8 Steps To Make Facebook Ads Work For Your Small Business

Are You Tired Of Not Seeing Success With Your Ads Or Afraid To Run Your First Ad? 

Most small businesses that we have worked with have not been able to see success with Facebook advertising before working with us. Many of them have tried to “figure out” how to run an ad on Facebook or they hire an agency hoping to see success but come up short. In this article you are going to learn 8 steps to make your Facebook ads work for your small business. 

#1 Your Account Is Setup Wrong

For 87% of small businesses that we have worked with we find that their Facebook page and ad account is not set up correctly. Even businesses that switched from another agency sometimes have their accounts messed up. Just like anything you do, this is your foundation and if you start off with holes or the wrong settings, your ads have very little chance of success. If you keep running your account with these “unseen” mistakes, Facebook can and will shutdown your account and there is NO appeal process. Once your account is banned, they will not let you open a new one. So make sure you are following Facebook’s guidelines and filling out your account correctly.  

#2 Boosting Post VS. Business Manager

Facebook makes it very easy for you to boost a post on your page and for almost all small businesses, this is how you would run ads. You make a post on your page and after a few hours Facebook tells your “This post could reach 10,000 people for $100” and to do that you have to Boost that post. Sounds great, right? An extra 10,000 people could see this. Well, not exactly… 

There are two trains of thought when it comes to Boosting post:

#1 Agencies – “You should never boost a post unless you want to waste money”

#2 Our experience –  “What is your goal with boosting a post? It is a valuable tool to get feedback and data but not always the best at getting the sale” 

When it comes to advertising on Facebook, you have a lot of tools available to you but they are not always easy to find. That is where Business Manager comes into play. Business Manager allows you to choose from 11 different types of advertising campaigns based on your goals. It is your main hub for your advertising efforts and should be the main way you set up your ads.

#3 Your Offer Is BORING

We see this all too often and not just with small businesses but even fortune 500 companies we have worked with. Your offer is everything. You could have the best targeting, creative, website, and so on but if your offer is boring then NO ONE WILL CARE. 

Most businesses write an ad like this:

Dave's Landscaping has been in business for 23 years serving the best customer service and top quality work in the local area. Our services include mowing, edging, trimming, sod, seed, gravel, gutter cleaning, and much more! Get A FREE ESTIMATE Now Call 555-5555 Text Us Or Email Us At DavesLandscaping@gmail.com 

Or like this:

Looking to build a home? Explore our latest designs.We have been designing luxury homes for over 15 years. We have over 137+ 5 star reviews on google. Visit our website to get a free design consultation now.

And finally: 

We are the only Authentic New Mexican food restaurant that has been around for 34 years serving the best quality food at affordably prices. We have real green chile from hatch and our food is made fresh daily. Come visit us for your New Mexican food needs.

Let’s face it: how many of those ads got you excited? None of them. We see these ads all the time and maybe you have even written one. That’s okay but I hope you can see why having a good offer is so important.  You need to stand out and not blend in with all the other businesses like yours.

Let’s look at some examples of great offers: 

Are you tired of having the worst looking yard in your neighborhood? It's not your fault, I mean who likes spending their weekend cutting, trimming, watering, raking, and maintaining their yard? Having to wake up early, being out in the hot sun all day, working until your dead tired, and still your yard looks the same. Now imagine if you could just kick back, crack open a cold one, and watch football all day and never having to worry about yard work again.

Let us help you watch more football and enjoy your weekends by evaluating what the best type of yard and landscaping you should have based on your soil. This will help you to have a yard that has little to no maintenance. We are also giving the first 15 people that book a soil evaluation with us a free automatic sprinkler and drip system normally $1,200 at no extra cost. You will never have to worry about when and if you watered the yard. Click the link to book your evaluation now.

Wow what a difference. Let’s look at another: 

What is the #1 problem that 83% of people looking to build their dream home run into? Home builders don't want you to know this... It has cost some people an extra $100,000 when building their home. The answer...

Home builders would drag out construction times and miss deadlines. So unless, you have enough money laying around to pay extended building cost plus your rent or mortgage, your dream home could turn into a financial nightmare. That is why we will build your dream home in just 30 weeks or we will give you $5,000 in cash. Let's make your dream home a reality. Click the design your home button to get started.

Remember to make an irritability offer that people want. Let’s look at another:

What could possibly be better than some tacos right now? The crispy shells, seasoned beef, gooey cheese, and let's not forget some chile. You could almost taste them but what could be better? How about FREE tacos for a year? Yes that's right you could win free tacos for a year. How many margaritas are you going to need? So much for that gym membership now. We are picking 3 lucky winners to get free tacos but time is limited so click the link to enter now.

Were you trying to find the link or clicking on the text? I don’t know about you but now I’m hungry. 

#4 You Don’t Have Your Pixel Installed

Your Facebook Pixel is really critical when it comes to lowering the cost of your ads. We find that either businesses don’t have their pixel set up or it is set up incorrectly and causing them to be charged more instead of less. The reason your pixel brings your ad cost down is that it helps Facebook, and you, track what people are doing on your website. This allows you to follow up with people that visited your website and show them ads. 

