I’ve been running ads for clients for four years and these are the most common mistakes I see over and over again. Before you get started creating your ad campaigns, I wanted to make sure you know about them so you can avoid them! 

But first, what makes a high converting ad campaign? It’s definitely not just one thing. I wanted you to be aware that all of the following elements work together. If you have problems getting your ads to work, it could be one or more of these elements. 

  1. Your offer
  2. Targeting
  3. Copy
  4. Creatives
  5. How you set up your ad
  6. Landing page

Okay, let’s get into the top mistakes. Ready? Here they are…

#1 Targeting incorrectly

There are basically two ways to target – warm and cold audiences. Ultimately, you’ll have ads set up for both types of audiences. 

But if you are BRAND new to ads, you’ll start with targeting Pages that your ideal client would follow. For example, if you are looking for women over forty who want to lose weight then you might test targeting Jillian Michaels (personal trainer).

The other targeting option is warm audiences and these are set up under Custom Audiences in the Ads Manager. You will create a Custom Audience for every asset you have – email list, website traffic, page and video engagement, Instagram engagement etc. 

#2 Setting up the wrong campaign type

There are many objectives to choose from when you are setting up your campaign. You need to pick the right objective for your goal. What is your goal? To build your list? Choose Conversions -> Leads. To get engagement? Choose Post Engagement 

This seems so simple, yet this is one mistake I’ve seen made over and over again. You will not get the results you’re looking for if you don’t choose the right objective. Facebook created these different objectives to optimize for that result. For example, if you want to build your email list and you set up a Post Engagement ad then Facebook will optimize your ad for engagement and not leads. Sure you might get some sign-ups, but definitely not as many as the conversion campaign.

#3 Starting, stopping, changing things

I see too many people touch their ads too soon. They might increase or decrease their budget, turn it off or change the copy or something like that. 

First, do not make any major changes to the copy or images without duplicating the ad. When you do this you are essentially erasing the data and will not be able to see what changes worked or didn’t work.

Facebook needs time to run it through their system. They actually want to see 50 conversions in one week per ad set to fully optimize. A lot of time what happens is your costs will start off high and then decrease over the first 72 hours. 

#4 Not testing

Testing is key to successful ad campaigns. Most people set up one Ad Set and one Ad. It’s important to test. At the very least step up two Ad Sets (two different audiences) and one Ad. 

What do you test? Your offer, your audience, your ad images, your copy, your landing page. Not all at once, but one at a time test, test, test!

How do you know if your ad is performing? What do you even look for? Watch for an email about that soon!

#5 Not having a strategy

Don’t run ads just to run ads. Understand what the goal is and how you will turn prospects into customers/clients.  Know how you will make your money back. Work your ads until you get a return.

This includes having a retargeting strategy. Had a webinar where at the end you asked people to book a call with you? Set up a retargeting ad to webinar registrations to book a call with you. Selling a course? Set up a retargeting ad to go out to people who hit the sales page, but didn’t buy.

#6 Bonus: Don’t give up too soon

Too many people give up too soon. Facebook ads are a great way to get in front of the right people and can help you go grow your business much faster than any other method out there. Get help if you need it – but don’t give up too soon.

Launching soon with ads? Grab the Facebook Ads Launch Toolkit today!