In the world of digital advertising, the Meta platform (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Whatsapp Ads) represents one of the main channels for reaching your target audience. However, even the best advertisers can make mistakes that risk compromising the results of their advertising campaigns.
In this article, we will explore the main common mistakes to avoid in order to get the most out of your Meta campaigns.
1) Create lots of campaigns with small budgets
A frequent mistake is to create a large number of campaigns with small budgets, fragmented across multiple objectives. While this strategy may seem like a way to “cover” more bases, over-division of the budget actually compromises the algorithm's ability to effectively optimize actions, with the risk of not achieving the set goals.
Instead, it is preferable to adopt a more simplified approach, opting for a smaller number of campaigns but with larger budgets. In this way, you’ll be able to better segment the target audience, for example by setting up awareness campaigns for new users and conversion campaigns for those who have already interacted with the brand.
2) Getting the audience size wrong
The size of the target audience is something to consider carefully. There is no universal rule, since the optimal size of the audience depends on various factors specific to the sector and the company, such as the available budget, the competitiveness of the market, the set objectives and the type of product/service promoted.
The key point is to find the right balance by avoiding creating audiences that are too large, which waste the budget, or too small, which do not allow the algorithm to optimize adequately.
Furthermore, it is advisable to carefully monitor the overlap between the different audiences of parallel campaigns, to avoid duplication and inefficiencies.
3) Too small audience
It can lead to an underutilization of your advertising budget, with ads shown to few people. This limits the achievement of intended objectives, such as the acquisition of new customers.
4) Too large audience
It involves an excessive waste of budget, with ads also shown to people who do not fit the ideal target. This reduces the effectiveness of the campaign in reaching the desired customer niche.
5) Overlapping audiences
Another aspect to consider is the overlap between different audiences created for parallel campaigns. It may happen that there is an overlap of users interested in multiple products/services. To this end, we recommend using the audience overlap analysis tool provided by the platform. This will allow you to precisely identify the areas of overlap between the target segments, providing indications on where to intervene with targeted changes.
A further effective method is to use "custom audiences", created from people already in contact with the brand, to further refine targeting.
6) Not optimizing placements
The placements offered by the Meta platform represent a valuable resource for reaching your audience in a more targeted and personalized way. However, it is easy to fall into the trap of using them in a superficial or even incorrect way.
Each placement, in fact, has unique characteristics in terms of image format, allowing you to best convey creative content on the different placements, such as feed, stories and Reels.
A strategic and detail-oriented approach is essential to maximize the impact of the ads. It’s important to provide Meta with all the main creative variants (1:1, 9:16, 1.91:1) to ensure that they are displayed correctly on each placement, thus increasing user engagement.
7) Not using the pixel
Failure or incorrect use of the tracking pixel represents a particularly harmful error, as it prevents the platform from fully exploiting its machine learning capabilities. It's vitally important to collect data on user behavior after seeing the ads, in order to improve ongoing campaigns and to be able to do remarketing activities.
It is recommended to maintain a consistent and structured logic of the events to be tracked, to correctly implement the events on the right pages and to ensure that they fire at the correct time.
Finally, to ensure complete and reliable tracking, we recommend using the Conversion API which allows to bypass cookie limits.
8) Short-term campaigns and excessive modifications
Another common mistake is to launch campaigns with a duration that is too short, and therefore not allowing the underlying algorithm enough time to reach its full efficiency. As a result, the final campaign performance risks being well below expectations. As a guideline, the indicative time for the algorithm to begin effectively optimizing is at least 1 week.
Another harmful practice is to monitor the campaign's progress excessively, making continuous changes to the setup parameters every time something doesn't seem to be going as planned. In this case too, the algorithm needs a certain amount of time to obtain optimized results. Each modification forces the system to reconfigure, thereby losing effectiveness.
9) Not doing tests
Finally, considering the multitude of variables and the numerous options available, a highly recommended practice is to conduct A/B tests to identify the best creatives, the most persuasive copy, the best placements, the most receptive audience, etc.
Although the budget represents a common challenge that digital marketing professionals often face, it is essential to carry out these testing and experimentation activities. This allows you to collect useful data to make strategic decisions and understand which approaches and tools prove most effective for your brand and communication strategy.
Want to stop wasting money, avoid mistakes, and maximize the return on your Facebook campaigns? E-Business Consulting, a digital marketing agency active for over 20 years, handles 360-degree marketing and communication. Through the creation of customized strategies on Meta, we help you coordinate your business objectives with your social media presence and beyond. Contact us for a free quote!
