A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
Our company has been running Facebook Pay Per Click ads since 2011 for ourselves and our clients. During that time period, we’ve spent over $5 million on PPC ads. Believe me when I tell you that not every ad campaign we ran was done perfectly. Mistakes have definitely been made… or as we like to say, “we’ve successfully proven that many things don’t work“.
Now, there are two ways you can learn from mistakes:
- make them yourself
- learn from others
The latter is much less costly and frustrating than the former.
In today’s blog, we’re going to discuss a couple of the top mistakes that marketers make when they get started in pay per click advertising on Facebook… believe me, we know because we did the same!
Top Facebook PPC Mistakes!
1) Running A Boost Post
I know what you’re thinking… you see that big, pretty blue button underneath your status update that says ‘boost post’ and you want to push it. It’s just one button and my marketing will be done! You want your fans and their friends to see your post. Could it really be this easy?
No.
Consider that every time you push the ‘boost post’ button, you are actually shredding money. The targeting is poor and the time frame is too short to allow Facebook to work its magic.
Facebook marketing can be simple and doesn’t have to be time consuming, but there’s definitely more to it than just pushing one button.
Unless you don’t like money. Then push the ‘boost post’ button all you like!
2) Not Testing Long Enough
Do you remember the first time you tried to ride a bike? Chances are, you fell down once or twice. But after a little while, you got the hang of it.
The same applies to running Facebook ads.
When getting started with Facebook PPC, it can really be addictive. When I first started, I would check every hour to see if any of the stats had changed. And when the stats didn’t change, I was very quick to shut the campaign off.
This is a mistake.
Facebook requires time for its algorithm to kick in, so you’ve got to show a little patience. As a rule of thumb, you really shouldn’t even look at your ads until you’ve had 50 clicks or spent $50. Only then can you really determine whether or not an ad will really succeed.
3) Boring Stock Images
One of the toughest parts of running ads for Facebook that newbies run into is coming up with images. Very few marketers really know how to create graphics. I was talking to a marketer the other day who would actually use ‘print screen’, paint, and Power Point to create his graphics. Watching him do graphics must be similar to watching a monkey use utensils for the first time!
Anyways, a simple solutions is using royalty free stock images because someone else has put together images for you.
Stock images can be good, but they can almost be ‘too good’, meaning that if your images look too professional, you customers will assume it’s advertising and ignore them.
Oh sweet irony! You want your images to reflect the professionalism of your company but if you’re too professional, you’ll turn off your customers.
A couple of quick tips:
- Use real images – take pics of your work place, your product in action, your employees, etc…
- Use stock images that are unique and capture your attention
- Find images your like and have them ‘hand drawn’. You can use a service like www.fiverr.com to submit your image and they will recreate in a hand drawn format for you to use as an ad.
- Add curiosity to an existing stock image but blurring the background, adding a haze over the image, layering other items over the image, etc…
- Add interesting text (question / quote) to the image to make people want to read it
4) Too Much Focus On Getting Cheap Clicks
When staring up in Facebook ads, you will undoubtedly hear ‘gurus’ claim that they are getting $.05 clicks.
Great! Anyone can do this. Find a hot girl in a bikini and hit ‘boost post’. Tah Dah! You’ll get $.05 clicks… and $500 opt ins.
So what’s more important, cheap clicks or relevant clicks that opt in to your sales funnel?
While you want your images and copy to gain attention, it has to be congruent with what is on your landing page, or people will simply ‘bounce’ off the page.
In summary, Facebook advertising can be very lucrative, but to make profits from advertising, you will be required to do more than just push a ‘boost post’ button. You will be required to be a student of the game. One of the best exercises you can perform is scrolling through Facebook a couple of times a day and seeing what types of images catch your eye and what type of headlines make you want to click. Another way to be a student of the game is to read blogs (like this one) and attend webinars to hear what other marketers have to say. Finally, above all else, to have success, you must be willing to take a chance and risk making mistakes. Only by taking action will you have the opportunity to successfully prove what does and does not work!
Want more information about Facebook Advertising? Please visit http://SocialMediaAdGenius.com.
Nick Bridges
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