How to Make Your Facebook Ads Convert 🚀

Have you ever wondered why your Facebook Ads aren’t converting as well as you’d like them to?

Ever spent ages crafting the perfect Facebook Ad campaign, only to find its clever messaging is lost on the target audience?

Or ever wondered why your relevance score is sitting at 3 when you’ve painstakingly created the audience of your dreams?

We’re here to help. 

Facebook Ads can be a tricky business. In this post, we aim to give you actionable tips to improve your Facebook Ads’ conversion rates, and give you some new ideas and examples to try along the way. 

Top Reasons Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Converting

Here are some common reasons your campaigns may not be converting the way you’d like them to.

You’re Targeting the Wrong People 🎯

It’s very tempting, at first, to look at the wealth of options available in Ads Manager, and dream up your ideal customer. What they’re into, how old they are, and the kinds of jobs they do.  Which is great –– but if you’re just starting out, you need to think about the low-hanging fruit. 

This dream customer may be the right customer in theory, but if they’ve never heard of you, it’s going to be very difficult to get them to listen. 

Start with the more achievable targets first. 

• Your existing customers (for new offers or products)
• Past customers
• Mailing list subscribers
• Warm leads (i.e lead magnet responders)
• Your Facebook fans
• People who have engaged with your content on Facebook or Instagram
• Anyone who has visited your website or particular landing pages

Audiences who have an existing relationship with you already are far more likely to respond positively to your ads. 

Facebook’s Custom Audiences are designed specifically to cater to those people.

Here’s  quick overview of the different types of Custom Audiences you can create:

• Custom Audiences from a customer list

Upload your mailing list, segmented any way you like. Facebook uses an ‘identifier’ like an email address, phone number or address to match the contact to a Facebook profile.

• Engagement Custom Audiences

This is an audience made up of people who have engaged with your content across the Facebook family of apps and services. 

• Website Custom Audiences

This is a way of reaching people who have visited your website. You can split this by specific landing pages for a laser-focused approach. This requires installation of the Facebook pixel (highly recommended). 

For example, you can run a campaign to reach people who visited a product page but didn’t complete a purchase to encourage them to go back to the website to do so. Or, you can create an audience of everyone who’s visited your website in the past 30 days.

• Mobile app Custom Audiences

This is an audience created from data passed from your mobile app to Facebook. You can then target ads towards people who have your app installed, to encourage them to engage with the app or get exclusive offers via the app. 

You’re Not Optimizing Campaigns for the Different Marketing Funnel Stages 💡

You might be targeting the right people, but with the wrong creative or copy for where they are in the customer journey. 

A common mistake is to be overly upfront about sales to cold leads, forgetting to warm them up first.  

Facebook allows you to create ads in three separate categories:

• Awareness: For a cold audience that isn’t aware of your brand
• Consideration: For warmer leads that may need a bit more information
• Conversion: For an audience who are very receptive and ready to purchase

Top of Funnel Content

This is where you offer tempting content to warm up your audience, that ideally solves some of their problems. 

Sell your brand at this stage, not the product. Free guides, white-papers, videos, templates, and informative articles or infographics all work well to entice prospects.

For example, SmarterQueue is a full-service social media management platform. 

Instead of launching straight into an ad with a free trial to use the product, we’d promote a lead magnet like a free social strategy template or a video guide on how to smash Instagram goals. 

Middle of Funnel Content

Think you can go straight in with a sales pitch now?

Hold your horses! 🐎

You may have a solution ready to go for your audience’s problem, but they aren’t ready to make a purchase decision… yet. 

Now is a great time to offer up content that shows potential buyers how others have overcome their particular problem, and guides as to how to choose the right solution. 

Facebook Ads here should build trust in your brand, and show your expertise in the relevant area. Subtle case studies or webinars are ideal content here.

As you can see, the above ad still doesn’t overtly mention a product, but presents a problem and a solution, enhanced with social proof (a success story) to build credibility and trust. 

Bottom of Funnel

Here’s where you can start promoting your free trial, online chat or direct link to your product: the more ‘traditional’ ads.

You might notice that the above example is something you might have targeted to top-of-funnel audiences before.

Now, hopefully you can see why tailoring your ads to the funnel phase is key in building up a more engaged audience. 

Social media marketing is a process, not a one-time solution. It’s highly unlikely that someone will convert the first time they see an ad. If you follow this step-by-step process, you’re far more likely to see conversions. 

Your Facebook Ads Don’t Align With Your Landing Page 🤔

Creating and optimizing your landing pages is such an important step in converting the customers who actually click your links. 

People who click a link are expecting the landing page to reflect what they’ve expressed interest in: so it’s advisable to include consistent imagery and tone of voice.

An expertly-designed landing page should include:

• Clear, concise headlines
• Social proof
• Testimonials
• Benefits (not just features) 
• Clear calls-to-action

Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Designed Specifically for Their Purpose 🎨

If you’re spending money on Facebook Ads, you should invest in the creation of suitable assets. 

Don’t recycle assets that you’ve used in other places: adhere to the Facebook Ads Guide, and ensure your copy, imagery, video, or canvas subscribes to the best practices in order to maximize the impact of your ads in the Newsfeed. 

You can’t afford to waste an opportunity, especially if you’re working with small budgets!

Wrap Up

Don’t leap into Facebook Ads without first planning your funnels and strategy for each stage. Think carefully about your audiences, and don’t forget the low-hanging fruit as your first opportunity. Then take your learnings and move on to your next three-phase-approach. And remember to design bespoke assets and landing pages!

Please share any of your Facebook Ads tips and thoughts below! 👇