4 Lesser-Known Ways to Improve the Conversion Power of Your Facebook Ads There's a good chance you've never considered using these tricks to improve your Facebook ads.
By Nathan Resnick •
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In some ways, Facebook advertising is a double-edged sword. Thanks to Facebook's massive number of users, the platform contains one of the most diverse audiences in the world. In the same vein, this diversity can make it difficult to narrow in on a target audience, but mastering this skill makes all the difference.
Here are four insider tips that can help you improve the conversion power of your Facebook advertising.
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1. Rethink your campaign's parameters.
Whether we're talking about a Facebook ad's image or a landing page's copy, it's important that every piece of your marketing is applicable to your target audience. For example: A grocery store runs a promotion for a buy one, get one free deal on wine. Within hours, store notices an influx of negative comments, but the social media managers don't understand why.
That's because they neglected to narrow their parameters to match their target audience -- spending a small fortune advertising to people that didn't drink in the first place, such as recovered alcoholics. As you might have guessed, this didn't go over well with a few people who saw the advertisement.
Although this example is fairly harmless, a simple mistake like this could quickly escalate and turn into bad business for a company. So, before your campaign goes live, ensure that you've accurately narrowed in on your target audience.
2. Analyze your cost per impression.
It's difficult to run an advertisement that doesn't perform as expected, but it can be even more troubling when you can't figure out why that advertisement isn't doing very well.
In general, companies will review their targeting and tweak their images or copy to help increase their performance, but these components aren't always the issue. In fact, changing them when the problem is somewhere else can actually do more harm than good.
To avoid this mistake, it's important to analyze other, lesser-known factors before changing anything like the cost per impression.
Facebook has a report that outlines cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM), which can give you valuable insight into the shortcomings of your advertisement. In general, two things influence CPM: the accessibility of your target audience and the number of competing campaigns fighting for the same target audience.
Looking into this report can shine a light on the effectiveness of your current budget and how your campaign's performance might be impacted by CPM.
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3. Optimize with impression data.
When companies analyze their campaign results, they often leave impression data out of their discussions, but this shouldn't be the case. On the surface, impression data only gives insight into how many times an ad is displayed, which isn't very useful when reviewing a campaign; it is useful, however, when you're going to run the campaign -- or a similar campaign -- again.
Before you run off to deduce information from your campaign's results, look at its impressions. In general, the top Facebook advertisers suggest that companies only review campaigns that have 1,000 or more impressions. Otherwise, your sample size might be too small to draw meaningful conclusions.
4. Make sure your conversions don't break the bank.
To the untrained eye, the most important part of a campaign is its conversion rate. After all, conversions equate to an increase in revenue, which has to be positive -- right? As you might have guessed, this isn't always the case.
If it costs you more to acquire a conversion than the conversion brings in, your high conversion rate will actually be harming your bottom line. For example, if you spend $5 nurturing leads that turn into $2 sales, your high conversion rate is anything but good news.
To avoid this common pitfall, you need to analyze the average income from a conversion in addition to the cost per conversion. With these two components in mind, you'll be able to understand if your high conversion rate is actually something to celebrate.
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Conclusion
If you want to succeed in today's business market, you'll need to understand how to run effective Facebook advertising campaigns. However, with so many options and nuances, it's easy for newcomers to quickly create more harm than good on this platform.
To avoid these issues and position yourself for success, you need to know how to optimize your campaigns in every way possible -- including using techniques that are not necessarily common knowledge. Luckily, the tips above can give you a jumping off point, but as always, you'll need to continue reading and diversifying your knowledge if you really want to succeed in this realm.
