Why Your Facebook Ad Doesn’t Work?
It’s needless to say, that if you start an advertising campaign on Facebook without any kind of strategy or plan, you are definitely going to fail. There are three types of failures.
- You will lose money.
- You won’t get a customer or desired leads.
- Thinking that Facebook Ad doesn’t work well for your Business.
Facebook is not a Disneyland what it used to be in the early days. It’s just another crowded marketplace (yet the most lucrative one) in the online world. It’s a social network built for people like you are me who are expecting to connect with the things and people they like. That is why algorithms are getting harder for the businesses to stand out in the crowd even with paid ads option.
So, yes. Basic targeting with a post-engagement boost doesn’t work.
Buying audience like doesn’t work.
Posting your photo/video of the product and expecting traffic & engagement doesn’t work.
Before spending your ad dollar, you need to make sure that you’re number games are on point, you understand or research who your audience is, what is your offer that makes them interested and how you are doing to execute that. Let’s take a deep dive!
It’s a number game
Marketing is not all about creative design, perfect copy and the media channels. If you truly want to get revenue from your marketing efforts, you need to understand the numbers that drive your business.
So, if you ask me what’s the best budget for your business or ad campaign. (Which I hear pretty often). Honestly, there is no perfect budget cap. The more we get, the more the result we can bring for you.
But, if you would like to really want to set a budget for your marketing campaign. You need to understand your business metrics first and communicate your advertiser or agency based on that. If you not measuring them right now, then you’re not just doing wrong with your marketing effort, but also with your business.
Here’s how I guide my new client’s to set their marketing/advertising budget.
Four Key Metrics You need to sort out
- Average Order Value (AOV)
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
If you still haven’t calculated that, then you’re not just doing wrong with your marketing effort, but also with your business.
Think about your product’s average order value (AOV) at first. If your product order value is 300 BDT and you spend 350 BDT to get one sale, then it’s really doesn’t make sense for you to run that ad.
At the same time, your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) or sourcing, manufacturing cost might be 100 BDT. So, even if you spend 250 BDT per customer and get a sale. Your actual profit will be merely 50 BDT, which may not be sustainable for you.
For high-value product, aim high rather than settling for low-value auction ads. Your profit margin is higher, so you are capable to spend more on each lead.
What about the low-cost product or services then? Here Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) comes into play.
Think about your product has a repurchasing effect or you sell teaching membership option (like Language learning). When you actually acquire a customer, they tend to buy more from you on a recurring basis. Even if you are a bad Language Teacher, the customer may stay with you for at least 6 months.
So, if you are selling your language coaching for 5000 BDT. You are actually getting 30000 BDT from one customer for a span for 6 months. So, in that case, you can easily spend 1000 – 2000 BDT to acquire one customer and throw a 20% discount on your regular pricing and still be profitable.
Though it may seem like that your actual ad cost is 2000 – 3000 BDT to acquire a single customer with 5000 BDT product value at first.
If you’re doing retail. It may work for you too. If a customer buys from you just one time and never come back, you need to analyze your AOV very carefully. But, if they come back and buy from you several time, it’s a bonus. That is why retargeting, customer service is also vital to build a sustainable business.
Some business may have higher LTV’s than the traditional one. Like Doctors and Lawyers. Because you are probably going to serve them for a lifetime if you get them once.
Who is your ideal customer?
Even before you decide on your ad objective & Facebook audience targeting, you need to set who your ideal customer is. You will never be successful in ads without knowing who your customers are, what are their goal, target, and problem. Their general interest, hobbies or work/family life.
A buyer persona kit or customer profiling may solve that. You do not need to think about a lot of customers profile. Think about 2 – 3 primary one and build a “persona profile” based on general observation, personal research and existing users of similar products. This will set the tone for your overall Facebook Advertising Strategy in 2019.
How to set a better targeting?
When you are all set to start the ad manager to start creating ad thinking that, you already have an audience in mind and you understand their online behavior. Well, you are partially right.
Facebook doesn’t always represent your total target market available online. Just like any other online medium. Facebook also has an inventory (profiles like you and me) and the users can have unique online behavior, that even seasoned business professional can’t predict. It’s always better to have a fine-tuned audience profile, right?
That’s why Facebook has a great tool known as Audience Insight. It’s a part of their ad tool and it can give you some really great details about the people (aka inventory of Facebook), you’re planning to target with your Ad Campaign.
Unlike your general assumption. You can play around with Facebook data to understand, you target audience number of Facebook. As you can see, based on my custom targeting, my target profiles are only 80000 – 90000 people on Facebook in the city of Dhaka. You can also have a look into what kind of pages do they like, their general activity and frequency on Facebook, their demographics, etc.
