You’ve mastered AdWords, haven’t you? Your cost-per-click (CPC) remains stable, cost-per-lead is decreasing, conversions are positive, and your ad management is primarily in maintenance mode, only requiring minor adjustments occasionally.

Facebook, however, is a different story. Impressions and clicks are present, but conversions are not. One of the main issues is that Facebook ad campaigns differ significantly from what you’re accustomed to. If you’re not seeing the desired results yet, start troubleshooting now. Below are five probable reasons why your Facebook ads are underperforming, along with useful advice to get your campaigns back on track.

Reason #1: Your Approach

Many individuals, particularly those accustomed to excelling in AdWords, struggle on Facebook before they even begin, attempting to directly replicate their AdWords approach. Understandably, AdWords is incredibly effective. No other platform allows you to leverage the power of searcher intent to rapidly turn advertisements into income. There’s a reason why AdWords generates the majority of Google’s revenue (as opposed to all of their other endeavors).

Facebook advertising certainly has its own advantages, but intent isn’t necessarily one of them. Let’s be realistic: no one (at least, no rational person) logs onto Facebook actively searching for your company’s latest eBook.

(via Mashable) Instead, people use the platform to reconnect with former classmates, boast to their friends about their upcoming Caribbean vacation, and, of course, stalk their exes. This implies that (1) Facebook presents a different playing field, and (2) you’re up against the users’ family and friends. (Best of luck with that!) It’s achievable, but it will require effort and creativity. First and foremost, disregard those bottom-of-the-funnel commercial keywords that perform so well on AdWords (at least for the time being). Retrieve your customer journey maps (which was a thing before HubSpot emphasized their significance), and prepare to exert some effort. We’ll need to develop several distinct Facebook campaigns, each tailored to a specific stage of the funnel. Consider the following examples:

1. Initial Awareness: We must somehow capture attention amidst baby photos and utilize compelling content or a promotion to pique your prospect’s interest for a few seconds.
2. Lead Generation: Enhance your offer to generate more leads. All the fancy bells and whistles of ad creatives won’t compensate for another uninspiring free consultation offer. Instead, draw inspiration from distinctive offers that deliver exceptional value, such as Lowe’s Lawn Care Plan or nexus-security’s own AdWords Grader.
3. Conversions: A well-executed combination of timing, lead nurturing, and the right sales offer can work wonders. One tactic worth trying is Product splintering, as recommended by Digital Marketer. In essence, offer a small but appealing component of your primary product or service at an irresistible price.

Restructuring your approach and crafting multiple offers in this manner will help ensure you’ve covered the essentials. However, this also necessitates meticulous audience targeting. Let’s delve into that next.

Reason #2: Your Audience Targeting

Audience selection on Facebook is practically the polar opposite of AdWords, where your audience essentially self-selects when you choose keywords and themes. For instance, the phrase “smog check Irvine” simplifies this process. With the correct match types, negative keywords, and geotargeting, you won’t receive calls from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. On Facebook, however, you must begin with the audience. This can be difficult, especially at the awareness/top-of-the-funnel level, where you’re casting a wide net and hoping for the best. Start broadly, then narrow it down. Seek a combination of basic demographics (like age, sex, and location) and interests (either explicitly stated or inferred from their likes and follows).

Initially, aim for awareness-stage audience sizes of roughly 1-2 million users. Too small, and you won’t obtain sufficient data or feedback; too large, and you’ll attract irrelevant traffic. Optimize for the lowest CPC and begin by testing a few distinct audiences. Moving down the funnel brings you to the lead generation stage, where custom audiences come into play. The good news is that if Step 1 is executed correctly, you should experience a consistent influx of new website visits daily. Consequently, you’ll want to design and target your lead generation campaigns at these individuals. Here’s how. To begin, you’ll need to establish a pixel for this new audience. Navigate to Pixels > Create Audience and select “People Visiting Specific Web Pages But Not Others.” (Yes, it’s a mouthful.) Here, you can choose all visitors who landed on an initial content piece, product/service page, or any other landing page, while excluding those who might have already converted (e.g., if they reached a Thank You or confirmation page).

You now have a custom audience comprised of recent website traffic - individuals who demonstrated interest in your offerings by visiting a crucial page but haven’t yet committed. Excellent! Next, let’s target those leads with sales offers. But how? There are two methods. First, you can create a specific list within custom audiences. Go to All Tools > Audiences > Create Audience. You’ll notice a few choices here that enable more precise targeting (like the website traffic option we just discussed). In this instance, select the first one – Customer File.

Subsequently, you have two choices. The first involves running a simple export of a contact list, copying and pasting their data (such as email addresses and phone numbers), which Facebook will then try its best to match with as many user accounts as possible. The second option allows for MailChimp list and contact integration to streamline this process.

Now, when creating your next remarkable ad campaign, you can access audiences and see something resembling the following, with a few new custom options to choose from.

This may appear labor-intensive, and it is. However, it enables you to cover all your bases. Unless you’re selling a $10 gadget, people typically require multiple reminders and messages across various channels before making a purchase. At the very least, 6-8 ‘touches’ interactions are necessary. This means you can integrate your other mid-funnel lead nurturing strategies, like drip campaigns or marketing automation, with retargeting or remarketing ads as well. RELATED: Facebook Ad Not Approved? Here’s What to Do (+10 Tips to Avoid It)

Reason #3: Your Relevance Score

You’re all intelligent individuals familiar with the AdWords Quality Score. You understand its influence on your ad’s placement, display frequency, and cost. And you are (or should be) aware that a single point difference in either direction can result in a 16% cost fluctuation. (For further information, read this.)

