Ad campaigns are less expensive than you think and can effectively attract new customers and move them through the sales process. However, if your Facebook ads aren’t running as profitably as you might like, here are some of the most common Facebook ad mistakes and how to fix them.  

Selecting the Wrong Ad Objective

Facebook offers multiple ad campaign objectives that can impact the cost of running your ad. 

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen business owners make is not using the right campaign for their goals. For instance, many business owners will use an awareness or engagement campaign to drive sales and are disappointed when they don’t receive a single purchase.

This is an easy fix and will only take a few seconds to understand once you know what each campaign style is designed to do. Here’s a breakdown of each: 

• Awareness campaigns increase brand awareness, reach, and video views. It is also one of the least costly ad campaign types. However, avoid this ad objective if you want sales.
• Traffic campaigns drive clicks, phone calls, and messages. Similarly to awareness campaigns, traffic campaigns are not optimal for sales.
• Engagement campaigns help provide social proof for your posts and/or ads and drive conversations. This campaign will increase post interactions, messages, and video views.
• Lead campaigns allow you to build instant forms within the Facebook app, which is an excellent way to generate leads. It also allows Facebook to collect maximum levels of data because prospective buyers aren't leaving Facebook to fill out the form. Lead campaigns are good for driving calls, collecting emails, and qualifying prospects.
• Sales campaigns are the most important for businesses that want sales. This campaign type is slightly more expensive but targets people who are more likely to buy from you.

Now that you know what each campaign type does, you’ll be more likely to get your desired result. 

Forgetting to Install Facebook Pixel

The Facebook pixel is a code that can be placed on a website to track visitors and their actions. The data collected can be used to improve your Facebook ads' targeting and track their effectiveness.

Without the pixel, tracking your ads' performance is nearly impossible, preventing Facebook from optimizing your ad properly. If you want to build an effective ad campaign, make sure the pixel is installed.

If you aren’t sure how to install the Facebook pixel onto your website, watch my video on how to do that here:

You Didn’t Run Enough Ads

For any ad campaign to be successful, you’ll need to undergo trial and error. This trial period allows you to test which product benefits and pain points resonate best with your target audience. 

The best way to get results from your ad campaign is to grab a piece of paper and list your product or service's benefits and pain points. From there, create as many different ads as you can using each benefit and pain point. 

An interesting fact I stumbled upon over time is that only a small handful of benefits will sell your product or service. You can use this data to inform your social media content strategy and website design by highlighting the most important benefits first.

Once you find this magic formula, the work doesn’t stop there. Ads tend to get stale over time and result in ad fatigue. So you will want to continue coming up with fresh ideas and new concepts.

Adding Too Many Calls to Action (CTA)

Another issue I frequently see is ads that have too many CTAs. Too much going on in your ad dilutes your message, or your ad doesn’t make as much of an impact as it could have.

So why is too many CTAs a problem? Well, it drives the prospective customer into a state of decision paralysis, which more often than not, translates to them passing on your offer, and it can cause you to lose out on potential sales.

A great way around this problem is to create multiple ads within the campaign. Each with its own CTA. This way, you can hit the objectives you want your prospect to do without spending any extra money or, worse, losing the potential customer entirely. 

Forgetting UTM Parameter Links

What is a UTM? It’s a short piece of code that you can add to URLs (or links) to help you track the performance of a webpage or campaign. 

According to Hootsuite, the best thing about UTMs is “they are not affected by changes to third-party cookies or the Facebook pixel. And they work with Google Analytics.”

They also provide business owners with three benefits: 

1. They help businesses track the value of social marketing campaigns and measure ROI.
2. They provide precise data about conversion and traffic sources.
3. They allow businesses to test individual posts with A/B testing.

Essentially, it’s a stable tracking option all business users can utilize. It’s great for business owners that want more immediate results and ones that won’t change with new policy updates from Facebook and legislators. 

To use UTM parameter links, you go to Google’s Campaign URL Builder and add the necessary information. Once your UTM parameter is built, you will add it as part of the last step in creating your Facebook ad campaign.

You can watch my video on how to do this here:

 In Summary

You can make your Facebook ad campaigns more effective by fixing these common ad campaign mistakes. Once you do, you’ll see better results and spend a lot less money. You need to pick the right campaign type and utilize the analytics from the pixel and UTM parameters to optimize your ads and gain significant rewards. 

If you want to learn more about Facebook ads, sign up for my IG Growth Accelerator Course! It'll teach you how to use social media to grow your business effectively, and as a bonus, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Facebook ads – for free.