In recent years, changes in how Facebook delivers content to users organically from commercial accounts has made it nearly impossible for businesses to avoid paid social advertising. The sheer number of daily users, targeting options, and evolving platform features have caused Facebook ads to become a leader in customer and user acquisition for companies of all sizes.
Simply running ads doesn’t mean your business will scale overnight, however. Learning how to improve Facebook ad performance is crucial to its overall success. Today, we’re exploring tips and techniques for how to maximize your Facebook ad performance each step of the way.
How to Improve Facebook Ad Performance for Your Business
Throwing together generic ads and broad target audiences isn’t advantageous to your growth goals. In fact, while reaching your entire audience at once may seem like an ideal strategy, it’s probably wasting a lot of your budget and tanking your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).
Learning how to maximize your Facebook ad performance should be at the core of your paid social media strategy. From your first selection in Facebook Ads Manager to your overall strategy to reach potential customers at every stage of your funnel, a few helpful tips to boost Facebook ad performance include:
- Choosing your Facebook ad campaign objective wisely
- Targeting the right audience
- Practice Facebook ad retargeting
- Get creative with Facebook ad assets
- Optimize for mobile users
- Provide solutions for specific needs
- Create a special offer
- Test different ad formats
- Use campaign budget optimization
- Create ads for all stages of the funnel
Choosing Facebook Ad Campaign Objectives
The first step in how to maximize your Facebook ad performance is to choose your campaign objective wisely. If you don’t choose the right objective, you’ll be unable to access important features due to the presets that Facebook creates for each objective. Understanding your goals for a Facebook ad campaign is important before you start the creation process. After a recent update to Facebook Ads Manager, current campaign objectives are divided into three categories:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
In this way, the platform is helping guide you to maximize your Facebook ad performance by adjusting its presets for different high-level parts of the funnel.
Target the Right Facebook Ads Audience
The next step to maximize your Facebook ad performance is to make sure you’re targeting your audience effectively. While your first instinct may be to think that targeting your entire potential customer base at once is a good idea, it’s unlikely to yield the conversion rates you’re looking for and is likely a reason your Facebook ads aren’t converting. Instead of targeting too broad an audience at once, narrowing your audience niche down to your ideal audience for a specific ad set may result in a higher ROAS.
Facebook also allows you to create a Lookalike audience from any saved or custom audience in your Facebook ads strategy. You can use this targeting feature to your advantage by allowing the Facebook algorithm to help you find new potential customers who are very similar to your existing ones.
It’s important to note that whether you’re an advertiser or business owner looking to grow your business with social media advertising, you should make sure you’re aware of Facebook ad targeting changes that may affect your strategy, as well. For example, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, announced it would be making some Facebook ad targeting changes as of January 19, 2022 that may change the way you need to approach your paid social media strategy.
Pro Tip: Facebook ad targeting options allow you to not only include different demographics, interests, and behaviors, but to exclude them, as well. Making use of audience exclusions can be just as effective a method for maximizing your Facebook ad performance.
Practice Facebook Ad Retargeting
Not every customer will engage and convert the first time they see your ad (in fact, we’d wager most won’t, statistically speaking). To help businesses with how to improve facebook ad performance, they’ve given the option to utilize ad retargeting options to re-engage with users who have interacted with a business before. Retargeting allows you to reach people who have visited your website, app, store or Facebook Page.
Increase your chances for conversions by retargeting with Facebook dynamic ads. Facebook dynamic ads work with the carousel, single image, and collection ad formats, allowing you to target existing customers, warm leads, and new prospects connecting to people at all stages of the sales funnel while showing them products they’re most likely to be interested in based on previous actions.
Get Creative With Facebook Ad Assets
Do you remember that generic ad you saw as you scrolled Facebook on your phone during lunch today? No, we don’t either. When it comes to learning how to improve Facebook ad performance, getting creative with ad assets is essential.
Take a look at Facebook ad examples that convert and you’ll see they all have one thing in common: they’re unique! Choosing colors that pop, having unique video content, and even using psychological methods to improve Facebook ad performance like showing people using your product instead of just the product alone are all ways to boost conversions.
