We are going to dive right in, you ready?

1. No Facebook Pixels Placed

   If you’re running ads on Facebook, it’s really important that you have the standard event pixels placed on your entire website and all of your landing pages (Page View, Lead, Initiate Checkout, Purchase, etc.). Most small businesses and entrepreneurs will have a Page View pixel placed on all pages, which is completely ok if you’re not concerned about tracking, analytics or retargeting. BUT if you want to be strategic with your ads and retarget traffic wherever they left off in your funnel, then I suggest you step up your game! What’s really a waste of money IMO is running Facebooks ads with zero pixels placed. This isn’t strategic at all and you’re missing out on a LOT of data that will only help your next ad campaign. Is this all confusing to you? No worries, I can help with this.

2. No Social Proof

   This goes BEYOND just likes, comments, and shares on your ads. I’m talking about social proof on your Facebook page and your website. This means testimonials – which ALL businesses should have. And I’m also talking about social proof on your social media, meaning proof that you are bringing VALUE to your audience. When I click on an ad I tend to click on their page and/or their website to see what the business is all about. When you first research a product on Amazon or a new restaurant on Yelp, what is the first section that you look at? The reviews! Yes, we love reading about other user’s or buyer’s experiences before we give our credit card info away. I also look at an entrepreneur’s social page to see if they really know what they are talking about. Are they really an expert, etc?

3. Not Enough Creative Being Tested

   If I were to take a look at your ads right now would I see one version of an ad running? If you haven’t tested a few versions of copy and images against audiences then you are relying on this one version of an ad to WORK! But what if your ideal audiences aren’t resonating with that copy? Or that one image? You won’t know more until you TEST! And you’ll probably see a cheaper cost to acquire once you do.

4. Not Enough Audience Testing

   I did an audit for a client a few weeks ago and I immediately saw room for improvement. They had tested a few versions of copy and a handful of images but they were testing the creative against one ad set. This ad set had a “bundle” of different interests, meaning the interests were grouped together. Grouping interests together are fine and tend to work better for some clients than others BUT the area for improvement here is testing MORE groups of bundled interests. Otherwise, you are riding on that one ad set to WORK. All your $$$ is riding on this one group of interests to convert customers. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.

5. Not Going Live/No Videos on Facebook or Instagram

   Facebook LOVES when you “go live” and so does your audience! Video is a great way to instantly connect to your audience and show them your personality. Two previous client’s of mine were ready to run ads but they had yet to do one single video on their page. Now, this doesn’t have to be a live video, you can always record something ahead of time and post later. The more you post videos (or go live), the more video views you’ll have. The more video views you have the better your custom conversion audiences will be! So when you are ready to run ads this will only HELP you! Trust me this will all work in your favor. I have seen Video View custom audiences to CONVERT better than any other custom audience.

Ok so I could go on and on about more mistakes, but I’ll stop there! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this blog post. Was this information helpful? Did you get some great ideas? Do you have some things to work on before you start running Facebook ads? Hit me up in the comments!