Most Common Facebook Ad Mistakes To Avoid

The part 1 is here

6. Not splitting your budget properly

Now let’s talk about your ad budget. Many businesses invest too much in retargeting campaigns and too little in prospecting campaigns.

We recommend the 80/20 rule: allocate about 80% of your budget to prospecting campaigns and 20% to retargeting campaigns.

You might think you’re spending too little on retargeting, but remember, this audience already knows your brand. You don’t want a budget that leads to high frequency in just a few days.

It’s also crucial to focus on your prospecting campaign so you can retarget those people later and improve your retargeting efforts.

7. Not Utilizing the Whole Anatomy of an Ad

A common mistake in Facebook ads is not using all parts of the ad.

Every Facebook ad has five elements:

• primary ad text
• visual
• call to action button (CTA)
• headline
• description

Some advertisers may skip the CTA or leave the headline and description blank. However, using all the available elements will give you the best results.

8. Using video ads

Many advertisers still use videos for their ads, but we suggest avoiding them.

We know videos are more fun and engaging than static images, but in 90% of cases, static images perform better.

In an A/B test we ran, static images showed better results across all four metrics.

Sometimes, video ads had a better conversion rate, but the cost per thousand impressions was much higher.

9. Too long ad copy

If your ad has large blocks of text, few people will notice or read it.

On Facebook, it’s important to grab users’ attention quickly. Along with a great visual, short and engaging ad copy will help you do this.

AdEspresso analyzed 37,259 Facebook ads and found that the ideal length for a headline is 5 words, 14 words for the main text, and 18 words for the description.

Recently, Facebook introduced a feature related to ad copy length. If your primary text is longer than 280 characters, you’ll get an alert suggesting you shorten it. While going over 280 characters may not lead to fewer conversions, it’s worth testing to see how it performs.

10. Not using emojis

When discussing ad creative and copy, we can’t forget about emojis.

Emojis can make your ad seem friendlier and more engaging, rather than just a sales pitch. The more natural your ad looks, the better.

We tested three identical ads by changing the ad description.

The first ad had no description, the second included the five-star emoji (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐), and the third mentioned “free shipping.”

Although the CTR was similar for all three versions, the CR and ROAS were highest for the ad with the 5-star emojis.

So if you’re not using emojis in your ads, we encourage you to try it out.

The easiest way to add emojis is through sites like Emojipedia. You can find any emoji you want and simply copy and paste them into your ads.

Also, don’t add emojis that don’t match your product or ad copy. The goal is to enhance your ad, so if emojis don’t fit your brand, use them sparingly or not at all.

11. Using manual placements

Another common Facebook Ad mistake is using manual placements. You might have a great ad setup and creative, but if you limit your ads to a few placements, you’ll likely miss out on many potential conversions.

We tested automatic placements against manual ones to see which performed better, and the results were not surprising.

When using automatic placements, both customer acquisition cost and cost per click were significantly lower.

This shows that Facebook does a great job of testing placements and promoting the best ones for optimal results.

For those unfamiliar with Facebook ad placement options and best practices, we have a complete guide that covers everything you need to know.

12. Not using the best-performing call to action (CTA) button

You might not think about it at first, but the CTA you choose affects your ad performance. Facebook offers several CTA options, but you should always choose just one.

Many e-commerce businesses promote their products but use the “Learn More” button. We tested this on over 400 ad accounts, and “Shop Now” always outperformed other CTAs.

Stay tuned for part 2!