10 Facebook Ad Mistakes That Every Beginner Makes (And How To Avoid Them) – By Alexandra B.

March 7, 2020 BusinessTrumpet

Facebook ad mistakes are not a big deal if you know how to detect and fix them. Let’s learn how to minimize their impact on your business!

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”.

That’s one of the most popular Albert Einstein’s quotes .

And you know, it’s all true.

When babies take their first steps, they fall. When children learn to write, they often misspell. When adults start speaking a new language, they mess up.

It makes no difference how old or smart we are – we all make mistakes when we start doing something new.

Dropshipping mistakes are not an exception: they can happen at any point of one’s business journey, and it’s not a big deal. The main thing is to pay attention and learn from them.

In this article, we will tell you about the most popular Facebook ad mistakes that lots of newcomers make and will give you some tips on how to avoid them.

Let’s go!

1. Targeting a too broad Facebook audience

No matter how good your Facebook ad is, if it’s shown to the wrong audience, it will be useless. Of course, you may think that everyone is your potential client, but this is not true.

Just yesterday, my feed demonstrated me an ad for industrial chimneys. No kidding, industrial chimneys made of special steel and used for venting out hot gases from boilers. O_o

I was looking at this ad and thinking “Why? Why me? Are all 25-year-old women really interested in this field? Am I missing anything?”

However, the problem wasn’t me. It was a doubtful decision of some marketing manager who, for some reasons, decided to target ages 1-100.

And made one of the biggest Facebook ad mistakes.

I guess it happened because the person in charge overlooked the golden rule of marketing: when you try to target everyone, you actually target no one.

If you want to avoid this crucial mistake, you need to follow the next tips:

Use Facebook Audience Insights to learn more about your target audience (geography, gender, age, purchasing behaviour, etc)
Try to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and determine their interests
Exclude countries your suppliers don’t deliver to
Choose and set up the same language as your website’s language

This will allow you to narrow your audience and reach the people who are interested in your products.

2. Targeting a too narrow audience

If you’ve decided to significantly narrow your audience after having read the first point, it won’t be great, too. You can easily miss out on valuable audiences that could benefit from your offer.

In order not to make this mistake, we recommend you not to focus on very specific interests. For example, if you’re advertising for “American men who like Toyota and live in New York”, you will get a very very narrow audience and therefore will lose a great number of potential clients. Instead of this, you can just target “Americans who like Japanese cars” and get better results.

In addition, you have to remember that the narrower your audience is, the more expensive your clicks are. So you’ll pay more when advertising for New Yorkers who like Toyotas than for Americans who are keen on the Japanese auto industry.

Besides that, we advise you not to exclude the countries you want to avoid just for personal reasons. They may easily turn out to be a gold mine of customers.

3. Making low quality Facebook ads

If you’re wondering why you don’t have clicks or sales although your ads are targeted right, take another look at your content.

Facebook ads are always visual. It means that users initially look at the pictures and only after that start reading the message. That’s why you need to take care of the images you use.

They should be:

Relevant to your offer
Bright and eye-catching
Of the right size and ratio
Clear of any political, sexual or shocking elements

Besides that, we advise you not to place too much text on the ad. Your message should be short and clear, otherwise there is a great chance that it won’t be delivered.

In addition, we recommend you to visit the Facebook Ads Help Center and take your time to study the tips on how to create great Facebook ads.

4. Ignoring split testing

Even if your ad brings you sales and clients, you can experiment with different campaign elements such as headlines, images or call-to actions to find out what works best.

This tactic is called split testing.

As a rule, marketing specialists transform only one element of the ad to see how people respond to the changes.

For example, if you publish product pictures featuring people, as an alternative, try posting some photos of the same product with no people on them. You will be able to measure the effectiveness of these ways of the product presentation and choose the best one.

Here are some more Facebook split testing ideas:

Ad types
Facebook ad placement
Types of pictures (stock images or professional photos)
Ad image colors (light or dark)
The length of your ad (short or long)
Ad headlines (with or without numbers)
The word order of the sentences

As a rule, these tests last for several weeks, so you need to arm yourself with patience when waiting for the first results. Try not to pause or tweak your ads until you’ve reached at least 1000 people!

5. Testing only one type of Facebook ad formats

Using and testing only one type of Facebook ad formats is a road to nowhere.

First, the chosen ad format might not be consistent with your objectives. I’m sure you will agree that it’s a poor decision to place photos if you can tell your story with a short video.

Plus, you can’t be 100% sure that other ad formats won’t bring you better results.

So, we highly recommend you to test all types of Facebook ad formats and choose the ones that your audience best responds to.

6. Not isolating what you’ve already tested

Let’s say you’ve already used messenger ads 1000 times and you can safely say that they do not bring you the desired results. However, you are still full of hope and continue using them.

Why?

Frankly speaking, I don’t know. But most people make this Facebook ad mistake very often.

Remember, if you have tested an ad and you’re 100% sure that it doesn’t work for you, you need to get rid of this with no regrets.

7. Setting up a too low or too high daily budget

Another Facebook ad mistake that all newbies make is setting up an inadequate advertising budget.

If your Facebook budget is too low (less than $5), it won’t be possible for you to cover your whole audience. It means that not all the potential customers will see your ad. However, if your daily budget is too high (more than $100), you will just waste your money.

You have to remember that your ad is competing against other ads and yours has to stand out from the crowd. This is only possible if you set a reasonable daily budget that will allow you to reach your target audience.

8. Keep showing your introductory Facebook ads to past purchasers

Showing the same Facebook ad to the people who have already bought something from you is also a waste of time and money. These ads are no longer relevant for them.

That’s why you need to exclude all past buyers from your newcomer-aimed advertising campaign and add them to another one. Otherwise, you will lose your money hand over fist.

9. Not preparing your products for advertising

Creating a great ad is not enough to make people buy from you.

If a person comes to your website and sees products without pictures or reviews, he or she will definitely leave your store. That’s why before starting any promotion campaigns on Facebook, you need to prepare your products for advertising.

Make sure that all the product pages have high quality pictures and lots of customer reviews with photos. What’s more, check if the price in your ad corresponds the price in your store! If it doesn’t, people will be unhappy about your offer and your store in general.

Besides that, you can set pop-up ads on your website in order to collect emails and use them for your future advertising campaigns.

10. Launching your Facebook ads at random time

When do you usually launch your Facebook ads? Do you have a schedule based on research? Or you just trust your instincts?

Timing is a very frequent Facebook ad mistake. That’s why you need to consider the time zone and lifestyle of your audience. For example, if you’re advertising for moms in the USA, your ads have to be shown around 9 pm after the kids have gone to bed in this time zone.

To plan your Facebook ads correctly, we strongly recommend you to study your audience carefully: who these people are, where do they live, what is their lifestyle, etc.

What other Facebook ad mistakes did you see (or make) when advertising on this social media? How did they affect your eCommerce business? Share your experience in the comments section below!

By Alexandra B., Alidropshipping Alexandra is a content creator and a huge fan of blogging. She strongly believes in the power of words and likes writing in the casual and friendly tone.