3 Most Costly Mistakes New Facebook Advertisers Make

Facebook ads are a great way to drive traffic to your website, but they’re not the only way. If you’re just starting out in search engine marketing (SEM), you may be wondering which of your competitors are running Facebook ads and how much they’re spending.

You might also be thinking that if you can’t afford an ad on Facebook, then you should just focus on SEO instead. That’s a great strategy for some businesses, but for others—especially if you’re new to SEM—fb ads are a highly effective way to promote your business.

If you have a small or medium-sized business and want to get started with Facebook advertising, don’t make these mistakes:

• Not targeting your audience properly

When you create a campaign for your brand or business, you want to target as many people as possible who will see it. Facebook allows advertisers to display ads based on interests, demographics, and behavioral data such as age, gender and location. But there’s one group of people who don’t show up in any of those categories: businesses themselves!

Many businesses have found success by targeting the people who already like them on Facebook — their existing customer base. If your business has an active social media presence, then you probably have an audience willing to see your ads even if they aren’t interested in buying from you. Don’t waste money targeting people who won’t be interested in seeing your ads!

• They don’t have enough data about their audience

The first mistake new advertisers make is not having enough data about their audience. Facebook has over 1 billion users and they come from all over the world. Every day, people use Facebook to connect with friends and family, share content and news stories, learn new things, see what others are doing and discover products they might like or buy. However, many advertisers don’t know how best to reach these users in order to generate sales or generate leads for their business.

The second mistake new advertisers make is not knowing who they want to target with their ads on Facebook. The truth is that there are millions of users who visit Facebook each day but only a small number who will actually engage with them and convert into customers or leads for your business.

• Failing to Be Specific

When you’re trying to reach potential customers, it’s important to tailor your content based on who you’re targeting. If you’re selling clothes and only want women between the ages of 25 and 34 to see your ad, then you need to create an ad specifically for those customers. However, if you’re selling sunglasses, then maybe age isn’t so much of a factor. In this case, it’s probably better to just create an ad for “people like me” (i.e., people who wear sunglasses).

Facebook offers several demographics that can help narrow down exactly who your target audience is — age range, gender, location or even interests in your product category (like “sun glasses” versus “eyeglasses”). You should always be using these tools when creating ads so that they align with what your customers will see on Facebook.