Episode #030: My Facebook Ads Aren't Working, Now What?
My Facebook Ads Aren't Working, Now What?
In this week's episode of the podcast, we breakdown what to do if you can't get your Facebook Ads to "work"...
In this episode you'll discover:
-> The ONLY 3 issues your Facebook Ads can experience
-> How to diagnose your Facebook Ads issues using your own data
-> The steps to take to get your ads working again, even if you've struggled in the past.
So tune in, and let's fix some ads!
Links Mentioned on the Show From Zach:
Full Transcript:
This is Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast, episode number 30. In this episode, we're talking about what it takes to get your ads working when you feel like you're not getting traction. So if you've been running ads and you're like, "This is just not working, like I think it should be." This episode is for you, so stay tuned.
What, what, what is up not so average marketer? Welcome to another episode of the podcast.
Now I'm stoked for today's episode because it's on one of my favorite topics, Facebook Ads. If you've been following me for any period of time, you know that I am a Facebook Ads junkie. I love my Facebook Ads and I'm just a huge fan of what they can do for your business. But for some of you listening, you might be thinking, "I love the idea of what Facebook Ads can do for my business, but when I go to actually execute, I'm not getting traction. It feels like my ads aren't working. My ads aren't successful. I'm not getting the right results."
I was talking to a group of customers and clients yesterday and I said, a lot of times when we're getting started in business, that's kind of what we default to. It's not working. When we say things like, my ads aren't working, or my funnel's not working, the problem is we can't identify where the actual problem is. We can't get clear on where the breakdown is. And so my goal with this episode is to help you understand where the breakdown is in your ads, if they're not working so that you can actually start to get better results. Okay?
So with that being said, I do want to share with you. If you are listening to this and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I want to grow my email list with Facebook Ads and I don't even have any idea where to start. I want to invite you to check out our Facebook Ads Five-Day Bootcamp that teaches you exactly how to set up Facebook Ads that generate leads to grow your email list. Now, this is a $25 evergreen bootcamp. You can join at any time by heading over to bootcamp.heartsoulhustle.com. Again, it's bootcamp.heartsoulhustle.com. You can grab it anytime, immediately start watching it and have Facebook Ads up and converting in the next five days.
So let's get into the episode. Now, a lot of people get really tripped up and they say, "My Facebook Ads aren't working." And they're not clear on why the ads aren't working and that's totally normal. But what I want to do is tell you that if your Facebook Ads aren't working, it's probably just one of three things; either the ads are not delivering, meaning people aren't seeing them, the ads aren't being clicked, meaning the ads aren't being clicked on and over to wherever you're sending them, or three, your ads are not converting.
We really like to complicate things as humans. We like to say, "Yeah, but there's more to it than that." And don't get me wrong. There is. But really at the most superficial level, either your ads are not delivering, not getting clicked or not converting. So let's start with what to do if your ads aren't delivering. Now, first things first, what does not delivering mean? It basically means you've set up your ad and it's not spending money. So if your ads aren't delivering, check to make sure that you're running them as an automatic or auction based bids.
So if you're newer to Facebook Ads, there is this option called manual bidding, where you can tell Facebook what you're willing to spend per click. The problem is, if you don't understand how the bidding process works and study it extensively, Facebook may not push out your ads. If you just use auction, Facebook will push out your ads at a competitive price versus you choosing a bid that might not be high enough to actually get your ads delivered. Okay?
So this is a rare one. We don't see this too often. Most people choose automatic because it's the default setting, but just know, if you're chewing doing manual bidding and your ads aren't delivering, that could be the problem. And the second thing is you might not have chosen a large enough audience. So make sure that you're targeting an audience of at least 50,000. I actually now like my audiences to be half a million plus. I like to stay under 10 million, but I like to be at half a million plus generally.
Yes, there's always exceptions to that rule, but if you make your audience too small, Facebook can't run the ads because not all of those people will be on Facebook all the time. A perfect example is if you're just getting started and you upload your email list of like 100 people and you run it with Facebook Ads, it may not deliver at all because the audience is too small. Okay? So always make sure that you have an audience of at least 50,000 people or more if you're finding that the ads aren't running.