#5 Re-Targeting

Have you ever been shopping on Amazon or another website and you are looking at a product but end up not buying anything and jumping on Facebook? Then, as you are scrolling past some funny memes, you see the product you were just looking at. That is a Re-Targeted ad! The reason you want to use them is: #1 they are WAY cheaper to run and #2 they make MORE SALES. How many times have you heard “The money is in the follow up”? This is true when it comes to your customers that are visiting your website.

#6 Using Custom Audiences & Lookalike Audiences

Most small businesses overlook this one or thing “I’m too small to use this”. Now when it comes to custom audiences, it does help to have a customer list or an email marketing list. Now with that said, you don’t need one to get started but it will take a little bit more time to build up your audience. This is how custom audiences work: you give Facebook customer data and they go out and see if any of that information matches their users. This allows you to run ads to your current customers. These types of campaigns are usually the highest profit producing ads because it is a lot easier to sell to an existing customer than a new one.  Now, if you don’t have a customer list or email marketing, you can use people visiting your website (only data from the time you set up your pixel) or people that engage with you on your Facebook page.

Now when it comes to Lookalike Audiences, this is where the power of Facebook comes into play. It’s almost the same as a custom audience but instead of Facebook finding your customers, it takes it a step further. It will look at what your customers like, their age, gender, and demographics then come up with an audience profile. It will go out and find people who match that specific profile. This is awesome because it can go out and find new customers that are like your past customers. 

#7 Ad Creative

By writing and running ads since 2016, we have seen A LOT of ads. The good, bad, and some ugly. One thing that you need to get right is your creative. Without the right image or video for your ad, people will just keep scrolling by and not look at it. Your creative is the first thing that your customers are going to see and decide if they should read your ad. 

Just to show you take a look at these two ads. Which one stands out to you?

bad ad Scary Good Marketing
ezgif.com video to gif Scary Good Marketing

Do you see how different the creative is for the ads and how the zombie one grabs your attention more. This is a video we created for one of our products and it has been doing really well at converting into sales. 

#8 Realizing You’re Not Unique

I know as a business owner we pride ourselves in being unique but this is also what holds us back. We have worked with many different businesses in different industries and one of the questions we get asked all the time is, “Are you sure this will work for MY business?” or “I’m not sure this will work for us because we are different.” However, when it comes down to it, no businesses we have worked with is truly unique. Now, we do agree that you have a unique process but when it comes down to it, you need more sales. The best way to get more sales is through marketing and advertising. This is universal with any business.

When it comes to marketing and advertising it boils down to one thing: that is understanding the psychology of your potential customers. The only way you will be successful with Facebook ads is instead of asking, “Are you sure this will work for my business?”, you need to ask “How can this work for my business?”. The key difference with successful businesses, big or small, is a willingness to be open-minded and learn new ways to adapt systems and strategies to their business.

So ask yourself. Are you open-minded? 

What Have You Learned?

  1. Your account is setup wrong and could be costing you more money to run ads.
  2. Why you need a business manager account.
  3. Your offer is just plain BORING.
  4. You don’t have a pixel or it is set up wrong.
  5. Re-Targeting is where the money is made.
  6. Use custom audiences & lookalike audiences to find “ready to buy customers”.
  7. Why ad creative is key.
  8. How open minded are you? 

Now, if you would like to start having Facebook ads work for your business then why try to figure out exactly what you need to do? Or hire some random agency and hope they set it up correctly? We have taken our experience and the hundreds of businesses we have worked with in getting their accounts set up correctly to create the
Beginners Guide To Facebook Advertising.

mockup 1080x1920 1 Scary Good Marketing

Learn the ins and outs of running Facebook ads for your business.

We will teach you everything you need to know to set up and run your first ad even if you are not tech-savvy.

We are doing something crazy right now! We are letting you:

Why are we doing this?

We know that right now businesses like yours are struggling and we want to give you the tools and knowledge you need to get more customers for your business. We are truly in a unique time and we know that the #1 factor right now is money. We don’t want that to be a barrier for you. That is why we are leaving the price up to.

What You Will Learn

  • Learn how to set up your Facebook account correctly so you won’t get shut down. (If your account gets shutdown you can never re-open it)

  • Learn the ins and outs of Facebook Business Manager to maximize your advertising. (Learn the things most agencies don’t know or want you to know)

  • Learn the different types of campaigns you can run and which one will drive the most results for your business. (Running the wrong campaign can cost you your hard earned money)

  • Learn how to create and use custom audiences. (Have Facebook go out and find you ready to buy customers with just a few clicks) 

Bonus #1
Facebook Pixel set up and conversion tracking.
(Have your ads follow your customers around the internet)

Bonus #2
Facebook ad creative best practices and tools to create better ads.
(Know what kind of ads get the best results and how to create them easily even if you are not creative)  

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