Want To Know Why Your Facebook Ads Are Not Working?
Because they suck.
No, we’re just kidding. But it is possible.
Our agency talks to business owners every day who need help with their Facebook ads.
And in just 15-20 minutes, we can find out pretty quickly what the problem is.
As a Facebook advertising agency that has managed millions of dollars in Facebook ad spend for small businesses…
…and worked on over 1,000 accounts, we want to share this information with you.
Today, we are going to help you identify why your Facebook ads are not working and how to troubleshoot them.
So let’s talk about Facebook ads.
Why It’s Possible For Your Facebook Ads Not To Work
Facebook is obviously at the top of the list when it comes to small business advertising.
They have 2 billion users for crying out loud. Your customers are on there every day.
And that’s every reason why you should advertise there.
To make matters even more complicated…
…Facebook makes it very easy for people who have absolutely no idea what they are doing to create their own ad and start spending money.
Then days, weeks, or months later, you realize that you may have potentially wasted all of your money.
Or at a minimum, maybe there are some things you are not doing that can boost your results.
So if your Facebook ads are not working or you’re just not seeing the results you want, here’s a series of questions to help you find out the missing pieces.
These are the exact questions we go through with our clients.
5 Questions To Help You Understand Why Your Facebook Ads Are Not Working
Question #1: How much are you spending on Facebook ads?
And how long have you been running them?
A lot of people are not seeing the results they want from Facebook because they are simply not spending enough money.
They spend 50, 200, or 500 bucks and claim that Facebook ads just don’t work.
This is just not enough money to run a successful Facebook ads campaign.
Your Facebook advertising spend is very important because the more you spend, the more traffic you will receive.
If you are not generating enough traffic, you are not going to generate enough volume to start seeing sales.
It’s that simple.
In fact, when it comes to Facebook ads for eCommerce, the average conversion rate on most eCommerce sites hovers around 1-3%.
This means that you need to be generating hundreds of traffic to your website to even give yourself an opportunity to see sales.
A lot of people think they can spend $100 in Facebook ads and get $500 right back.
And we get it – a lot of people will say you need to make a 3x return on ad spend or a 5x return on ad spend.
While that’s not a bad goal, you’ve got to be patient.
If no one knows who you are, you need to forget about a return on ad spend and focus on building some awareness.
Sure, Apple might be able to turn on a Facebook ad and get a 20x return on ad spend. But everyone knows who Apple is.
They like Apple. They trust Apple.
You can’t use Facebook ads and expect to skip building awareness for your business.
It’s the first and most important building block of any marketing funnel.
With all of this said, we’d encourage you to spend about $5,000 in Facebook ads over a period of time.
But not all at once unless you’re ready for that. Spend this over time so you can adjust your ads as they perform.
This might be $2500/month, $1500/month, or $600/month over a longer period of time.
But just know that you need to build up a base of traffic in order to win at Facebook ads.
Question #2: Are you using retargeting ads?
Once you generate all of this awareness, you’ve got to do something with it.
You can’t just keep advertising to a bunch of strangers. You’ll get nowhere with that.
Retargeting is the name of the game with Facebook ads.
If you’re not doing any retargeting, we can promise you that your Facebook ads are not performing very well.
Because every single business we work with, that is killing it with Facebook ads, is using some type of retargeting.
Now, if you’ve never heard of retargeting, you might be wondering what in the world is it?
Retargeting is the process of advertising to people who have already engaged with your business.
Whether it’s…
- clicking on your ad,
- liking your ad, or
- visiting your website,
…you can collect all of these individuals into a retargeting audience to continuously market to them.
With all of that said, if you only have 10 people on your retargeting list, you’re probably not going to get 100 sales.
You need to focus on building up a large retargeting list.
If you have nothing, aim for 1,000 people. Once you have a list of 1,000, aim for 10,000 people.
If you have 10,000, start creating effective campaigns selling to these people.
And we’re willing to bet that your results will be better than selling to complete strangers.
If you want to learn more about retargeting and how it differs from remarketing, check out this post on remarketing vs retargeting.
Question #3: Are you using lookalike audiences?
If you’re generating some purchases with Facebook ads, and you’re not making lookalike audiences of the people who purchased from you…
…then you’re missing out on one of the best targeting opportunities within Facebook.
Just like you can create retargeting lists of people who interacted with your website, you can also create lists of people who recently purchased with you.
And of course, you advertise to them to try to get repeat purchases.
But the real magic is in using lookalike audiences to find people just like them
That’s right.
If you import your customers into Facebook, the giant platform that knows us more than we probably know about ourselves will then go…
…and find more of their users with similar interests and behaviors as your customers.
And the best part is, they will find millions of people that match the same behaviors of the people who purchased from you.
If you don’t have any purchases, then don’t worry. You can make lookalike audiences out of anything.
You can make lookalike audiences out of people who added stuff to their cart, visited your product page or landing page, and so much more.
However, keep in mind that the higher the intent, the better the lookalike audience.
You’ll likely see better results by making a lookalike audience out of people who purchased from you.
That is compared to those people who just follow you on social media.
So just keep this in mind with your Facebook ads.
Question #4: Are you testing your Facebook ads against each other?
In other words, how many ads are you running at the same time?
If you’re only running one ad, then unless you’re the best advertising guru in the world, you’re probably missing opportunities to increase your results.
Any reputable ad agency or ad specialist should be focused on A/B split testing your ads.
That means testing different images, headlines, copy, and so much more to determine which combinations drive the most results.
You can’t just set up a Facebook ad, wait, and think you’re going to get a whole bunch of results.
You have to continuously monitor your performance as they perform to make sure things are headed in the right direction.
You need to look at things like your click-through rate to see if people are even clicking on your ads in the first place.
And if they are not, then that might signal that it’s time to tweak your ads.
Question #5: What does your funnel look like?
Look, we get it. After doing so many of these blog posts, a lot of people start to get uninterested when we say things like funnels.
But the truth is that if you don’t have a smart funnel for your Facebook ads campaign, then you might be shooting yourself in the foot.
A funnel is a step-by-step process of the journey people will take to become a customer with you.
A common mistake we see is that some businesses try to take a shotgun approach with very technical, complex, or high-priced products.
For instance, they will try to run one ad on Facebook and expect people to buy their $1,000 product.
That’s a plan to fail.
The more expensive or complicated your product is, the more steps you need to have in your sales funnel.
You need to meet people where they are.
Build interest with interesting content or a free offer. Wheel them into your ecosystem.
And as they get to know your business more, they will be more likely to trust you and hear what you have to say.
Even for our agency, even if we created the most creative Facebook ad in the world, we probably couldn’t just create a single ad…
…and get 3,000 clients with a 5x return on ad spend.
So take a look at your Facebook ads and ask yourself, “What does my funnel look like?”
If you have absolutely no idea, you probably don’t have one.
And that could be the very reason why your Facebook ads are not working.
Time To Work On Your Facebook Ads!
So, if your Facebook ads are not working, we’re willing to bet it boils down to one of these 5 things.
But if not, and you want to hire experts who can manage your Facebook ads for your business, then look no further.
Our Facebook advertising services can do just that. Contact us today to get started!