Now, there is an exception to this. If you have a very niche audience, you may want to go under 50,000, but if it's not delivering, that could be an indicator of what's wrong. Now, the other thing is right in the same vein as this, make sure that when you're running ads, you're split testing them to multiple audiences. Okay? So sometimes when we run ads, not sometimes all the time, we set them up to multiple different targets. So I might run ads to people who like Amy Porterfield and people who like James Wedmore, and people who like Ryan Deiss and people who like Female Entrepreneur Association.
If I'm not testing this ad across multiple targets, I don't know if it's an individual target that's not performing or an issue in my ads account. You really want to make sure that you're split testing across multiple audiences, because if none of your audience are delivering, if all else fails contact Facebook Support, because it could be an issue with your Facebook account, it could be a backend issue, it could be a technical glitch. Sometimes that happens with Facebook. It really does.
So if you go to facebook.com/business/resources, there's actually a place there that you can chat with Facebook Support and they can take a look at your account. I will say that their support isn't five star, but it's better than ads not being delivered and you're not getting any traction in your account to talk to somebody where it takes a little effort for a big return, right? And a little effort is really an understatement. Facebook is very scripted, templatized, and it can be hard to get a direct answer, but if you're not able to get your ads to deliver, it's worth reaching out to them.
So that's the first thing. That's if your ads are not even being pushed out, and this is a problem that we rarely run into. What we tend to see is that ads aren't getting clicked or they're not converting. So when it comes to seeing if your ads are not getting clicks, the first thing you want to do is check your click-through rate. See, the first thing is that a lot of people who are getting started with Facebook Ads are like, "I'm not getting a lot of clicks." And in reality, they might be doing just fine.
If you have a 1% to 2% click-through rate on link clicks, you're actually doing okay. So what you want to be doing is going into the Facebook Ads Manager and checking the column called link CTR. And that will tell you what percentage of people that see your ad actually click the link. If it's over 1%, you're not doing too bad. If you're like, "Oh man, I just looked and my CTR is under 1%." First things first, check your image. Oftentimes, if people aren't clicking, it's because the image isn't catching their attention, causing them to stop the scroll.
So you want to make sure that you have an image that both stands out, but isn't obnoxious or spammy in the newsfeed. You want to make sure that you're testing different images. So every time I set up a Facebook Ad, I'm always testing multiple sets of image and multiple sets of copy to make sure that I'm trying to find my winning combination. The goal is to have something that's eye catching and direct that tells them what they can expect. Because images are one of the most important pieces of an ad, because generally people see an image, then read a headline, then read the text.
Now, if you've changed it out and you've tried a couple of images and you're like, "Oh, it's still not working." Check your copy. Sometimes people do stop and look at the copy and it just doesn't resonate with them. So if you're like, "Man, I've tested a variety of images. It's still not converting." Check the copy. The question really does become, is it the copy or the image that's causing my ad to not work? And the reality is you've got to switch out both, right?
So if you have tested multiple images and it's still not working, change the copy, right? And to me, these two steps are relatively interchangeable. So you could try different copy first and then different images or different images first, and then different copy. Generally, I like to change out my images first and my copy second, because it can be hard to identify whether it's your copy or your images until you tweak and test by changing one at a time.
So it's really about not saying, "Oh my gosh, I know my copy or image is the problem." It's about saying, "I'm hypothesizing that my image might be the issue and so I'm going to try new images." Now, if you've gone through several sets of testing with copy and images, check your targeting. The problem may actually be that you're not targeting the right people. If you're not targeting pages with relevant interest or relevant fans, you can run into the problem that nobody clicks the ads. And this is why... What we teach our students and our members is that you should be split testing multiple audiences when you first set up your ad.
So inside that Bootcamp, I talked about earlier, for example, we actually teach people, "Hey, find five to 10 different targets that you can test with Facebook Ads and run multiple ads to each of them." That way you're checking the targeting. At the same time, you're split testing the copy and images. Because the odds that all 10 targets you suspect are going to work don't work is very low.
So super quick recap. If your ads aren't getting clicked on, check your click-through rate to make sure it's 1% to 2%. Check your image. If you feel like it's still not getting clicks, check your image. Three, check your copy. Four, check your targeting. And once you've done all of that, your clicks should go up. If they're not, then you need to evaluate the offer that you're putting in front of people as a whole. Now, if your ads are getting clicks, if you're like, "Whoa, I just looked and actually my ads are doing pretty well."
