5 Mistakes You May Be Making When Creating Your Facebook Ads & How To Avoid Them
Congratulations! You’ve launched your Facebook marketing campaign!
Perhaps it’s been running for a few days, maybe for a few weeks now… It maybe doing extremely well (awesome!) or it’s becoming a bit challenging (don’t give up!).
So you start wondering if there is anything you can do to improve it?
The hardest part about online marketing — is figuring out how to improve the campaign. It may be challenging to pinpoint what works and what can be changed.
To begin, we need to keep in mind that Facebook charges us for views and/or clicks so we need to ensure we are getting a compelling offer in front of the right audience. This will mean that we don’t want to show our ads to people who will not be interested (narrowing down location, demographic and interest) as well as we want our ads to be clear, concise and appealing.
This article focuses on the second aspect of the challenge — great ads that capture attention and filter out your ideal leads.
Here are 5 key questions you need to ask yourself when reviewing (or creating) your Facebook ads.
1. Is my message clear?
Here is an example of a great, clear ad. The image qualifies well; it points out that we are targeting females that are interested in classes such as pilates or yoga.
The text of the ad clearly states the offer and call to action, so does the title. We also clarify the price of the offer (which is very competitive considering studio membership prices). And the text under the title reconnects with your motivation to sign up.
Here is an example of an ad that is a bit out of sync.
The image is great — we have nice, clear contrasting text that draws attention and qualifies viewers. But, notice how the copy says “enroll now”, the title of the ad urges to “check out” the course guide and the call to action button says “download”.
I would suggest creating a separate version geared towards the course guide views, with the angle of “here is a list of skills/tools that you need to be a great event manager” and ensure that everything in the ad: the ad text, title and subtitle re-enforces that notion.
2. Am I relevant to my audience?
This is a very relevant ad to me. I have always struggled with spelling.
I love the way this banner taps into insecurities. Ability or inability to spell does not mean much by itself, but the fear that it will hold you back in life is indeed a problem.
Then a clear results-oriented title offering a solution to this problem.
This ad is less focused on qualifying the leads. It does state the offer clearly, but does not necessarily tap into their target market or connect with them. I’m personally left wondering and a bit confused. Is it targeted at freelance copywriters or just freelancers in general, what sort of proposal/work, etc?
3. Do I use a clear call to Action?
This ad screams clear offer. From glancing on the banner, we learn straight away that this is a voucher to advertise on mobile, targeting startups.
Ad copy is consistent and informative; viewer knows with 100% certainty what to expect when clicking on the ad.
Here is an example of the ad that is very pleasing aesthetically, but may be a bit ambiguous in terms of a call to action/offer.
For some people, it may be unclear what BBA is (when they just glance over without reading through the ad copy). Then there is a problem of expectations. It’s highly unlikely that the person will enroll in a 2-year program of one Facebook ads. So offering “enrollment” straight of the bat may be an unrealistic goal. A good alternative would be to offer a survey or a consult.
4. Is my banner attention grabbing?
Most people will first connect with your banner image before reading any copy.
Banners are a gateway to your ads.Click To Tweet
This is a very successful banner as it combines a striking photo. Eye contact and balance of light and dark in the image makes it look powerful, meaningful and classy.
This banner is an interesting example. Although, I found that the native banners (real photos of real people with minimal Photoshop) work very well. This creative is a bit disconnected from the message of the ad. I would create a test with the same image and a different title like “fish out your first 10K of sales online” to connect the image to the offer; or, alternatively, I would test another banner.
5 Do I offer A LOT of value to my prospects?
Lastly, and probably most importantly, let’s come back to the offer. We need to make sure that the offer is compelling for the target audience.
For example, Asana is a great project management tool for small businesses and startups, one of the main advantages of Asana is that it’s free, which is quite a big point of difference for a small business. What I would do to make the below ad more compelling straight away, is to add that in the title.
Frank Kern, on the other hand, does not mince any words. He is going straight to the pain point. People who run free webinars are very sensitive to their conversion rate one or two extra sales on the webinar may be the difference between the business making a loss and making a profit.
Use those 5 questions to cross-examine your posts to see the “gaps” or test alternatives.
Focus on your ideal client, address their desires creating a killer offer, create a clear call to action and grab their attention with a meaningful banner.
Now let’s put this plan into action!
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Be practical
Originally published at elenazuban.com on July 12, 2016.
About The Author
Elena Zuban is an Australian digital entrepreneur specializing in highly strategic data-driven Facebook / Instagram Marketing campaigns and Funnels.
