The Top 3 Reasons Why Your Facebook Ads Suck And How To Make Them Better

Shoving money into the Facebook machine and losing it all doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. If you’re not prepared for the IOS14 Update, Have bad ad creative, or simply lack strategy when it comes to your ads, then it’s safe to say your ads probably aren’t doing too hot. It’s all good. Let’s go ahead and dive into the top 3 reasons why your ads suck and what you can do to start creating ads that convert.

1.) Underprepared For The IOS14 Update

Let’s be honest there’s a lot of outdated information out there. The iOS 14 update just launched, so if you're running ads and don't have your domain or two-factor authentication setup, you are at a very high risk of getting your ads shut down. Verifying your domain and setting up two-Factor authentication is essential at this point. Doing this as soon as possible allows Facebook access to your back end, which means they will be able to optimize your ads and keep everything running smoothly!

2.) Bad Ad Creative

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, you need to create a pattern interrupt with your ad graphics. Your goal should always be to make people stop mid-scroll. Your ideal client is more likely to click on your ad if it catches their attention. We do this by incorporating bright, bold colors and shapes into our designs. If you have softer, more neutral brand colors, that’s fine. You can still create a pattern interrupt by playing around with different shapes or attractive graphic layouts. Here are some examples from our agency to help you get an idea of what we mean.

3.) Lack of strategy

Sometimes people throw five or ten bucks at their ads, cross their fingers and say, “okay, let’s do this!” We never recommend having this type of approach. Trust us when we say Facebook ads are not something you should wing. You need to be spending enough money and also giving your ads enough time to collect data.

Think of running ads as an investment you need to pay to play. Essentially you’re in a bidding war against other advertisers that are also bidding for the attention of your ideal audience. So if you're not spending enough money, you're going to get outbid and fast. We’re not telling you that you have to spend a million dollars on ads. You can reverse engineer your ideal ad spend by giving your ads enough time to optimize.

People get nervous and say, “Oh my gosh, my ad costs are so high!” We’re here to assure you that this is totally normal when you first turn on your ads. Facebook is just trying to figure out who is most likely to purchase from you. We always recommend not touching your ads for at least 48 hours after they’ve gone up. If an ad is not performing as well as we had hoped, we usually give it about a week or two, and by then, we know if it is working or if we need to try a different approach.

Sometimes it just requires time and patience. This is why Facebook ads are a long-term strategy. It’s essential to make informed, data-driven decisions. Data will always tell us what we need to know, where the bottlenecks in your funnel are and when it’s time to decrease your ad spend. 

Messaging & Offer

Okay, We’re done putting you down now. We promise. Here are some ways you can create profitable ads. Start by asking yourself what your offer is and how much you have sold? These are the first questions we always ask our agency clients. We always want to be sure you’re running ads to a proven offer. Also, it’s vital to think about your messaging because your targeting should always align with your ad copy.

The key is to make your ad copy as simple and straightforward as humanly possible. You can do this by using vocabulary that describes what you do and how you do it so that people can easily understand what your offer is. Often, we get so focused on all the things our products can do that we lose sight of what we are actually offering.

Targeting & Ad Creative

Another common problem we see people struggle with is targeting their ideal clients. You can solve this by targeting a broader audience and then narrowing it down based on the data you collect and who your ideal client is. For example, we previously worked with a client who had a very niche audience. Their ideal client was male business owners that have autoimmune disorders. We cannot target that specific audience directly, But we could target people who interact/like autoimmune disorder websites, business coaches, business owners, etc.

The way you speak to your ideal client and call them out is through your ad copy and ad graphics which is again why it’s so crucial that your ad creative resonates with your ideal client. For this particular client, we decided to say something like this in their ad copy: “ It’s hard to run a business and suffer through autoimmune disorders…” The ad graphic then included an image of a man looking at the skin on his arm. The ad graphic was specific to the person we were targeting, So when that specific niche audience was scrolling, the people that resonated with this ad would stop and say, “That’s me!”

Some questions that can help you clarify your targeting are “Who is your audience? What are their desires/pain points? Where do they want to be? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you attract your ideal people.

Ad Creative is the first thing people see and interact with, so you’ll want your graphics to really stand out and speak directly to your ideal customer. Keep in mind what we talked about earlier in this post about creating scroll-stopping ad graphics.

Landing Page

Once people see your ad and click on it, Where is your ad sending them? Hopefully, some type of landing page. It could be a sales page, registration page, etc. Another common issue we run into with our agency clients is that sometimes when we are running ads to a brand new landing page, they don’t always convert as well as we had hoped.

The ads could be working great, they are getting lots of clicks, but for some reason, there’s a drop-off after they get redirected to the landing page. If it’s a free offer that you’re running ads to, we will want to see that landing page converting at 20% or higher. If it’s a paid offer and it’s converting at less than 2%, we have a problem, which means 2% of the traffic that hits that landing page doesn’t buy. These stats will help you gauge how your landing page is performing and help you determine whether or not you need to make some adjustments.

Targeting

We can have the most incredible offer in the world, the best landing page, the most precise messaging, irresistible ad graphics, and then realize we're not running ads to the right people. It happens all the time.

Think of it like this you probably wouldn’t go into a room full of guys and try to sell them tampons. Right? They’re not going to be interested in buying them. They don’t know what it’s like to use them, so they will most likely ignore you. This is precisely why targeting is so important.

Everything goes back to messaging. Who is your offer for? What do they want? Where do they shop? What other business personalities or Facebook pages do they like? Thinking in this way is what’s going to help you get clear on who you’re targeting.

We always test three to four different groups to see which ones perform the best. Sometimes people input about twenty different interests into one ad. Then they run that ad and claim it works, but the problem with doing this is that you won’t know exactly which audience is working. Data is queen.

It’s important to know which audiences are performing the best because you can actually take it apart and run ads to these audiences when you have that specific information. This will allow you to strategically increase your ad spend and know which ads are worth focusing on, which will end up saving you a lot of time and money in the long run.

So there you have it! There are the top 3 reasons why your ads suck and some ways to improve them. If you're wanting to learn more about running your own FB/IG ads or are just looking for more 1:1 support, go ahead and follow us inside of the Fempire Facebook Group, drop your questions, and let us know if there's any other way that we can best support you!