Stop Doing These 8 Facebook Ads Mistakes In 2023

Facebook ads mistakes…

Facebook ads are still one of the best ways to bring a new business but there are a handful of really common mistakes that people make all the time.

And when they make those mistakes, nothing but wasting of money takes place.

This makes people feel like Facebook ads aren’t worth it.

Well, that’s not true.

If you’re not seeing conversions with your advertisements, the problem is at your side, not Facebook. They’ve already got over 1.6 billion daily active users for you to target with handy tools.

With that being said, I’m going to turn around and share 8 common Facebook ads mistakes you might be making…and more importantly, how to fix them.

We’re starting right now…

Let’s dive right in to have the discussion.

1. You’re Overcomplicating The Ad Setup

This might be a bit surprising to you, but you need to take your ads easy.

The simpler your ad is, the more Facebook’s algorithm gets you the results you want to see.

So, what you really want to do is simplify the number of ad sets in each of your campaigns.

Don’t go ahead and create dozens of ad sets for a single campaign.

What I and one of my friends Wes have seen from testing is that you generally should be having 2 ad sets per campaign at maximum, and a few different creatives to make things work out.

But why should you have two ad sets for a campaign?

Here’s a simple answer to your question…

One of the two has to be for you warm audiences, and the other for the cold audiences.

And then, when you target your potential customers, don’t just narrow it down very much.

Try to keep it somewhere from 500,000 to 1,100,000 for better results.

But here, I’m only talking about a somewhat broad industry. If you’re a very small or local business, you probably won’t like it.

The next, run ads for 3-5 days to see which of your creatives are performing well, what are your targeted audiences are like, and what form of audiences will work better for you.

From there, you’ll just have to adjust your ads accordingly.

It’s as simple as that.

On the flip side, when you complicate the process with too many ad sets, you’re basically blocking the algorithm from being able to optimize itself based on what it knows about its users.

Hence, if you have a smaller budget to spend, you obviously won’t like to test too many ads. Rather, keep it simple and it’s going to save you a lot of money plus time.

2. You’re Not Strategic About Targeting

Yes, that’s right.

You can’t just target your audience based on some random interests.

Just to give you an example, let’s say I like Kylie Jenner’s page on Facebook. And if I see an advertisement about cosmetics, that’s not going to be relevant to me.

Why would I be influenced by such an ad just because I like a random page?

That’s the point.

You need to be sharply specific about your users.

And to target the right people, you’ll need to put in the work to go out there and research.

For example,…you have to include:

1. Users’ purchasing behavior.

2. Life events.

3. Existing contacts.

4. Similar or Lookalike audiences to your existing customer lists.

5. Layer targeting using location, demographics, and overall behaviors.

The best part about this is Facebook has already got some amazing research tools built-in through audience insights that are going to give you similar recommendations of different audiences you can try based on what you think you already know about your audience.

Now, here you can include interests you believe your ideal consumers would have…to see what other kinds of demographics they then have in common like education level, the pages they like, frequency of their Facebook activities, and lots more.

3. You’re Not Updating Ad Creatives Every Week

If you’re just running the same creative and not trying a new one. It’ll not be sustainable.

You probably know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, right?

I’ve been following him for a long time and the most impacting thing I learned from him is – you’ve got to get out there and taste new stuff. In other words, you continually wanna try out various things while you make a profit.

So, if an ad creative is working really well for you, that’s a piece of good news…but you’re required to do the experiments.

The reason for this is pretty clear:-

Facebook keeps on changing their algorithms not only because they want to deliver the best results…It’s also because they want you to spend more and more.

Pretty straightforward, right?

If I talk about me, I rotate the creatives at least twice every week. Not only this help me find what’s grabbing people’s attention but I also get to meet high conversions.

So, you don’t wanna make this mistake if you want consistent results.

4. Your Copywriting Sucks

An influential and bright copywriting beats everything wrong when it comes to selling your products and services.

But, what I see a lot of newcomers doing is they have no idea about what they write in their advertisement.

You probably could have a terrible ad copy too.

Okay…but on what basis am I talking?

Here are the key pointers you have to consider for better conversions…

1. Keep It Short

You know this is a busy world. No one has free time to read your long and non-optimized paragraphs. What you genuinely want to do is keep your copy as short and as appealing as possible.

Generally, it should be somewhere around 110-160 characters. That’s going to work really well.

