To Facebook’s credit, their advertising ecosystem pulls in a lot of money because it works well for a lot of advertisers. Having said that, Facebook does make it really easy for you to waste spend money on their platform, whether by ignorance or by accident.

Social Media Today put together this article with 6 budget-sinking Facebook-ad mistakes, and we’ll distill it down for you. You’ll definitely want to keep this list handy if you’re new to Facebook ads—but even veterans should make sure they’re habitually spot-checking their work for these issues.

Mistake № 1: Running ads at all times. For one thing: as it’s commonly known, every audience has “peak hours” and “quiet hours,” and you’re always going to get better results by leaning your resources on peak times. For another thing: not setting limits will fatigue the audience faster, which hamstrings you in the long run.

Mistake № 2: Sending ads to irrelevant or sub-par landing pages. The ad’s ability to earn the click is only half of the equation—because if the user is taken to a milquetoast landing page, the ad’s work was all for nothing. A common mistake is sending clicks to a homepage or otherwise totally-directionless page. If the campaign has a solid CTR but a much lower conversion rate, this might be an issue for you.

Mistake № 3: Tinkering too often with the settings. Facebook ad campaigns, like so many things these days, use machine learning to optimize themselves in some places. This is a good thing—but Facebook’s learning phase takes at least 24 hours and there’s no shortcutting it (and no, it’s not just a ploy to secure more of your money). DFWI.

Mistake № 4: Not using Automated Rules. Having said the above, it’s also true that each ad campaign will naturally lose effectiveness over time (as it works through more and more of the audience). If you don’t check in on your campaigns often—even the true stallions of the team—they could dip below the threshold of profitability while your back is turned. Automated Rules is designed to prevent this… as long as you tell it how to.

Mistake № 5: Forgetting to exclude (all) converted customers. The waste here is obvious: there’s no point serving an ad to the people who’ve already fully converted. Make sure you’re excluding everyone who has taken the desired conversion step, and within an appropriate period of time (probably 1 month or less).

Mistake № 6: Following the same formula(s) without ever trying new ones. There are occasionally some useful principles, but there are no absolutes in digital advertising. This stuff changes all the time. We know it’s tempting to double down on whatever’s worked, and to keep it working—but sometimes you have to let the old ones go. If that’s a bummer, just remember that trying new ad stuff will occasionally blow your mind and mint you piles of cash. 🤷🏼‍♂️

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