5 Reasons Your Facebook Ad Might Be Underperforming

With 1.62 billion users every single day, your marketing strategy simply can’t afford to ignore Facebook ads. But if you’re like the 62% of small business owners advertising on Facebook whose ads aren’t meeting their targets, you might be wondering what’s gone wrong

The truth is that, as potentially lucrative a market as Facebook is, it’s actually very easy to produce an ad that, for one reason or another, doesn’t do the numbers you’d like. Below, we’ll look at some of the most common reasons for a Facebook ad to fall flat — and the good news is that, with a little bit of knowhow, it’s easy to turn that around.

1. You fell foul of Facebook's ad regulations

The best thing that can be said about getting the regulations wrong is that at least you fall before you’re even off the starting block. As frustrating as it is to spend time (and, potentially, money) on copy that Facebook rejects before the ad even starts to run, at least you didn’t eat into your ad spend. 

​This is a relatively easy fix, but you’ve got to understand the experience that Facebook is trying to create for its users. Their emphasis is firmly on positivity in their advertising programme, and that means that any ad copy that emphasises the pain point — a classic strategy for building engagement elsewhere, so you’d be forgiven for getting it wrong on Facebook — or which seems to target a group of users as inhabiting that pain point, isn’t going to be approved. What does that look like in practice? Well, for example, you might run a banner ad elsewhere with copy that reads, “Are you crippled by mounting debt? Bills looming and no way to pay them? Fresh Start Credit Repair can help you zero out your monthly payments and start fresh. Call today for a FREE, no-obligation chat with one of our friendly, experienced debt counsellors.” Clear pain point, clear benefit to consumer, clear call to action — but this copy wouldn’t make it past Facebook Ad Review. It’s focusing on the negative (crippling debt) and it’s targeting a specific group based on asserted attributes (outgoings greater than income). To get this ad approved, you’d need to rewrite the copy to look something like this: “A costly car loan and a spike in his mortgage rate left John unable to make his monthly payments and facing bankruptcy — until he found Fresh Start Credit Repair. We’ve helped thousands of hardworking men and women just like John zero out their crippling debt and start fresh and financially secure. Call today for a FREE, no-obligation chat with one of our friendly, experienced debt counsellors.”

Same pain point. Same call to action. But the difference here is that instead of targeting “you,” the owner of the debt, this copy uses the example of someone already helped by Fresh Start Credit Repair to overcome the negativity of mounting debt and improve their financial situation.

And it’s worth noting that if the goal of your ad is to drive users to a landing page, Facebook will review the content of that page too, and it also has to meet the rules.

2. You didn't test properly

When you set up your ad, how many versions did you run initially? Did you test super-short copy and long form (anywhere up to blog length) copy? Did you explore different pictures? Different link text? Different headlines? Did you run a careful A/B test to see which version performed better, then revise and start again? Facebook ads are not “set it and forget it,” unfortunately — they’re a delicately balanced negotiation between your company and your target audience. You’ll have honed your copy to its very best version, of course, so it’s not a question of bad writing; it’s simply a question of which writing works best. A good copywriter will present you with at least three testable versions of your ad copy, but it’s up to you, as the ad owner, to see which one outperforms the rest — and that’s where you’ll invest your big budget. Pouring all your ad spend into one solo version before you know if it resonates is a great way to run out of ad spend and still underperform.

3. You didn't clearly specify the benefit

This can be trickier than it sounds. Sure, a waffle iron makes great waffles, but what is it about this waffle iron that ought to make people sit up and take notice? Why should someone invest in your life coaching programme and not the other dozen that have popped up on their feed today? Facebook’s biggest selling point as an advertising venue for small businesses — it’s reach — is also the reason why you need your copy to shine: you’re competing for attention in a crowded market. You need to make sure that your target audience is crystal clear on your benefit right from the outset so that their attention is drawn to you and not your competitors. And you need to sell them a world improved by what you have to offer, so that they simply have to find out more. This is easier said than done — and it’s why hiring a copywriter to craft your ad copy can be a fantastic investment if you want to see big results.

4. You didn't pinpoint your target audience

Why, you might ask, do you need to pinpoint a target audience? You don’t want to exclude anyone or assume that they won’t be interested in what you’re selling based on something as ephemeral as demographics. Who’s to say that a 25-44 year old woman living in the Greater London area won’t be just as interested in investing in an indoor plant watering system as a 50-65 year old man in New York? Well, nobody, if that’s who your marketing consultant has identified as your two target groups. But you’ll want to advertise to them separately. 

​The trouble with setting your ad audience too wide is that no message could ever speak effectively to the whole spectrum of human experience. If market testing has identified that 25-44 / female / Greater London and 50-65 / male / New York are where demand for your product lies, then you need to get your product in front of both sets of eyes, but the way you pique the interest of both demographics will be wildly different. Good ad copy says, “Come here, I’ve got just the thing that you need in your life, and here’s how your life will be improved if you buy it.” It paints a picture for the consumer, but to do that it needs to build a picture that the consumer recognises. The lives of a millennial Londoner and a Baby Boomer New Yorker are going to look very different, and an ad pitched widely enough that it works for both groups is very likely to miss the mark on both counts.

5. Your call to action isn't clear enough

You can have the best ad copy in the world, featuring benefits that a consumer just can’t live without, a headline that demands engagement and an image to make them salivate — and if you don’t make it THIS OBVIOUS what they need to do next, most of your potential clientele won’t take the trouble to find out. You’ve already lost them when you made them have to think about their next step. Don’t make them have to think.

If you want them to click on the link, tell them. (But make sure you’ve laid out the benefits clearly enough that they’re not prompted to ask “Why should I?”) If you want them to sign up for a trial package, tell them how and where to do it. If you want their email address, give them an unassailable reason to do so right now, this very second, and show them exactly where they need to type. Remember that they’re not fully invested yet. Intrigued, yes — they’ve read this far. Primed to take the next step, hopefully, but it’s like a magic spell that only works if they don’t blink. If your Call To Action isn’t clear, you’ve made them blink. They’ll be back to scrolling their feed before you can shout, “Wait! It’s over here!” — and if they come across your competitor’s ad while they’re in the piqued-interest zone… well, all your beautiful ad copy has achieved is a win for someone else.

Bear in mind that a successful ad on Facebook might have lower numbers than you’d be expecting — click through rates vary by industry, but overall, across all industries, the average CTR is 0.9%. The average conversion rate is 9.21%. So if your ad is doing in the region of numbers like that, it’s not actually underperforming. And if it is, well, hopefully some of the tips and tricks above might give you a bit of insight into what you could be doing differently. Best of all? Find yourself a great copywriter and you don’t even need to worry about most of what’s above — you can leave that up to us. If you’re ready to run Facebook ads that dazzle and delight your target audience, then book your free chat today and Fabula Copy can get started on connecting you to the folks that are going to want to know about what you sell. ​

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