Are you using your Facebook ads incorrectly? Facebook already makes a fortune; there’s no reason to throw more money at them if you don’t need to! Let’s make sure you’re spending your money on what you need to spend it on and are being productive.

 

While we’re on the topic, stop boosting posts! It’s a waste of money. If you don’t have your audience preset, you’re basically paying for likes. If you want to do that, that’s fine, but I call those “vanity numbers.” It looks great for you to go up a percentage up here and up a percentage there, but if it’s not making you money then don’t do it.

 

With that said, let’s jump into the 5 ways to not waste your money on Facebook ads:

 

 

• Know your objective

 

You need to know your objective. That sounds really simple but a lot of folks don’t have an objective. Are you trying to get emails? Are you trying to make a sale? Are you drive brand awareness? What are you trying to do? You’d never get in your car and drive around and just hope you get where you’re going. It’s so important to have your goal already mapped out.

 

2. Install a Facebook pixel

It’s super simple to install (watch my video here!). With the pixel installed, now anybody who goes from your Facebook to your website is available for retargeting. Now you can go deep. The stats used to be that you needed to get in front of the same people at least 7 times to make a  sale. Keep targeting the same people over and over with the pixel.

 

3. Target the people who know you and like you already.

You need to target people who already know about you or who are already familiar with you and want to deal with you again. For instance, target people who are already connected to you on Facebook. One of the best things you can do is create a “lookalike audience.” Take your email list and upload it into Facebook and target that audience. It’s easier to target people who are already predisposed to like you.

 

4. Don’t run ads for too long.

This is big! I’m surprised by how many folks like to run ads for forever. If have a long-running ad in the background for likes, and if you’re a national brand, that can work. But vanity numbers don’t help your sales at all. Make sure you’re qualifying what you’re doing.

 

People lose interest! Most people have a 7-second attention span. If you run an ad for too long they get old. You also want to constantly review your ads and see how they are doing. Know your objective and know what your numbers are telling you.

 

5. Don’t use text-heavy images in your graphics.

For starters, Facebook won’t let you do that. There’s a tool called Text Overlay (a Facebook tool) that you can upload your image to and Facebook will tell you if they’ll approve it. Green means it’s good and you can run it. Yellow means it’s not great but you can run it (but Facebook can approve it but not let anybody see it). Red means it’s not happening and you can’t run it. The rule is typically 80/20: 80% image, 20% text. It’s important to get the text/image balance right.

 

And that’s it! It’s really simple to stop wasting money on your Facebook ads, but if you want to also not waste your time, why not let Social U handle your Facebook account? We’d love the chance to tame your social media beast!