You can also take advantage of Facebook’s Ad Library to see what kinds of ads your competitors are actively running. This research should be an essential part of any strategy to help maximize Facebook ad performance and distinguish yourself from your competitors. Recognize what may be doing well and build on that to create a unique ad campaign that converts for your business.
Optimize Facebook Ads for Mobile Users
You may think “mobile first” is a phrase that applies solely to scaling up SEO efforts, but they’re applicable for how to maximize your Facebook ad performance, too. Recent statistics show that 98% of Facebook users access the platform using a mobile app. That’s a huge number!
Even though you’re most likely setting up your ad campaign using a desktop, the most common place users will see your ad is on their mobile device. Make sure your ad creative is clear and presents how you want it to on mobile before publishing. Thankfully, Facebook Ads Manager has made this easy for advertisers, as well, offering a mobile preview option in the final section of the ad setup process.
Create Ads Targeting Solutions, Needs, or Emotions
There’s probably no better way to waste your ad spend than with a generic ad creative that doesn’t connect with what your audience needs. Oftentimes our purchasing habits are triggered by real or perceived need. So what’s an effective method for maximizing your Facebook ad performance? Show your audience a solution to their problems or a product they need.
For example, writing goal-oriented copy may boost Facebook ad performance for B2B Facebook ads because it speaks to providing a solution that business may need. For e-commerce brands looking to for sales conversions, showing how your product represents a real or perceived need is more likely to yield positive results than a generic ad creative that users scroll past. Studies have also shown that adding emotional elements almost doubles the performance of ad campaigns because users are more likely to convert when they feel connected to a brand.
Create a Special Facebook Ad Offer
Everyone loves a deal, right? It’s the same when it comes to how to improve Facebook ad performance. Creating a special offer attached to your ad works to convert customers who may have otherwise reconsidered before purchasing. Adding language to your ad copy encouraging potential new customers to purchase while an offer lasts also creates a sense of urgency and scarcity, often increasing conversion rates.
Test Different Facebook Ad Formats
While it’s true that statistics back up the benefits of using more dynamic ad options like video and slideshows, single image and carousel ads can be just as effective when executed correctly. Facebook ads are a never ending exercise in A/B testing. This expands beyond trying different versions of the same images or changing up copy, though, and extends to trying different ad formats, as well.
Keep things fresh and try different ad formats when trying to maximize your Facebook ad performance. As you accrue more performance data, you’ll be able to see which style is working best for you.
Use Campaign Budget Optimization
Part of learning how to maximize your Facebook ad performance is to let the platform utilize it’s vast amount of data to help you achieve higher conversion rates. The campaign budget optimization option in Facebook Ads Manager automates the optimization of not just your ads, but also of different ad sets across a campaign for the best results. While this is a great option to maximize Facebook ad performance in general, it can be especially beneficial for businesses with tighter budgets to help them make the most of their ad spend.
Creating a Facebook Ads Funnel
The last method in our guide to how to maximize your Facebook ad performance is arguably one of the most important. Cold pitching your products or services to people who may have never heard of your brand is a poor strategy. Not every consumer is going to be ready to convert right away. This brings up the need for creating a Facebook ad funnel, creating different ads for different stages of the funnel along the way.
Creating Facebook ads funnel goes back to starting with the right campaign objective. For newer brands looking to build a following and increase visibility, brand awareness objectives are very useful. As you look to reach potential customers further along the funnel, you can create other ads optimized for engagement, lead generation, and eventually conversions.
Knowing what kinds of ads and targeting options to utilize while leading customers down the funnel to finally convert is a critical part of how to maximize your Facebook ad performance.
As you can see, learning how to maximize your Facebook ad performance requires much more than just creating a campaign and letting loose. It’s about understanding what appeals to your audience, where they are in the funnel, and how to stand out from the crowd the right way. Whether you’re a consumer business looking to grow e-commerce revenue or a B2B business looking to drive leads into your sales funnel, Facebook ads management services can help you maximize performance and grow your business.
