A lot has been said about Facebook ads. Some people believe that Facebook is the answer to all your advertising problems. Others believe Facebook ads are good for nothing and do not convert. So where does the truth lie? Most probably somewhere down the middle. We’ve already written lots about what to do on Facebook, but very little about what not to do! What is absolutely certain is that your Facebook Ad campaigns won’t work if you make any of these common mistakes. Fine, not certain, but fairly sure that your campaigns won’t work as well you’d have hoped. Let’s start with Exhibit A
Exhibit A: Air Malta
This ad teaches you that if you become a fan of something on Facebook, you’ll be updated with whatever that something is.
I sort of figured that one out by myself.
Seriously, you haven’t given me a good reason to ‘befan’ your precious Facebook page. So, I clicked your ad Air Malta. Where are you taking me to now?
Was? In German?
A landing page in German. Not good. Facebook offers targeting per country AND per language, so paying for ads displayed to me, a 20 something Maltese user who uses Facebook in English, only to take me to a page that speaks German is sloppy work to say the least. Fortunately, I can read German, so I made something out, but for how many of your customers can you say that?
Exhibit B: expo.acrosslimits.com
Nice camera dude! Where can I get one?
The ad is pretty good. A logo, which informs me who you are, a camera, to make me keep my eye on the prize, and a task. The clickable URL, that is, the text in blue, is loud and clear, “Win an SLR camera!”. Excellent. But it goes haywire on the landing page.
Click to expand
Let’s start with a pet peeve of mine. Don’t welcome me to your site. If I’m here by clicking your ad, what you do now is convince me to stay. You don’t do that by asking me to log in, because 99% of the time, I’m not registered, and that’s why you pay for ads, right? So you take me straight to the registration page, where you explain, in short, terse yet convincing sentences, why I should trust you with my email address and what you have for me in return.
Exhibit C: satellitedirect.com
This is ad is not strong. It’s too short, uninspiring, the picture doesn’t mean anything really, and it has a spelling mistake and is written in sloppy English. Nonetheless, I clicked it.
The nightmare started on the landing page once more. Suffice to say that the page was long. Seriously long.
Click to expand, and this is still NOT the whole page.
This page is a throwback to the long hard sell landing pages of yesteryear. Everything on the page is clickable, all leading to a purchase page or download page with invitation to purchase etc etc. The problem with a page like this; it tries too hard, way too hard. And what’s worse, it wouldn’t let me leave it. To my knowledge, tactics like this are banned on the Facebook Ads Terms and Conditions, so I expect to see some action here guys!
The equivalent of grabbing a girl by the boob after she refuses your drink
Exhibit D: Springfield
Fair enough. They want a smart and outgoing person to join their team. But this won’t do the trick.
What? A picture, with no links, on a website that hasn’t even been configured?
And to make things worse, check out the English.
Sales Assistans. Exactly. Click for full glory.
Exhibit E: nectar.com.mt
Nectar.com.mt want a customer oriented person with a good knowledge of Maltese roads. Fair enough, but they should have mentioned ‘infinitely patient’ too, because any customer oriented person with a knowledge of the internet will tell you that the user won’t wait over 30 seconds for your page to load (not to mention that Google despises slow loading sites).
This is your page, a full 1.5 minutes after I clicked your ad. I’m not waiting that long and neither is the user. Goodbye.
Exhibit F: Bidrivals.com
These guys sell a bidding auction, which is slightly complicated and very addictive. It’s like gambling, only it’s not, in that it’s bidding on an item at a ridiculous price. Suffice to say their profit margins must be huge. However, this ad is money wasted.
Google Translate. Gone very wrong.
Relying on only Google Translate to create your ad copy is inexcusable. Sorry, this just won’t work. Do you want Facebook campaigns that will work? Drop us a line here.
