7 Facebook Advertising Mistakes you’re probably making

As I write this, most successful Coaches, Agencies and Consultants are generating a big portion of their leads and sales from Facebook  Ads. You see them all the time and yes some of them are producing great results and many fail miserably and get binned.

When my Agency takes on Clients to help with their Facebook Ads who have been doing it themselves, there are typically 7 things we see that cause the campaigns to fail and burn through the money like a sailor on shore leave.

Here are the top 7 Facebook Advertising mistakes I see on a very regular basis.

#1: Spray and Pay

Are you doing some kind of math that says since you’re only paying for clicks, you don’t need to target your ads? Maybe you figure since people who aren’t interested aren’t going to respond to your ad, you might as well reach as wide an audience as possible.

If that sounds familiar, you’re making what could be a costly error. Ultimately, the people most likely to click on your ads are people who are in your target audience.

A far better bet is to target your ads to users who match your customer persona and do what you can to maximize your ROI. You’ll end up spending less and earning more as a result.

#2: Avoiding Video Marketing

You can’t go anywhere online without reading an article about how video marketing is the belle of the ball – the one thing everybody’s doing.

While it’s true that video gets a ton of engagement, it’s also true that on Facebook, the bulk of advertising money is not being spent on video.

In other words, video isn’t as saturated as standard ads and that means that if you make the investment in video ads, it’s likely to boost your ROI. They’re more expensive than standard ads but they can pay for themselves.

By the way, statistics back this up. A majority of consumers say they’d rather learn about a product or company from an explainer video than from written content. Why not take advantage of that?

#3: Focusing on Engagement instead of Conversions

There’s no question that Facebook advertising can be useful as a way of increasing social media engagement and building your following. And you might even assume that’s all it’s good for.

Think again. The truth is that more companies are using Facebook advertising to send traffic to their websites and encourage sales there than are using it to build engagement.

While social media engagement is important, sales and conversions are what keep your company afloat. With your next Facebook ad campaign, focus on conversions to get the biggest possible return on your investment.

#4: Assuming CPC Costs Are Increasing

Given the popularity of Facebook and the saturation of ads there, you might expect that the added competition would compel Facebook to raise its advertising rates.

You’d be wrong.

In fact, CPC ad rates on Facebook have been holding fairly steady. It’s still one of the most cost-effective and beneficial forms of advertising around.

That doesn’t mean that costs won’t go up at some point in the future. If and when they do, you’ll have to make an assessment of how Facebook advertising will fit into your marketing mix.

But for now, the low prices make Facebook advertising a must.

#5: Targeting Small Audiences

Normally we’ve been taught to target a tight focused audience for PPC and paid ads, it makes sense so we can get the best message to market match but that’s a fatal mistake with Facebook Ads. Facebook has a very powerful algorithm that given the chance can hone in on the most ideal people for conversions, which needs a decent size audience to be able to do this.

I often see people with Facebook audience sizes of 10k to 50k which is way too small for the algorithm to do it’s work. You end up with much higher conversion costs because FB can’t do it’s thing. We normally look to audience sizes around the 1 – 2 million range.

#6: Boosting instead of Advertising

Since you pay for boosting posts, that’s basically the same thing as paying for an ad on Facebook, right?

We’ve lost track of how many times we’ve heard this one – and if you’re making this mistake then the chances are good you’re losing out in terms of ROI.

Here why. Facebook boosted posts are ONLY meant to increase engagement. They can bolster the reach of a particular post, ensure that all of your followers see it, and potentially earn you a few new followers, too.

That’s all well and good, but here’s what you need to remember. When you run an ad for the purpose of conversion, Facebook targets people who are likely to convert. Likewise, lead ads are targeted to people who are likely to fill out a lead form.

The purpose of the ad dictates who sees it. Decide which goals are most important to you and then tailor your Facebook advertising campaign around them.

#7: Not Using Facebook for B2B Advertising

There’s no denying that Facebook advertising is a useful tool for B2C companies, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it if you sell B2B.

In fact, Facebook’s targeting makes it possible to target people who work in certain industries or who have a particular job title. If a company is big enough, you may even be able to target its employees specifically.

You might have to use slightly different tactics than you would for B2C marketing, such as offering an eBook or white paper as a lead magnet, but the bottom line is that Facebook advertising can be a remarkably effective lead generation tool for B2B companies.

Facebook advertising is not be new…

However, we have found that quite a few Coaches, Agencies and Consultants are still operating in the dark in terms of how best to use it. They make mistakes, fall victim to common myths and misconceptions, and ultimately, they end up losing out.

Don’t be like them. Start by avoiding these 7 mistakes to make the most of your Facebook advertising, maximize the return you get on your advertising investment, and meet your top marketing goals.