Why Your Facebook Ad Campaigns Are Not Converting But Your Ad-words Campaigns Do

Okay, so you are an AdWords guru and getting more profits from your PPC marketing campaigns.

People search your website, click, browse and make a purchase decision.

Great!

Now what’s next?

Obviously, you are looking for some other ways to make more sales and increase your business revenue. If you have initiated a few Facebook ad campaigns and implementing the same tricks that have made you a small fortune.

But nothing is happening.

No one is buying, browsing or even clicking.

Facebook ads are entirely different from Google AdWords. Both are the internet giants and each has its own advertising process. Since they look pretty similar, many SEO services company, digital marketing agency, or even B2C businesses use the same tips and techniques for using Facebook Ads which they use for Google AdWords.

PPC advertising can be competitive only if you the right strategies and with Google AdWords you can get most relevant, low cost, high conversion campaigns.

When it comes to Facebook ads, you can have the same opportunity. You can get thousands of fans for your page for just $20 or you can drive more website traffic through Facebook ads and increase sales.

But there some differences you should be aware of. Let’s find out why businesses usually make this mistake and how to avoid in the future.

Why Your Google AdWords Techniques Don’t Work on Facebook  

Do you know Google, the biggest media owner in the world pulled $79.4 billion in ad revenues in 2016?

Simply amazing.

It’s no wonder that the biggest media owner is getting most of their revenue from AdWords. For many years, search results both organic and paid have been listed as the top performing digital channels for new customer acquisition.

And there is a real reason for it. The Intent.

Users type in the words they are searching for. Many of which are focused on analyzing their options or finding the best solution. This shows that these users are already in the bottom of the funnel and have made up their mind to make a desired action, even in the future.

Shortly, people use search when they need information or have a clear intent to buy something.

And when it comes to social media, it drove less than 1% of sales, a study suggests.

It is also unsurprising, because people usually don’t go to Facebook to buy any product. They usually go there to communicate, entertain, laugh, browse and most importantly waste their time.

If search is entirely focused on intent of the users, social is unexpected. Users find stuff by accident as they have no plans to find that particular product in the first place.

And this is where the problem arises. When you use the same tricks of direct response, intent-based AdWords marketing techniques on Facebook, you will get nothing.

Compose your Facebook Advertising Campaign Wisely

If users are already in the bottom of the funnel when they are looking for a particular keyword, you can easily go straight for the sales. The path is clear, no lead nurturing processes required.

But, if peeps are not looking for your website in the first place, you have to do a lot of hard work. They have no idea about your business, products or services. Because of that, they don’t bother to click on your stupid ad.

And even if coincidentally they do need your products or services at that time, they most likely have no idea about your brand and they don’t trust you. Which means they are not going to make a purchase decision, at least in the favor of your brand.

These types of users need some traditional lead nurturing. You need to entertain and entice them first, until they are ready to give their credit card to you.

Your Facebook ad campaigns need to align with the following important steps.

Bring Awareness

Use content promotions techniques to get on potential customers’ radar and create an understanding for what they are interested in.

Focus on Lead Generation

Target only small and well-informed group of people with your marketing offers tailormade to get their permission for further follow-ups.

Conversion Process

At this level, you have already done all the efforts required to grab the attention, build trust and urgency. Now you are all set to give them a sales offer and get them to convert.

Let’s find out in details how each of these three work.

1. Create Awareness with Your Content

Follow the best inbound marketing strategies to create awareness of your brand. On Facebook, you are simply not competing with your rivals, but your competition is to get the attention of users, their friends and family.

And the best and the easiest way to compete is via your content.

You need to come up with some topics that pique interest of peeps. Their hobbies, pain points, solutions to their problems, their desires, fears, or anything that entice them towards your brand.

Let’s take examples of:

The New York Times that uses mouthwatering and tempting images of food to entice its readers.

And Quizony that uses an attractive female to entice people to their quiz.

Both brands used piece of content, evocative imagery and catchy headlines that fit in exactly with what users’ friends and family want to read and share. It is enough to stand out.

Targeting at this level is relatively broad, as you don’t have any specific information to attract people. You can test different group of people by their interests who have liked other related media posts, refining by demographics such as location, gender, age and gender.

2. Focus on Lead Generation

Showing your lead generation ad to audience that doesn’t trust your brand or is unaware of your brand is simply pointless.

However, sending them to people who have already developed interest in your products and services will increase your chances of getting leads – qualified leads.

That shows that the next step is to target those people that have engaged with your brand. And retarget your most recent website visitors over the last few days no matter if they spent a minute on your website.

By now you should know what they are actually interested in. A topic, pain point, a problem, a solution. And hopefully they should remember who your brand is all about.

Now’s time for lead magnet. These are in different shapes and sizes. All you need to figure out which works best for your agency. For many seo agencies or B2B businesses this will be an offer based on content. You can offer a free tool, webinar, eBook, presentation, white paper, podcast or anything that draws attention of your prospects and increase your conversion rate.

HubSpot Academy a big name in the industry that offers certification courses, documentation, and training programs to help digital marketers and sales persons to know everything about inbound.

They offer a podcast of Randy Harrison to inform its audience about the marketing, sales, entrepreneurship, and communications.

Use standard Facebook CTA on your posts to boost the credibility of the claim and grab the attention with attractive images and the offer.

Ad testing is an integral part at lead generation step. Keep an eye on which elements move the cost per conversion needle. And then make tweaks accordingly.

3. Lead Conversion Process

Okay, now you have got the attention of your prospects by providing them detailed information about what they are interested in, their pain points or trying to solve.

Now’s the time to close those leads. You are targeting those group of people who have just signed up for you lead magnet or business offer.

Let’s take an example of Pact Coffee. They used a tempting image to encourage people to try this flavor.

Converting leads directly from Facebook is a challenging task, no matter how many eBooks have been downloaded. The best trick to try is product splintering through which you can create a simple version of the product you are trying to sell or promote.

eCommerce businesses can use Facebook Dynamics Product Ads options which shows visitors the product they just viewed at on your website.

This feature can increase ad click through rate by 34% while also reducing cost per purchase by 38% at the same time.

To Sum All Things Up

Facebook advertising techniques continue to evolve rapidly, with advanced features, new ad formats, and extraordinary demographic targeting that other digital marketing channels simply can’t match.

But remember, it’ll never convert like Google AdWords do.

If you know the right tricks and approaches to generate awareness, entice prospects with interesting offers and then focus on converting them to loyal, paid customers – your brand can do wonders.