Facebook advertising can be daunting when you first embark. With some helpful guidance however, you can find your target audience and balance your budget effectively. Here are the most common mistakes to watch for.
No clear campaign objective
Before you spend anything, you need a clear vision of what you are hoping to achieve. If this is not front and centre when developing your content and campaign setup, it will not flow through to the correct targeting choices. Define your objective first:
- Lead Generation
- Brand Awareness
- Consumer Engagement
- Site Traffic
- Conversions
Without a clear objective, Facebook's algorithm will mismatch your target audience to your intended goal. Select the matching objective in the campaign setup that most closely complements your purpose.
Target market is too broad or too small
Facebook has built-in targeting tools based on audience user data, and there is genuine intelligence in the way Facebook knows where to place your ads. Key targeting levers include:
- Location: Geo-targeting lets you drop a pin and set a distance radius to reach users within your target area.
- Age: Select your target demographic between 13 and 65+.
- Gender: Target all genders, male or female.
- Interests and Behaviours: Widely considered a bit of a misrepresentation — better to skip or use cautiously, as this can be too broad and lead to ad spend wastage.
Not using the Facebook Pixel
The Facebook Pixel is a snippet added to your website that tracks conversions from Facebook clicks and allows you to build custom audiences based on website visitors. This combines the power of Facebook demographic targeting with actual website visitor behaviour — amplifying the opportunity to serve messaging to your ideal audience. If you plan on running ongoing campaigns, the pixel is non-negotiable.
Confusing budget settings
One of Facebook Ads' strengths is that your target market will not change as you adjust budget — it will only get bigger, smaller or advertised to for longer. If you target correctly, you can achieve tangible ROI at almost any budget size.
Incorrect ad delivery optimisation
Your delivery optimisation should match your campaign objective. If you want viewers to click through to an external link, choose accordingly. Choosing "impressions" tells Facebook to expand the audience to those likely to see the ad, rather than those likely to engage with it — a mismatch that costs money.
Not running ads long enough
A common pitfall is not allowing campaigns to run long enough for Facebook to optimise. The accepted minimum is around four days — this gives Facebook's algorithm enough data to begin optimising delivery effectively. Setting a clear start and end date also allows Facebook to correctly budget spend across the campaign period.
Do not be afraid to tweak as you go. While you should not interfere too frequently, adjusting demographics and spend as you gain confidence is perfectly healthy. Facebook's advertising system is designed for experimentation.
