Here is an edited transcript of the episode above. Please forgive the run-on sentences.
My biggest tip for people who are not getting results in Facebook advertising
I was asked yesterday in a Facebook group with other marketing professionals, what is my number one tip for people who are using Facebook advertising and getting spotty results. So what I thought I would do in this segment is give you my answer and then in some following segments that I’ll post today, I’ll give you some of the other answers.
I think the most important thing to think about is the customer journey. Most people use Facebook advertising for the top of the funnel without much targeting. I like to use it in the middle of the funnel. Depending on the business, I retarget based on pages visited, whether it’s on the website or landing pages or where they are inside an automation series, an autoresponder series. So the ad that I’m serving is very relevant to the conversation that the business is having with the customer.
So that’s my biggest tip to make sure that you are targeting at the right point in the customer journey. And that’s not always the top of the funnel, which is where a lot of people use Facebook advertising.
Case study: targeting the middle of the funnel for an inaugural ball
I want to talk about targeting in the middle of the funnel instead of just the top of the funnel and thinking about the whole customer journey. I helped market an inauguration ball in January. And the organizers were doing Google AdWords to drive people to the site, which makes sense for this particular event. Once people went to the site, however, we would pixel them with the Facebook pixel. So then on Facebook, the only ads that I was running, instead of trying to figure out which audience characteristics I needed to target, I only targeted people who had already been to the website and visited the ticket page.
My cost per click was very low and my conversion rate was very high because these were people that already visited the page and knew what the event was and knew what it was about. So that is a tip for targeting the middle of the funnel. And my next tip, I’ll talk about a spa that we did retargeting in the middle of the funnel with a video ad.
Case study: retargeting video viewers for a day spa
Now another case study of a client, where we’re talking about understanding the customer journey and targeting in the middle of the funnel, is a spa that had a special facial. And I had a video of the aesthetician talking about the facial. I retargeted an offer to people who had watched 50% of that video that we had placed on the Facebook page. We actually did a Facebook live so it got a little bit more attention and then people who had watched 50% of that video we sent the offer.
That is another example of instead of just sending the offer out to a cold audience or to an audience of certain characteristics to think about the process, and I talk about this all the time in all my content: what is that sales cycle? What does that look like? And think about where they are in that sales cycle. So I hope that you found that helpful. Feel free to respond with questions or comments.
And then my next little clip, I will share with you some of the other tips from other marketing experts for people who are struggling with getting spotty results with Facebook ads.
Top 3 Tips for improving your Facebook ads from other experts
If I look at all of the responses to this question about how to get better results with your Facebook ads, three things rise to the top. I’m going to share them right now and then I’m going to share with you my other sort of big Facebook tip that I think if you’re doing some Facebook advertising and not getting the results you want that you might be missing.
The first tip is to make sure that your specs are correct. Your image size is proper and that you’re not violating any of Facebook’s guidelines. I think people just kind of throw ads up there and don’t look at it.
And the second tip is after you create your ad to actually walk away. Work on something else before you make that ad live, then come back with fresh eyes to look at it. And when you’re doing that, you also want to check it on all the platforms, which you can easily do in the Facebook ad manager to make sure it looks the way you want it to on all the platforms. That’s really important to make sure that looking at it from a prospective customer’s eyes and not from your own eyes so that all the information that needs to be there as clear.
And the third tip is to make sure that you test, test, test. I see a lot of people throw out Facebook ads and say, “Oh, it didn’t work”. They didn’t have any variables. Now I don’t think you need 900 variables and testing, but you should certainly test some different hypotheses on what might work in ad copy and imagery. Make sure that you’re only testing one thing at a time when you’re comparing. So if you’re testing headline makes sure that everything else is the same. And if you’re testing imagery, make sure that the headlines are the same. So that you know what the difference maker is.
Those are the three biggest tips from all the other advice offered online. And in the next segment, I will share with you my other big tip besides focusing on the middle of the funnel that I want you to think about for your Facebook advertising.
Final Tip: Set up custom and lookalike audiences
My final tip about Facebook advertising is to think about making custom audiences and lookalike audiences. If you spend any time on Facebook advertising, you’re aware of this, but I find a lot of businesses are not. They’re trying to create audiences based on age and demographics and interests when they actually have customer data at their fingertips. You can upload your email list into Facebook, create that as a custom audience. You can put some code on your website to track everyone who visits your website, create that as a custom audience. From those custom audiences, you can then create lookalike audiences. So you’re saying to Facebook, “these are my people. I want more people like these people. I don’t know what it is that’s the same about them.” Because Facebook is not going to send back to you the characteristics that are similar in those custom audiences. But it will give you more people like those people.
And I suggest even if you’re just boosting posts, you’re not doing complete Facebook ad campaigns, if you create these custom and lookalike audiences, you can access them when you boost your post. So that’s a big change in the boost post from in the past when all you could do is kind of pick some demographics and general targeting. So that’s my other tip.
If you’re doing any Facebook advertising at all, even if it’s just boosting posts to be sure to go in, create these custom audiences. Put the Facebook pixel on your website so you’re tracking those people that have visited your website. And even if you’re not doing Facebook advertising, pixel them now. And from there you’ll be able to start with a better audience. That’s a warm audience. And then if you do a lookalike audience, that’s a cold audience, but it’s closer to what your audience looks like.
So that’s my big tip. I hope you find it helpful.