You’ve got the selection of the advertising target behind you, the selection of the target group, the budget has been set (or imposed by the client 😉 ), all that’s left is to create good copy, graphics and you’re done. The ad is on, you check in a few hours and see a message that it is in the learning phase. That’s a good sign, you check the next day and you’re in for a big disappointment. The ad is not working as you expected or promised the client.
Stress, sweat, tears… okay, tears maybe not, but some stress is there. No wonder since the advertising system promised us golden mountains, but the results are unfortunately not so optimistic. What you need to bear in mind at the campaign forecasting stage is that the results suggested by an advertising system, whether on Facebook or LinkedIn, are only indicative and sometimes greatly exaggerated, and it is really quite a challenge to achieve them. If you are creating a campaign proposal for a client or yourself based on these, take the lower bounds into account. It is always better to be positively surprised than severely disappointed.
FIRST, DON’T PANIC and check if you have made any of the most common mistakes when creating an advertising campaign.
TARGET GROUP
Let’s start with the most important thing already when preparing for a campaign, namely the selection of the target group. At training sessions, I always say that creating a persona is the key to a successful campaign. A lack of knowledge of who our recipient is, what their needs are, what their expectations are, but also what challenges they face, can mean that despite a well-chosen budget or an attractive creation, our advertising will not be effective. This is an absolute must. WHO, HOW and WHY should interact with your brand? The same can be applied to your campaign. These are questions you need to ask yourself before creating your marketing strategy, advertising or content. Always ask yourself what value you give your customer and why they should take the time for you. I know it’s brutal, but very true.
ADVERTISING OBJECTIVE
Secondly, the advertising target. In the previous version of Meta’s ad manager, we had up to 11 advertising objectives to choose from. There were quite a few of them (brand recognition, reach, activity, traffic, app installs, video views, contact acquisition, messaging, conversions, catalogue sales and website traffic) but, after a brief consideration, we could more or less determine which one to choose in order to achieve the desired effect without too much trouble. At the moment there are 6 objectives in the Meta system (recognition, traffic, activity, contacts, app promotion, sales), this against the odds does not make the task any easier. The problem is that the previous objectives have been somewhat hidden or even pushed into different more or less obvious places, and so, for example, when choosing a campaign for recognition, we can target reach, brand recognition or video views. It only gets more interesting, but this is a topic for a separate post. But let’s focus on the assumptions. If you want your customers to go to your website, don’t choose reach targets, target them. The low advertising cost promised by the advertising system must be the same as what you want to achieve. By choosing an advertising target you are letting Facebook know what kind of engagement you expect from your audience. Don’t expect to get a lot of clicks or web hits by choosing reach.
WRONG BUDGET
Secondly, a poorly chosen budget. While on LinkedIn you can assume an approximate fork per lead of PLN 8-16 (this is a really optimistic version), setting a budget on Facebook without knowing the industry or the client is much more difficult. Additionally, each advertising objective will settle at a different level, reach will be much cheaper than activity and response, and conversions will be the most expensive. You will only know what your cost-per-result is for a set target once you have included one/two/three ads. So how do you set a budget at the very beginning? You need to calculate what margin you have on your products and what advertising cost you can afford. I can add a proven tip from myself – start with a lower budget and increase it as necessary to achieve better results.
You can read about how to choose a budget HERE
ILL-CONSIDERED OR INAPPROPRIATE CREATION
The elements that make for successful and good advertising results are many. Most of these relate to the settings in the advertising system, but we must also not forget basic things such as the creative. Already at the stage of preparing for a campaign, we must consider in our strategy what format we want to promote. Is it to be a graphic or perhaps a video? Vertical or square? Photo or graphic? There is no clear answer to all these questions. It all depends. It depends on what we want to promote, who our target audience is and where we place our ad. Remember that, in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, no one will read your message if you don’t convince them in the first few seconds – regardless of whether we are talking about graphics or video.
The first impression is the most important. So what should you avoid? Inappropriate formats – ensure that your creative is displayed correctly, not cut off or unreadable. If you are promoting a video, add subtitles to it. Most audiences interact with our messages in not-so-obvious situations, so you need to be prepared for the viewer not having the opportunity to listen to what you have to say. But he can always read it 😉 .
WEBSITE ERRORS OR UNATTRACTIVE WEBSITE
However, there are situations when everything looks correct in the advertising panel, the results are promising, but the sales are not there or are unsatisfactory. Remember that graphics/video and a cool slogan alone will not make a customer buy your product or ideas. You have to convince him and be credible about it. If you direct traffic to a website that is not responsive (yes, there are still such websites), is not visually attractive, the navigation is not intuitive or, even worse, has errors, do not count on good sales. Do you want to look for information on a website that looks like it’s from a bygone era or is difficult to navigate? Probably not, so why would you require this of your potential customers? Correct the mistakes, make your website or shop a friendly place where it is easy to find your way around and get to the most important information. If the product is technical and requires explanation, and you know from experience that customers ask a lot of questions before buying, put an FAQ on your website.
These are, of course, not all the mistakes that need to be eliminated to talk about effective advertising in SoMe. Want to know more? Follow our Facebook or LinkedIn profile so you don’t miss the second part of the article. And if you want to get started with advertising in SoMe, write to me and take advantage of our training courses.
Karolina Dziwak-Filosek
Social Media Manager
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