Many small businesses have started using a variety of Facebook ads, mainly due to their ease-of-use and affordability, but some are battling to turn the clicks this digital advertising medium delivers, into conversions.
So, I’ve got four tips SMBs can implement to help make their Facebook ads more effective.
Tip 1: Make more ads, but target less people.
I know it sounds contradictory, but it’s not. What I mean is that you need to work out who you’re targeting, divide that audience into segments, and then have ads going to each segment – instead of targeting a mass audience.
For example, if you’re targeting Australian small business owners; why not break that audience down further and target small business owners in each Australian capital city; then amend your ads to suit each segment? This will improve your click through rate, as well as ensuring you’re hitting the exact audience you want, and not wasting money. It will also allow you to determine which creative is converting clicks into customers and which isn’t.
Tip 2: Images are vital to campaign success.
What I’ve found when implementing Facebook ads is that the image is the part that matters most – I would even go as far to say that about 80 percent of the ad’s success has to do with the image. The image is what makes a viewer look at your ad in the first place; the copy is just there to prove it’s credible.
If your image is lifeless and uninteresting, people won’t look. If you’re promoting a book, you don’t have to put your book cover there; you want to hit an emotion of the end user – this is what will capture their attention.
Images that I’ve found really useful are mainly of women. Both women and men like looking at women, especially if they’re smiling. Also consider using stressed looking images, such as a woman pulling her hair out, as they are quite effective too.
Tip 3: Speak directly to your target market.
The copy of your ad should support its image and build its credibility, so you need to make sure your copy relates to your image and also relates to your audience.
For example, let’s say you have a remedial massage service and you’re targeting business women in Melbourne. You could utilise an image of a lady looking stressed, and a headline such as “Are you stressed?” or “Melbourne business women!” your body copy can then touch on the stress-related emotions business women in Melbourne could be feeling and how you help them solve that problem if they click now.
Don’t forget to include a Call to Action in every ad!
Tip 4: Ensure your landing pages are effective
Sometimes it’s not your Facebook ads that are the problem, it’s where your audience lands once they’ve click on your ad. If they land on a page unrelated to the ad, or unrelated to what they believed they would land on, your visitor won’t convert.
The best way to tackle this is to set up specific landing pages for each of your Facebook ads, so when your audience arrives at an effective landing page that will influence them to convert.
It’s not always your ad that’s the problem – if your ad is getting clicks, but no conversions, then it’s time to take a good, hard look at your landing page.