So, next time even before you start to create an ad, play around with Audience Insight tool and come up with multiple lists of targeting based on your buyer persona and user’s inventory available on Facebook. Your targeting criteria and ad relevance score should be better if the communication/offer works well.
I’m not going into details of creating a Facebook Ad in here. But, you must start with the right objective. If you have run Facebook Ad before, you already know what you should do next. I can help you to get a better result by showing you what you can do right and what you should avoid getting more result.
Creative
It’s also needless to say that creative is the heart of your online ad campaign. Before to start to develop the creative, ask yourself what kind of creative would appeal to that target audience you have already developed using buyer persona method and audience insight. My suggestion is to go by data.
Even I have seen a well crafted static post works better than a 2D explainer video if it resonates with your target audience better. Backed by the power of data, you can create better creative and can sometimes beat out the expensive content you have ordered, just because it looks good to the eye.
Copywriting
If the creative is the heart, your copy is the mind of your campaign. In one sentence,
“your copy should speak what’s in it for your audience, how it meets their goal and solves the problem in a conversational way”
Yes, we always see ads like, how great the product of an advertiser or the features that are mind-blowing. Ask yourself, what’s stopping you to skip those ads if you’re not an active or re-targeted buyer?
Always think first, what’s appealing to them and how you can lead them to start a conversation with you by clicking the CALL TO ACTION (CTA) button in your ad (example: Get Offer, Download Now, Call Now, Send Message).
You need to sell your CTA through an offer or promise at first and product feature later. Preferably in a detailed note, later part of your interactive video or through an external landing page, where you can show a lot more details.
You need to identify your customer problem and communicate the solution to them rather than selling your actual product to them. For example, if you’re selling Green-tea. Tell them how it benefits them by being health conscious. Rather than the state of the art tea-plantation you have made – if you’re looking for immediate customer action. Well, flaunting your factory is not bad. But, keep it for the OVC and brand building efforts.
Right-ways, Right-expectation
Now, let’s again talk about why Facebook is not a Disneyland or should I say Mamar Bari? (a popular jargon in Bengali – that means “you get what you want”).
What, I am trying to say is, with Facebook Ads, you are not likely to see a higher return from day one or within a week. You will have to understand that you’re investing in data with your paid ads. You need to walk the talk before getting some actual sales from your marketing effort.
Adjust your Ad strategy based on your AOV or avg product price too. If you’re selling a more expensive product using direct response. For example, selling AC with discounts with little or no information about the customer’s problem and goals. Your Ad budgets are not going to be work in a way it should be. The average customer always does their research before purchasing a high-value product. So, your strategy for them should be to educate them first and then sell through other personalized channels – preferably over a call or meeting.
Check out this ad from one of my portfolio company. Where we helped business leaders to get a budget template for free (knowing that they need to plan their yearly strategy ahead). We used a Lead Generation Advertisement with less than 40 USD with more than 500+ lead response. Well enough to cater a quarter’s lead even if 5% of the total lead convert to our campaign service. Notice that the creative we designed is not eye-catching in terms of design language. But, outperformed, because of the offering, targeting and, personalized message.
Since our service pricing is not a soap like a commodity. We generally have to nurture the leads, help them first and build a personal connection. Later on, we understand their goals and offer our services based on their unique need. Since our AOV is higher, we do not mind to spend a bit more to know them over a coffee meet!
Use a Funnel Strategy
Do not just create multiple ad creative and sending your communication through the first time viewers like 85% advertisers do. You need to understand which buyers are interacting with you at what stage. Not everyone is ready to buy from you when they first see your ad. Even if you increase the frequency over a span of time, it may lead to a negative experience for them.
Instead of doing that, use re-targeting ads with tailored messaging based on your marketing funnel. You will see a better result and buyers who are likely to buy from you than the competition. For us it looks like this:
This doesn’t always mean you have to run re-targeted ads always and look for multiple campaigns. You can test your first ad with purchase intent option and if that’s not going well. Try the re-targeting option then. Learn to use Facebook Pixel in a better way, than using it as the arrow of messages to your audience who interacted with the site. You should also not select your bid objective for the impression if you’re looking for more traffic. Even if it takes a higher amount of ad budget. You should stay focused on your ultimate goal.
Keep your calm & test, test, test
Lastly, you should be patient and always keep testing with the new method. If a method is working well for you in the last couple of months and suddenly not giving the result for the last two-week. You need to rethink the strategy, looks after the latest Facebook algorithm update and harness the new format of Ad Facebook is releasing where they shifted their attention span.
I hope now you understand, how important it is to set a Facebook Strategy for your business that works in 2019. You should also look for the right agency who can assist you in meeting your goals. How to find a good one? Read this article to know more.
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