When going through our Facebook feed it’s not even possible to dodge ads anymore and with that comes noticing countless errors and mistakes from Facebook marketers. Of course there are great and even awesome examples, but we would say there are more ads that make us want to sigh.

That is why we made this post about 3 most common mistakes from Facebook marketers that we think everyone who is serious about advertising on Facebook should avoid.

So here they are..

1. Content of your Ads doesn’t respect the platform

Most of Facebook marketers still haven’t realised one fundamental characteristic of social media. It’s even more surprising when you see big brands make this mistake, when it’s most likely that their advertising is controlled by huge, pricy agencies. 

The main point here is that it’s not about you. You have to think about the main reason why people login to Facebook. Do you really think they use it to get hit in the face with ads? If you do, then trust us there is a better use for your money.

People want great and appropriate content

However more often we see businesses that try to sell something straight out from the gate. For some it may work but most of the time it’s like hitting a wall. Suggestion? Start building relationships and communicating.

How you do that? Start by knowing your customer and giving them something they like. Don’t distract them on their News Feeds - be part of them. Publish entertaining, appropriate and valuable content.

This is where you should start if you want to separate yourself from most of the brands that advertise on Facebook.

2. Right column ads are copy & paste from News Feed ads

There are numerous times when we go through our Facebook feed and see right column Desktop Ads and realise that they are just straight up copies from News Feed Ads.

What is the problem with this? It’s that they differ not only in how they show text but also the images are most of the time impossible to read due to their size and in the end your message looks not only unprofessional but also it’s not reaching it’s potential because it’s not designed and placed properly.

Solution to this is to create separate Ad Sets. Create one for each placement and optimise them (image design, text) so they look great in their respective placement.

What you don’t want to do is this:

This is how you should do it:

You can combine Mobile News Feed and Desktop News Feed, however if you want more specific statistics from your campaigns you should make them separate.

3. You don’t use retargeting

If you don’t know what is retargeting then it’s showing specific ads to people who have visited your website, specific page or done specific actions on your page. It doesn’t matter where your visitors came from Google, affiliate, social networks or any other source.

Why you need it?

First of all nowadays not many people buy, subscribe or make decision on their first visit. Using retargeting is a great way to remind them and bring them back to the point where they left of and were actually interested in.

For example if you have a clothing store and a visitor was checking out your t-shirts and left. You can target them on Facebook with retargeting and show them only t-shirt related ads because they were interested in them. This is how you make sure that people see appropriate ads.

The most common mistake is that after the visit brands are not capitalising on this. They are showing ads and trying to bring previous visitors back to the main home page instead of bringing them back straight to stuff they were interested in.

So these were 3 main mistakes that you should avoid if you want to be successful with Facebook advertising. Respect the platform, seperate placements, use retargeting. Tons of marketers ignore them but from our experience you shouldn’t because they bring in better ROI. 

Had any thoughts or ideas that could add value to this post?  Please share them below in the comments.

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