Facebook Ads: Tips & Best Practices for Better Ad Performance

Use these tips and best practices to stretch your advertising budget and experience better performing Facebook ad campaigns.

Get Creative and to the Point with Ad Copy

Facebook has a 90 character limit for the main body of the ad. Depending on the purpose of your ad, headline character limits may vary slightly.

• External URL ads: If your ad is designed to point users to an external URL, such as your company website or a product page, your headline can have up to 25 characters.
• Facebook page ads: If your ad points users to your Facebook page, the headline field is automatically filled with your page name. This can be a challenge if your page name is longer than 25 characters, as it will be cut off. You might want to try a sponsored story or promote a specific post to get around this limitation.

Your ad copy needs to immediately capture the attention of viewers and entice them to take action, so try making a bold statement asking a question. Make sure users understand what they are supposed to do once they reach the page they will land on after the click. Create several versions of the ad with varying headlines and ad copy to test each and determine the winning formula.

Keep Images Fresh by Rotating Regularly

Facebook offers a number of ad creative best practices in their Ads Optimization guide, including:

• Using images that illustrate the ads offer and avoiding logo-only images
• Testing two different images against one another in an ad targeting the same customer subset
• Refreshing ad creative any time you see a decrease in click-through-rate

A recent SocialFresh.com report recommends rotating your images even more regularly; the average Facebook ad has a peak click-through-rate in the first 72 hours it is live, according to their research. The longer an ad stays up, the more you will end up paying per click. As a result, 31% of advertisers refresh their ad creative every 1 to 4 days, while another 37% do so every 5 to 14 days.

Use Targeting Options to Reach the Right Audience with Each Facebook Ad

Facebook has a wealth of user data at their disposal, allowing marketers to segment fans and create highly targeted ad campaigns.

The SocialFresh.com industry survey identified the most common Facebook ad targeting criteria, as illustrated above. Using as many of the targeting criteria available to you as possible allows you to create ads more apt to connect with specific viewers.

Say you have an ad for your dog toy that features free shipping to the UK.  A 30-year old woman in England who has expressed interest in dogs, for example, is a far more appropriate candidate for your ad than a teenager in the United States. In fact, poor targeting can result in wasted budget and unproductive clicks. Tighten up your targeting to reach the right audience and allow ads to perform better.

Test, Test, and Test Again!

When it comes to Facebook ads, nothing beats your own experience. Facebook illustrates how the testing process works in the Ads Optimization guide:

Using Ray’s Pizza as the example, they show three different ads for each campaign, which target three of his target audiences. For best results, they advise, Ray will use his ad response data from his reports to determine which ad from each campaign performed best.

For more helpful Facebook marketing resources, see Facebook Tips on the Dell Social Business Connection blog.