2. Talk About The Benefits

People want to have their problems solved instead of knowing the dumb features and specifications you mention in the ad copy. You need to tell them how exactly it would be like if they turn into your customers.

In other words, your copy should speak how your products/service is a better solution to their concerns.

3. Either Be Logical Or Emotional

A straight piece of content won’t work for customers. They’re astonishingly smarter than you think of them to be.

You can’t be like – “Hey, this is the best product! Buy from us today!!!”

That’s not going to do well.

To fix this, either you’ll have to have an emotional copy or a logical copy.

Just to let you know that people buy emotions not things.

So, you need to focus on this.

4. Don’t Be Negative

Facebook hates if your advertisement is negative. You can’t write like – “You should not do these affiliate marketing mistakes.”

Since they’ve faced several barriers in the past couple of years legally, they want people to feel good on the platform.

And if you as an advertiser, have negative ads in your copy, it’s done for.

5. You’re Directly Sending People To Buy

You have an advertisement up and running which is linked out to your offer/ landing page, people click on it, and make purchases.

Sounds great.

But you know what?

That doesn’t work anymore. The world has gained some intelligence over time.

If you’re a bit confused with my statements, I can give a better explanation right away.

Here it is…

Suppose you’re in a party and some random person approaches you for a marriage proposal. Will you ever say yes?

No way!

Well, why’s that?

The simple answer is that you don’t know who the heck the person is.

That’s what happens with Facebook ads since they’re seen by human beings.

You can’t convince people to buy directly.

So, instead of sending them to your sales letter in the first phase, divert them to some valuable information such as an educational video, a blog post, or a free course.

Now, in the second phase, you need to re-target those relevant people and this is the time ask for buying.

With this one simple break-down, you’ll see that your conversion rates will go phenomenally up because consumers get the time to think about you and your rapport in the process based on the value you provided upfront for free.

You have to leverage the ‘rule of seven‘ for better performance in the long run.

This means you have to show up in front of your potential customers at least seven times to build the connection and trust.

This is one of the most common Facebook ads mistakes beginners make. You don’t have to. I can’t emphasize that enough.

6. Your Ad Looks Like An Ad

You might find this a bit funny but it’s one of the biggest Facebook ads mistakes that people (or even fortune 500 brands) make.

As a business, you want to attract as many people as you can for the better. But if you have an advertisement that could be smelled by the audience from far away, I’m damn sure it’s not going to convert and benefit that good.

Yes, that’s from a marketing perspective and not just a subjective sentence.

You rather want to do more pure native advertising.

If you’re not familiar with the term, no worries. This is what it all means:

When an ad creative looks just like regular content instead of a display ad format. This form of advertising is known as native advertising.

Just have something regular. and it’s going to play the game profitably than a conservative (fake, professional, and insecure) ad.

You know the reason already. When an ad looks like a shabby ad, people lose their interest because their subconscious reminds them that it’s just an advertisement so they should not waste their time looking at it.

Believe it or not, but it’s the reality so far.

7. You’re Not Leveraging Video Ads

Video ads are the most profitable, scalable, and cost-effective form of advertising on Facebook right now.

Not only for Facebook but every other social media channel out there.

The reason for these social channels pushing and favoring video content so much is because they aim to ruin TV commercials.

Just think about it. They don’t want people to watch television shows. So, video works really well to keep people longer on their platforms which increases their overall value and demand.

So, leveraging video ads can exponentially grow your business to the next level at the lowest possible cost and not using videos could be your biggest marketing mistake of all time.

Here’s a video from Gary explaining everything about social media for 2021. I do recommend you watching this for having a mature understanding of these popular social media sites.

8. Wrong Ad Placements

This makes me laugh a lot.

When I just got started with Facebook ads, I used to prefer Facebook’s recommended settings for my advertisement placements.

Sure, I was getting some good results but they were not that impressive.

I was wondering what the problem was.

When I watched Neil Patel, he said that Facebook automatically selects the option for you because they want to spend your money as quickly as possible.

When I heard this, I was like ‘Hmm…I figured it out, now!’, and for real…that’s the only thing holding me back to get the desired results.

For instance, if you want to target people to buy your digital marketing course, you probably won’t find Instagram feeds a good option. But by default Facebook set it up.

Hence, having the wrong ad placements can actually kick you off the desk.

Double-check it before you publish your ads.

These were the common Facebook ads mistakes I wanted to share with you. If you avoid these mistakes, you’ll find it easier to deal with Facebook advertising.

Bonus Video From Neil…

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