There's a couple of different things that could be happening. And to me, this is one of the easiest problems to solve with Facebook Ad because it means they're engaged with your ads. The hard part is working, right? You're actually getting people to click on Instagram and Facebook, but people are ending up on another page where they're not taking action, right? So if your ads aren't converting, number one, make sure that your landing page or form has good copy and a clear call to action.
When we're running ads to a landing page, we want to get 35% of people who land on our website to opt-in to our form. If we're using an on Facebook form, we want to make sure that 50% or more of people are opting-in once they click on the form. If your conversion rate is lower than that, you need to make sure that your ad matches your landing page or form. That can include copy, colors, images. If things aren't congruent, people feel out of their element. What I mean by that is there's a part of our brain that actually predicts what's going to happen next when we're using the internet or doing anything in life.
And there's a part of our brain that's constantly predicting or expecting what will happen next. If people click on your ad and what happens is totally out of the realm of what they were expecting, the brand doesn't match, the colors don't match, the wording is different. People end up on your pages, but they feel like they're getting a different experience and they don't opt-in because they get confused. And a confused mind doesn't buy or convert.
The other thing I'll say about having ads that aren't converting is make sure you do have an offer that people want, right? I know this sounds silly, but think about it. People aren't necessarily excited about your top five tips or overly hyped secrets. What people really want is for you to give them something of value that creates results in the next 10, 15, 20 minutes.
So if you don't really have a compelling offer, the problem might not be the ads or the landing page. It might simply be that the offer isn't compelling. Now, we do tend to find that if the offer isn't compelling, we get less clicks, but we can optimize the image and the copy and the creative to get those clicks up. But if people are clicking and still not converting to what you want them to, it could be that you need to rework the offer.
So just to run through everything one more time, and then I'll give you some parting words. We'll keep this episode short so you can diagnose your issues in about 15 minutes. If your Facebook Ads aren't working, it's one of three things; they're not being delivered, they're not being clicked or they're not converting. If they're not delivering, make sure you're using automatic bid. Make sure you've chosen a large enough audiences. Make sure you're running multiple ads to multiple audiences. And if they're still not delivering, reach out to Facebook Business Support and we'll link up to that business support page on the show notes for this episode as well.
If your ads are delivering, but they're not getting clicks; number one, check your link click-through rate. You might actually be doing just fine. Most people tend to think a 1% to 2% click-through rate is low, but it's actually pretty standard and it's performing well. If people still aren't clicking, check your copy and image. I like to test my images first and then my copy, but I've also been writing copy for a long time. So you might want to try your copy first, then your images. It's really a personal preference. You're going to want to test everything.
And then check your targeting, right? If you're still not getting clicks, make sure that you've split tested multiple pages to see what's going to convert the best, right? So don't just say, "Oh, I tested this to people who like Amy Porterfield and it didn't convert." You want to test it to five to 10 different targets and try to get conversions there. Now, if your ads are getting clicked, but they're not converting, make sure that your landing page or form has great copy and the option to opt-in, right?
Make sure your ad matches that landing page or form including colors, copy, imagery. If it's not predictive, if it's not what people would expect, they're not going to convert. And then finally, make sure you have an irresistible offer. Make sure that your offer is good, right? Is this something people in your industry and that you're targeting actually want? I know it sounds silly and it can be hard to look at that and be like, "Oh my gosh, maybe people don't want my offer." But it's not a bad thing. It's all about data.
And so as we wrap up this episode, I just want to let you know, you can head over to heartsoulhustle.com/nyap030. Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/nyap030 to get a copy of the show notes. That's for Not Your Average Podcast episode number 30. We'll have the show notes over there for you where you can check out that Facebook Support link, learn more about the bootcamp that I shared with you earlier. I just want to leave you with this thought; it's all data. I know with Facebook Ads, it's really easy to get tied up in emotion because we're spending our hard earned money, trying to get results, right?
We're we're trying to get those results and it's easy to be like, "Oh my gosh, this is terrible. I'm doing bad." But every ad you run gives you data that you can look at and work through. It gets clearer and clearer as you do this and as you practice this troubleshooting process, what works and what doesn't. And so I just want to encourage you, if you're listening to this and your ads aren't crushing it, that's okay. You're still collecting data and you're still setting yourself up for success every time you go through this process.
So bookmark this episode somewhere, save it. Next time your ads aren't working, run through this process and I promise you, you will start getting better results. So that's all I've got for you today. I can't wait to see you out there crushing your Facebook Ads. And until next time, stay not so average.
