Nowadays if you want your content to be seen on social media, you are forced to pay-to-play. Having organic content scheduled weekly is still a must, but if you have an offering that you want to send out to the masses, you’ll find that creating an advertisement will increase website and foot traffic.
But what if it doesn’t? You’ve created what seems like a great ad to you, but are lacking on engagement, and worse – conversions.
1. What’s Your CTA?
I’ve seen this happen several times where the purpose of the ad is lost when there is no “Call To Action” or CTA.
On Facebook, there are several ad types available, but most people find themselves creating a “boosted post.” While boosted posts are a great tool for getting a post to reach more users for that piece of content, you must first ask yourself, what’s the ad’s purpose? If it’s to offer your clients 50% off their order, it’s imperative to have that language on the ad’s headline.
For example, let’s analyze these two headlines or CTAs.
#1: “The Best Marketing Company in Texas”
#2: “Free Social Media Ads eBook!”
Which headline are you inclined to click on? Sure, you might be the best at what you do, but why would I care?
As a consumer, I’m likely to shop around to find a good deal, and if you’re offering an incentive like in headline #2, I’m more likely to click and claim the offer.
It’s also important to make sure you’re using the right CTA buttons that Facebook provides. If you’re offering a free eBook, make sure that you have an appropriate button language such as “download” or “get
2. Where Are You Pointing Traffic?
Now if this is a boosted post, you’re likely to only see engagement on the photo your advertising unless it’s a link to a website, and hopefully it’s YOUR website.
Facebook has several
3. Are You Using A Pixel?
So, your ad has done its job to get clicks to your website, but why didn’t anyone convert? That could be for a number of reasons, which is why it’s good to have a pixel on your site.
By using a cookie to ping the people who land on your site, you’re able to create a re-targeted ad to remind users why they were there the first time.
You realize it’s not just a coincidence that the items you put in your shopping cart are now magically appearing on your Facebook, right? They’re trying to remind you that you wanted those shoes, and it’s time to come back and seal the deal.
I will say that creating a re-targeting ad strategy is beyond “Facebook Ads 101,” and you might want to consider hiring help, but it’s still smart to put a pixel on your site to start collecting data.
4. How Long Has Your Ad Been Running?
The science behind social advertising and consumer behavior is still something marketers are testing. There are so many factors that can cause an ad to perform poorly, and timing may be part of that.
If you’ve been running an ad for a few days, and it’s doing horribly, you should probably think about re-visiting the content. But if you have an ad that’s scheduled to run for a month, keep in mind that results such as “foot traffic” into your business, may come later after your ads run time depending when people saw it.
It’s important to pay attention to how your ad is performing because you can run into issues such as ad blindness and ad fatigue where your content is not appealing enough for anyone to engage with it, and the longer the ad is served, it could continue to have very high “cost per results.”
5. Is Your Content Interesting?
The secret with advertising is to not look like an advertisement. If you’re selling a camera, show the quality of photos the camera can take rather than a photo of the camera with a big red banner of the price slapped on it.
Are you selling a few weeks free at your fitness studio? Make sure to use a video to show what the classes look like rather than a graphic you made on Canvas with the deal.
Plus, Facebook doesn’t allow you to use much copy on ads for this reason alone. They don’t want to lose the integrity of their platforms, so don’t waste your time clogging up a photo with text.
And lastly, do you have a CTA? (Yes, I’m referencing #1 again, so it must be important, huh?)
Do people know what they’re getting with your ad? Make sure that your messaging
6. Who Are You Targeting?
Social media has become extremely creepy with the ability to target every detail of a person so that they see your advertisement, which is why it’s important to make sure you know your demographic.
If you’re selling lipstick, you want to make sure that you’re targeting female consumers rather than males and females.
To me, targeting your already known demographics should come easy, but it may require you to take a look under the hood if your ads aren’t converting. Make sure that you’re hitting the proper group or demographic who is known to purchase your goods.
And if you hire a social media expert like myself, I can easily setup specific audiences similar to your current demographic who is likely to make a purchase.
—
The world of social media advertising is definitely a bit of a game to figure out what works and what doesn’t. However, once you nail down your target market and find content that converts well, social media advertising will pay dividends!
If you or someone you know could use a social media ads consultation, or perhaps want someone to create and execute your strategy, I’d be happy to help!
