. A common mistake would be to run an ad as follows:The Facebook ad headline says something like “Buy Cheap Pet Supplies”An image such as a happy looking dog is used in the ad.
The ad is set up to link to the homepage of the business’s websiteThe target audience is set to people who have an interest in animals, dogs, pets, etc.
Why is this approach going to fail?
There are several reasons:The headline doesn’t really resonate strongly with any particular type of pet owner.
Whether I’m an owner of a fish, dog, bird, cat, crocodile… I’ll either find the headline “Buy the Cheapest Pet Supplies” so broad that I won’t be interested, or I’ll click just to find out whether it’s relevant to me (costing the business money deposit 20 get 100 in wasted ad clicks to their site which don’t actually convert to enquiries or sales).
The image of the dog is relevant to only a portion of the audience the headline is relevant to. An owner of a fish, bird, cat or crocodile would not see any relevance in this image and would likely ignore the ad completely.
For those users who did click on the ad, if it was set to send them to the pet store’s homepage, they would still need to find their way from there to a page which was relevant to them i.e. the bird section, dog section, etc. Would they bother? Or simply go back to Facebook where they were?
The Best Way To Run Ads on Facebook – 10 Tips
The following are the key steps to success for your Facebook ad:
Install a Facebook tracking pixel on your site (if unsure, ask your web developer). This enables Facebook to tell who has been on particular pages of your website before, so they can be shown relevant ads that you set up.
Note that even if you’re not about to run Facebook ads, you should consider setting this pixel up on your site now, so you can start tracking the history of your site’s visitors to potentially advertise in future to them.
Clearly define the target of your ads. In the pet store example, at a basic level it would be best to choose whether the ad will be designed for dog owners, cat owners, etc.
Choose one targeted audience – be specific!Make sure you have content on your site which is specific to the needs of this audience. If you know you want to run an ad for dog owners, at a minimum make sure you have a page on your website which is specific only to dog owners. In this way, you know that visitors to this page have particular needs and interests (cat and crocodile owners won’t likely be visiting this page!).
Start creating a Facebook ad targeting a CUSTOM AUDIENCE. While there are easy options such as clicking “Boost Post” beside one of your Facebook posts, or choosing to target people with certain interests or behaviours when you place your ad, it is much better to set up your ad to target a Custom Audience.
While there are a number of flavours of Custom Audiences, we will focus on the benefits of targeting an audience which has visited a particular page on your website (if you need help figuring our how to choose this when setting up your ad, contact me).
Remember, the Facebook tracking pixel you set up in Point 1 enables Facebook to identify people who have visited particular pages of your site!
Make your custom audience one which includes only visitors to the specific page of your site relevant to what you’re advertising.
Remember point 3 – make sure you have content on your site which is specific to the needs of this audience. So – if you’re targeting dog owners, enter the URL of the page of your site only likely to be visited by dog owners with particular needs relevant to what you’re advertising.
Select an image for your ad which is highly relevant to this group i.e. show a dog-related image if targeting dog owners, a cat-related image if targeting cat owners.
Make the headline text and additional text highly relevant to the image and target audience. e.g. use the headline text “The City’s Cheapest Dog Food” rather than more generic text like “Buy Cheap Pet Supplies”.
Make the ad link through to a page specifically relevant to this audience and the headline of the ad. So if you run an ad for “The City’s Cheapest Dog Food”, don’t link to your homepage, or your dog-products page. Link to a page specifically fulfilling the promise of the ad i.e. details about how and why you offer the city’s cheapest dog food. This page may need to be (and often should be) custom made to serve the needs of the ad you’re running.
Ensure there is a clear call to action once they arrive at the page you’ve created, detailing how to buy, how to enquire for further details… whatever is most relevant to your businessMonitor and refine. Check how many clicks you’re getting on your ad, and how many sales or enquiries you’re seeing as a result.