The 5 most common questions about Facebook Ads (and none of them are dumb)

Facebook Ads can hear your thoughts.

Well, not really. Not yet any way…

But when it comes to targeting your ideal clients and getting them craving your hot new product or service, Facebook Ads is like Mufasa in The Lion King ﹘ reigning over the entire kingdom that the light touches.

But unless you’ve had a two-day crash course in Facebook strategy with some pros, Facebook Ads can feel like fumbling in the dark when your alarm goes off at 5.30am ﹘ confusing and difficult and you saying ‘is this for real’?

Mess up one step and you’ve suddenly broken the entire Facebook campaign.

Got a stock photo of a woman who resembles a supermodel? Facebook could stamp a big, fat ‘disapproved’ on that ad.

But it get right, and Facebook Ads will open up your business to a whole new range of customers that could potentially fall in love with what you’re selling and become lifelong fans that will throw their pink, frilly knickers on stage at YOU.

Its targeting is unlike anything else on this planet. Want to target couples who have recently gotten engaged? There’s an option for that.

Want to target women who live within 3 kms of your beauty salon? You can do that too.

Looking for women between the ages of 25–35 who are first-time mothers living within 40 kms of St. Louis? Yes, Facebook can get that granular.

No one is safe.

Except if you’re not on Facebook, maybe.

So one day, I was pottering around on Reddit, littering subreddits with my articles and imparting some marketing and copywriting knowledge to fellow business owners.

I discovered a lot of folks were asking me about Facebook Ads. They were struggling with what was what in the dashboard, how to get their ad copy spot-on and what even is a CTA?

So I’ve compiled a list of the 5 most commonly asked Facebook Ads questions so you can know exactly what you’re looking at each time you open Ads Manager.

1. What’s a campaign?

A campaign is essentially your objective for your ads. An objective is the outcome you want your ads to achieve. For example, Conversions, Lead Generation, Traffic, Post Engagement, Video Views, and Brand Awareness, to name a few.

Facebook then takes this information and optimises your ad to get the best result for your ads based on your campaign objective.

So if you’re doing a Conversion campaign, you’re likely tracking purchases from your website, you’d select ‘Conversions’ as your objective.

2. What’s a Facebook pixel?

The pixel is a piece of code placed on your website to track activity, like who visited your website and what actions (if any) they took.

This pixel is used to gather information from visitors to your website from the Facebook ad, so when your ad is clicked on, you can track visitors to your website and retarget those who don’t perform the action you want them to (e.g. make a purchase).

So essentially the pixel tracks your visitors… and they may feel a little like…

3. How do I write interesting copy?

Here’s something I like to call ‘hook, line, and sinker.’

You need to start your ad copy with a hook that gets people excited about your product or service. First, ask yourself, ‘why do people want your offer?’

Then you need to think about the following:

• Who are your customers?
• What do they want more than anything else?
• And why do they want this?
• What is their greatest problem?
• Why do they want to change?
• What easy to apply solution does your product or service offer?

Once you’ve answered all of these questions, distil your answers into snappy ad copy to create an ad that sucks people in ‘hook, line and sinker’. So you’ve got your hook (what’s going to hook in your audience), the line (the rest of the ad copy) so they take the bait (the sinker) and click through to your ad.

Write how you’d speak ﹘ give it the ‘alien abduction’ test. If you were abducted by aliens and tried to communicate, you’d speak in plain, simple terms.

Your ad copy should read the same. And don’t be afraid of well-placed emojis. Everyone loves a good emoji. ❤️️

Now you can chill out, and write some compelling copy.

4. What is a call to action (CTA)?

Hot on the tail of giving good copy, is what is a call to action (or CTA)?

Now most of the time people don’t like being told what to do, but in this instance, you need to tell your audience what to do. It’s basically the action you want your audience to perform once they’ve read the ad.

Facebook Ads have buttons for this, like ‘Learn More’, ‘Sign Up’ etc, but in your copy, you can also have a call to action, like ‘click here to find out more’ or ‘watch the video then click the link…’

Have one CTA per ad so you don’t confuse your audience and make sure it’s clear what you want them to do, and so they do as you say.

5. Why is my ad not performing?

This is a tricky one depending on your audience, your offer, or the ad itself. What I’ve found is a combination of these things, so that’s why I do two or three variations of copy and images with each ad.

If your audience is too broad, it could be that not the right people are seeing your ad, so try to tighten your audience to be defined and see if that makes a difference.

Sometimes it’s the image. The image could be completely irrelevant to your audience or not match the landing page or website you’re sending your audience to. For example, you have a photo of fish in the ocean and you send them to a pink, girly beauty salon page.

Other times it’s the copy ﹘ it doesn’t appeal to your target market. The copy doesn’t detail any real benefit for them to buy your product or choose your services. There’s no hook or there’s no clear CTA.

Next, check out your offer. You have to make your offer irresistible. Is it something your audience really needs? Does it solve their burning problem? Sign up for the AdEspresso Blog newsletter for their weekly showcase of top Facebook ads.

Delve into Ads Manager and check your stats. How’s your relevancy score? What’s your cost per click (CPC)? What’s your cost per result? If these aren’t looking good, it’s time to revisit your offer, your image and your copy.

Once you get the hang of it, your ad will be a superstar like…

With Facebook Ads, there are many moving parts, but if you can unlock the basics and test what works for your audience, it gives you the best chance of reaching more people who will love what you do ﹘ and want to be your fans for life.

If you like what you read, give it a 👏🏼 and share it with your friends.

Or you can tweet me your questions about Facebook Ads so just like Pinky and the Brain, we can try to take over the world *insert evil laugh*.

And to read more of my stories, click here.