Similarly, Facebook employs a comparable metric known as an ad’s Relevance Score. Upon its introduction, AdEspresso conducted a brief test involving over 100,000 ads to examine the correlation between an ad’s Relevance Score and its effective CPC and CTR.

(image source) To test and disprove, they ran two campaigns with identical ad designs simultaneously, one targeting a random audience and the other targeting a specific custom audience. The poorly targeted campaign had a Relevance Score of 2.9 and a CPC of $0.142. The same ad with enhanced targeting achieved a Relevance Score of 8, resulting in a CPC of only $0.03 – effectively netting them 4 times more clicks. Consequently, the Relevance Score differs from the AdWords score in that it doesn’t evaluate your design or copy quality but rather assesses audience targeting to determine your message’s relevance to the demographics you’re attempting to reach. Conversely, even average design and copy paired with excellent audience targeting can still earn a high Relevance Score (and therefore a lower CPC). To find this score, navigate to one of your ad campaigns, go to a particular Ad Set, and look in the lower right-hand corner. The score ranges from 1 to 10, with lower scores indicating poor performance and higher scores indicating good performance.

Excellent! Thank you for the summary. But how do you adjust, alter, or enhance it? Let’s examine how.

Reason #4: Your (Lack of) Message Match

The most successful online ad campaigns seamlessly align various elements or variables to create a consistent user experience from start to finish. Message match, as it’s known in the industry, means that the targeted keyphrase should appear in both your ad headline and the headline of your landing page. It’s a bit more nuanced in practice, but that’s the gist. To illustrate, using an example from an example from Unbounce, imagine you come across an ad that resembles this:

Intrigued by the (impressive) use of clip art, you click and are directed to a landing page that looks like this:

Notice the alignment between the headlines, taglines, and visuals? That’s message match. Simple enough, right? Certainly, but many still struggle with this concept. For instance, an informal study by Oli at Unbounce revealed that 98% of 300 analyzed landing pages failed to implement message match correctly. Improving message match in AdWords can boost your Quality Score, reducing your cost-per-click or lead. On Facebook, maintaining message match consistency can enhance your Relevance Score, leading to lower costs per click or lead. However, it all boils down to aligning audience targeting rather than keywords. This necessitates creating ads specifically for and targeting highly specific audiences (such as distinct buyer personas). The language and visuals used in your ad should resonate with the pain points and preferences of that particular persona. You can then utilize granular targeting features, like interests intersection, to display ads to users who are interested in both Interest A AND Interest B.

Generic, one-size-fits-all ads and audience targeting will lower your Relevance Score and increase costs, while poor message match can also negatively impact conversions on your website.

Reason #5: Your Ad Creative

Let’s be frank: AdWords text ads aren’t always incredibly creative, and that’s perfectly acceptable. A straightforward and to-the-point headline featuring the bottom-of-the-funnel keyphrase can be effective. On Facebook, however, numerous moving parts are involved. Assuming you’ve reached this point (which is no small accomplishment), perfecting your Facebook ad creative remains crucial. You must consider the value proposition, headline, description copy, CTA usage, and imagery. Some advertisers manage to botch every single aspect. For instance, this actually occurred:

Believe it or not, individuals paid for that ad. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s unclear what it’s even attempting to convey. The good news is that following established best practices can significantly reduce your workload. Effective headlines should ideally encapsulate your core value proposition, allowing you to accomplish two goals simultaneously. Need a prime example? Download Headline Hacks from Jon Morrow. In it, he examines classic headline templates and formulas that resonate due to their appeal to primal motivations. For example, negative headlines can outperform positive ones by as much as 60%. Here are two approaches:

1. Highlight protection from external threats. (“Why this New Facebook Ad Change Will Destroy Your CPC“)
2. Address obvious internal errors. (“5 Ways Your Headlines Are Undermining Your Facebook Ads”) Furthermore, the most effective headlines (on Facebook ads) are concise. Extremely concise. An analysis of over 37,000 ads by One study revealed that the average headline length is a mere five words.

Now, let’s move on to the “creative” element of “ad creative.” Facebook inherently favors and prioritizes content that is visually appealing. It’s no coincidence that links containing videos on Facebook, for example, are shared 7 times more more frequently than links without.

(image source) It’s also no secret that people don’t people don’t like reading as much these days (unless you’re the exception). Consequently, images aid in increase user engagement 94% (!) because they only require 13 milliseconds of processing time. This is why visuals are paramount on Facebook and why they’re rigorously scrutinized during ad reviews and subject to the “20% rule” (which has since been relaxed somewhat). The most compelling Facebook ads either feature classic hero images that transport viewers into their future selves (or help them envision life after experiencing the advertised product/service) or are more concrete and tangible, showcasing exactly what users will receive upon clicking (such as a software or eBook preview accompanied by a clear CTA). Combining all of these elements, here’s a breakdown of a successful Facebook ad:

(image source)

Don’t Abandon Facebook Ads Just Yet!

Facebook advertising poses unique challenges due to the platform’s distinctive blend of features, targeting options, and variables. Your Facebook ad campaigns will inevitably differ from your AdWords campaigns, resulting in distinct strategies and troubleshooting approaches. Mastering all of these aspects is no easy feat, but the good news is that once you grasp the fundamentals, Facebook ads can be highly effective. Here’s a guide to advertising on Facebook (the RIGHT way) in 10 steps.