The 6 Most Common Social Advertising Mistakes
There are many steps to success when it comes to social media advertising, but there are just as many ways to fail.
When you’re investing money into marketing, you want to see results, not wastage. Are you making any of these common mistakes with your social campaigns?
Where Are You Going with This?
No successful business started purely from having a great product or service. Success really starts with good planning.
It’s so important to have a clear direction before starting any social advertising campaign. There are so many aspects that need to be clearly mapped out such as pixel installation, targeting, creative, ad format, ad placement and media spend, to name just a few.
Watch Your Tone
A picture paints a thousand words, but it doesn’t excuse terrible writing. As visual as ads are, you need to make sure your copy is just as tight to sell to your audience.
There’s more to quality writing than getting your grammar right. Is your copy compelling enough to encourage people to take action? Does it sound too dull and bland? Or is it too over-the-top? It might be tempting to overuse the exclamation marks or even emojis, but this kind of writing can come off a little aggressive.
No Facebook Pixel Installed
A Facebook pixel is a piece of code that lives on your website or landing page and allows Facebook to know whether someone visiting via your ads has purchased or converted as a lead. In turn, this allows campaigns to be set up to achieve this goal as often as possible. If no pixel is installed on your site from the outset then this data is missed, and your ads can only be optimised for clicks and traffic.
We all know that more website traffic does not necessarily mean more leads or sales so this is a really key area to get right. The skills of a Web Developer are required, which is why it’s best to engage an agency.
Using a Set-and-forget Approach
Think of your social media ad as a plant. You can’t just plant it in the ground and hope for the best. You have to water it, check on it regularly, and adjust things to make sure it can bloom in the right environment.
It’s so important to actively monitor your social campaign to make sure it isn’t getting too much of one thing or not enough of another. You could be letting an ad with great potential go to waste without the proper attention and support.
At the other end of the spectrum, many people waste their dollars on a poorly-performing ad that just isn’t going to give them worthwhile returns. Generally if an ad underperforms in the first couple of weeks, it isn’t going to make a miraculous recovery, and you may need to try a new approach.
Stealing Images
Anything goes on the internet, but that doesn’t mean it’s a lawless territory. Copyright very much applies to most images you’ll find online.
If you use an image in your ad that you don’t have the legal right to use, you may very well find yourself stung with some very expensive legal implications.
Paying for the rights to use images, such as stock photos, can get expensive. Thankfully, there are free resources online with thousands of images. It really comes down to your preference and budget.
Where’s Your Handle?
Did you know you don’t actually need an Instagram profile to advertise your business through Instagram ads? While this is great for brands with no Instagram account (managing a social account is hard work, after all), it has one big downside.
The beauty of Instagram ads is they look a lot like a regular Instagram post. This means people are more likely to interact with them. If they’re interested in your product, they may well want to click through to your profile to check out your brand. This is great— so long as you actually have an Instagram account.
Consumers like staying on one platform and would much rather suss out your business’ Instagram profile rather than be taken to your website. If you don’t have a profile, they are more likely to keep scrolling— making your ad a total waste of money.
Sell, Don’t Spam
The beauty of social marketing is the ability to target very specific demographics, then remarket to the right people within those groups. Effective, right? Yes, but there is a threshold.
If you keep trying to push your product in someone’s face over and over, they’re not going to cave and give you the sale. They’re going to choose to hide the ad forever— and yes, that is a feature. This can happen when you spend too much on an audience that is small.
Social marketing is somewhat of a science, and it’s so important to know what you’re doing to get the most bang for your buck. Still confused? Stop wasting time and dollars and let our social media team take care of it for you.