Why You are Not Getting More Business From Your Facebook Ads

One thing that has irked me for the past couple of weeks is the adverts I keep seeing on my Facebook feed. Most businesses now understand it is no longer optional. They need online advertising because it’s harder to be seen now. The pandemic has changed even this dynamic. People’s buying habits keep evolving, especially in emerging markets like that of Malawi.

That being said, I keep seeing certain ads for products and services that I will never purchase in a million years. This article aims at providing help so you don’t waste your valuable money. Now, honestly, sharing these thoughts is counterproductive for me. I would rather those clients came to me instead of their social media marketer taking the tips and using them, themselves. I provide this service and usually see results for my clients. However, I am sharing this information because I know what it is like to waste precious money on something ineffective. I have done that many times over and honestly would want no one else to have to deal with that themselves, regardless of whether they are rival service providers or not. So, that being said here is the common issue:

You are not targeting narrow enough.

I enjoy clicking on the little button that allows me to check “why I am seeing this ad” on Facebook. Facebook cleverly gives you some reasons, i.e. the audience targeting options the advertiser chose. Facebook tells you the age range, geographic locations, and a few other options that were selected. So, for the services or products I know I will never purchase, I realize they were getting some targeting options very right! Unfortunately, they failed to narrow down if I am a qualified potential buyer. That is the main point at which money is wasted.

Highly defined targeting ads gets you highly qualified potential customers.

For a time, I kept seeing an ad for plots of land. Do I have the capacity at this moment to buy a plot of land that costs UD$20,000? No, not even a little bit. The little one I bought a couple of years ago didn’t cost anywhere near that. I simply am not in that income bracket. Above and beyond that, I look at such ads and see that several comments are of people like me who simply can not afford that either. How do I know this? The comments regarding the cost of the plots say it all. People who can afford $20,000 would not complain about the cost of the plot. Besides, that I see the ad is another reason for my assumptions.

If you are an advertiser for such, think about the complimentary lifestyle habits people tend to engage in. Think of what they historically afford. Think about their income ranges. Then include that in your targeting by selecting appropriate demographic options and interests. For example, pre-pandemic, a good option would be to show that ad to people who are frequent fliers (along with the age group, location, and other criteria you chose).

Interests, Education background, job title, and even the type of device they used to browse Facebook are extremely important variables to increase your Facebook advertisement return on investment.

Display the price of the product or service. Again, the goal is to find qualified leads. You want people who won’t waste your or your client’s ad spend. You also don’t want your time wasted by people like me asking for this information repeatedly. If you don’t display it, and we are interested but unqualified leads — we will end up blowing your notifications with our inquiries and wasting your time when you could have been spending it on something else important.

Timely responses: I attended an online seminar (Real Summit) a few days ago. One speaker said that one of his clients increased their return on investment exponentially when the contacted online generated leads within 10 seconds of people submitting their bookings. The percentage of actual sales from every 100 potential leads is incredibly low statistically. If your ad leads to a landing page, the average conversation rate is 2.35%*. That means for every 100 people that click on the link to your website’s landing page, only a little over 2 percent will buy on average.

However, regardless of how your ad is set up, if you are not quick to engage with potential leads after they leave their phone number or email addresses, the likelihood of closing this sale decreases too. It is therefore important to contact your potential buyers quickly. Make sure you contact that lead whilst it’s piping hot.

I have also seen ads where people are prompted to type in their phone number on the ad. It’s not ideal for those potential customers who care about their privacy and would not broadcast their private phone numbers on the internet like that. After all, scammers can simply find that ad and copy those numbers for their dubious uses. Unscrupulous rivals could contact your leads and steal business from you.

A better option is to choose the ad setting that allows you to easily collect leads. For example, the WhatsApp button or Messenger button on your advert are good options with the right call to action. This also streamlines the lead generation process, meaning you can now measure the effectiveness of your ad based on the number of messages you have gotten from this ad. In addition to asking people to message you if they want to be added to your WhatsApp broadcast list, you can now grow your mobile mailing list.

How you target is directly proportional to how well you know the potential buyer. Profiling your potential customer is therefore very important for making cost-effective advertisements. You need to know your customer persona. The easiest way to figure this out, if you are already in business, is to analyze your existing clients and their profile. Good questions to ask yourself as the advertiser, (apart from ideal age, gender, and location) include:

• What education level? (especially if it is a high-value product): we can assume that people with a certain level of education may be more likely to spend on certain products or services than those without it may not.
• What activities are they engaged in their lives that show they are already spending on things with a reliable frequency?
• What relevant life events did they just have e.g. engagement, childbirth, relocation, promotion, etc.
• What car they drive (if relevant and especially for high-value services and products)
• Whether they have children.
• Travel habits and frequency
• Whether they attend events regularly
• Whether they organize events
• Job title
• Interests: do they gym, run, sit at home and watch a lot of television in their free time? What?
• What device these potential buyers use to access Facebook.

You may find you have over one ideal customer. You, therefore, create profiles for each and if their personas are significantly different, you create ad sets using different targeting to ensure efficacy for each profile.

This information is from what I have learned, but also from what I have experienced. I hope you find something valuable for your efforts in this. What did I miss? Maybe what I suggested doesn’t work for you. What works for you? Share your thoughts.

Sources:

*https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/03/17/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate

Want to discover more about Maclean Mbepula? Find her on LinkedIn or here on Medium. She’s written 3 books (one in entrepreneurship from a grassroots perspective (“Challenge Accepted) and 2 poetry books which are available for purchase on Amazon. Feel free to support her work by becoming one of her patrons at Patreon.