Facebook Ads are a funny thing. Just when you think you have it all figured out they go and change something. Sound familiar? Google did/does the same thing on their ads but with Facebook it’s hard to find out quickly what changed and how to make sure you have yourself covered.
What I’ll cover here is making sure you have the things which are absolutely critical in your Facebook Ads. With Facebook, you have a pretty narrow margin for error, so it’s very important for the ads to be right and compliant otherwise you get the dreaded “Ad Disapproved”.
This can be frustrating, especially when you are under a time constraint.
A little later on I’m also going to go over the one thing that could undo all your Facebook success, even if you got everything else right. I’m being a little melodramatic but it is true that you don’t want to do all the work just to have it all messed up at the end.
Let’s go ahead and get started –
5 Key Items You Must Have To Unlock A Successful Facebook Ad
Key Item #1: Ads on Facebook are really no different than any other type of ‘interruption marketing’. Basic marketing principles still apply and must be used in order to get a positive result.
You must be able to match your message to a starving market. Without this key ingredient all your other fancy landing pages and wordpress plug-ins won’t matter.
Key Item #2: Go for a more narrow audience, especially in the beginning. Facebook makes much more money when you use a more broad audience. The reason is because they want to show your ads to the people who are most likely to click, not necessarily the most likely to buy.
While Facebook certainly wants you to be happy and spend more money just remember they are not a non-profit. The ultimate goal is to drive up bid prices and make you pay more.
Broad markets are going to have a higher cost associated so work your way up to it by making sure you have a winner.
Key Item #3: Pixels and retargeting. Wow, there is so much confusion out there and I have seen experienced marketers just say ‘to (insert expletive) with it’, because it is very confusing.
Tracking pixels are pieces of code which can help you track the people who go to pages on your site or register or start to register but don’t. One benefit of knowing this information is you can then put out ads for just those people.
In direct mail, they would say it takes 7 “touches” to get someone to buy. It’s no different now other than the method of getting those “touches”. After a potential customer has seen your ad a certain number of times they feel a connection with you and are more likely to buy/register or whatever you want.
As of this writing Facebook is changing how these pixels work. It is in your best interest to go ahead and learn how they work. I would start at the source – Facebook itself. They have some fair resources but getting an overview there is a good start.
If you choose not to use pixels, you are literally throwing a ton of money away. This is your best bet to having a profitable and sustained business with Facebook Ads.
If you’re still confused about them – just contact me here. I will answer your questions as quickly as possible and we might be able to schedule a call as I am compiling a video FAQ.
You can always hire somebody to help you with it – but I encourage you to learn the applications of using pixels because they are very powerful.
Key Item #4: Use text in your images. This allows a much more powerful message. It doesn’t need to be a lot of text. In fact, Facebook limits the amount of text you can have in an image to 20%. Click here for the Facebook grid tool to check your image.
Hint: Hiring a good graphic designer or even using Canva.com makes this all a breeze. You can have all the text you want it just needs to fit into 20%.
I would recommend not being too wordy but rather displaying a ‘benefit’ to the customer.
Images can be powerful but they can also bring down the ad. It’s not about having some lovely scene of a secluded beach or a close up picture of your face.
It’s about having something that resonates with your customer base. Something which gives them pause and creates curiosity. Spell out their ‘problem’. Agitate the problem a little bit and provide a solution.
That is marketing in a nutshell.
Key Item #5: Put your own personality in the ad. Stand out without being over the top, unless that is truly the type of person you are.
Over the past couple of years some marketers have come on the scene with really outrageous marketing techniques. A lot of in your face, theatrical and crazy marketing philosophies.
This is fine if it’s who you are but don’t be something you’re not. A customer can smell it a mile away and won’t think twice about buying from somebody else if they feel like you’re not genuine.
If you have already validated your product/service idea, you don’t need every person in your target audience to buy from you. In fact, you should only need a small portion to make an enormous amount of money.
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The One Mistake Which Can Undo Your Facebook Success
Like so many other marketing methods, entrepreneurs and businesses are flocking to Facebook to solve their marketing woes. They hope somehow Facebook can put their business in the black or that the product or service they have been married to will now be viable to the Facebook audience.
Facebook is not a cure all. If you don’t have other ways to keep in contact with your customers and market to get new ones you could be in for quite a shock.
In marketing things change quickly. Sometimes they change overnight. Here are just a couple of examples:
Example 1: Google – we love to hate them as the saying goes. One day everything is going fine and the next day you get the ‘infamous’ Google slap. You can’t run your ads. Your account has been banned and nobody will even talk to you about it. You literally have no recourse.
This has put many an entrepreneur out of business because the only way they got leads was from Google and while Facebook does not work the same exact way that doesn’t mean they can’t ban your account, just because!
Example 2: Broadcast fax! – Yes this happened quite a while ago but there is a lesson to be learned. Many entrepreneurs would send out their faxes every single day and make money. Then, one day, it was banned. In the U.S. sending broadcast fax was no longer legal. Literally overnight, those without any other marketing plan were out of business.
Changes can come from a government, company, industry or consumers. You have to be prepared and by that I mean don’t hang your hat solely on Facebook Ads.
If you’re just getting started you don’t have much to lose but it is good to start with a broad plan on how you are going to keep your business afloat if Facebook become prohibitively expensive or is banned in the country you do business in the most.
Hopefully I haven’t deterred you from working on your Facebook campaign. It doesn’t have to be Facebook, it could be direct mail, or T.V. or whatever. Just be cautious and pay attention to what’s going.
If you need any more help with Facebook Ads and have questions please feel free to reach out to me HERE.
This post is written by Ben Blackmon: Facebook Ad Coach
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Ben Blackmon realized the power of direct response marketing and became consumed with understanding how it works. As a result he has adapted these techniques to Google Adwords and Facebook Ads to create powerful, results oriented, measurable marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 Companies and local businesses alike.