In order to run a Facebook ad campaign that is set up for success, there are a few items I’d recommend checking off of your list first.

For a printable version of this checklist, you can scroll to the bottom to signup to have the PDF emailed to you.

1. Your pixel is installed and working.

Your pixel is a smart tool to have in your strategic marketer pocket. When you’re running a FB Ad campaign, you want to make sure your pixel is installed and firing on all cylinders. By that, I mean you want to make sure that everything a visitor will touch, it’s pixeled, even if it’s on a third party site (like LeadPages or ClickFunnels.)

2. Your landing pages is designed and up to date.

Where are people going when they click on your ad? We want to send them somewhere other than your website homepage or your Facebook page.

3. Your thank you page is designed and up to date.

What happens after they sign up to receive the thing you’re advertising? Too often, the thank you page becomes an afterthought or is a very generic piece to your customer’s buying journey (or sales funnel). It should let the visitor know what to expect next, and redirect them to your best pieces of content so that they’re encouraged to continue getting to know you.

4. Your email sequence is ready to go out.

How do you plan on delivering “your thing”? This is your first introduction to your new subscriber, so this is a perfect opportunity to “make it good”. You want to introduce yourself, deliver what you said you would, the follow up with a sequence to make sure they’ve opened the deliverable, and that they are being motiated and encouraged towards your goal (see #7!)

5. You’ve created UTM links.

Ah, yes, UTM links. Creating a UTM URL assumes that you have Google Analytics installed and that you understand the basics of using it. You can watch a video about that here: Creating UTM URLS.

6. You know or can predict your organic stats.

This comment is a little controversial in that many people use Facebook ads to test out new offers. And that’s fine.. BUT in this scenario, you have to enter in with the mindset that you can either invest time OR money into growing your business. If you’re going to invest TIME, that means creating an offer and promoting it organically. It will take longer to track statistics, but it’s free. OR you can invest money and figure out the conversion rates and test the pieces (like your offer, you landing page, sales page, etc.)

7. You have a strong understanding of your campaign goals.

I suggest you NEVER run an ad unless you have a very clear goal of how this pays off in the long run. That’s why I’m so anti-one-off campaigns like randomly boosting something OR running a like campaign. There are scenarios when putting money behind an existing post OR running a campaign for page likes, but ONLY when you understand how this plays into your business goals. Otherwise you may as well set your money on fire.

8. You know your budget.
This goes back to #7. IF you know your goals, and you know how this pays off in the long run, it’s easier to set a budget.
It also goes back to #6. If you know your stats, it’s easier to get to #9.

9. You understand your break even points.

At what level do your ads need to convert in order to pay for themselves? There are ways to calculate at what level your campaign is a “success” or a “bust”. There are times that even if your leads are converting at $20/lead, they could still pay for themselves based on your lifetime customer value.

How did you do on your checklist? Did you mark them all off? Great! Then you’re ready to run FB ads!

I’ve had clients ask “So… how did we do? Was this campaign successful or not?”

That’s a bit like asking “How long is a string?”

When people are asking about the success of failure of their ad campaign, they’re generally focusing on these stats alone:

• CTR (Click Through Rate)
• Clicks
• CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions)
• CPC (Cost Per Click)
• Reach
• Impressions

While watching the stats can give you an idea of the general performance of the ad within the Facebook platform, there’s a lot that can happen outside of the advertising alone that may help you judge the success or failure of your campaign.

Before you even start a campaign, you should have an understanding of your goals.

For most of the clients I work with, their ultimate goal is one of the following:

• Sell consulting, coaching or freelancing services
• Sell an info product like an ebook or course
• Sell out an event like a paid training, master class or group program
• Gain signups for an online summit or other event

Even if you don’t reach your immediate goals, it’s been shown that a person needs seven “touch points” before their willing to invest and trust you.

If someone likes your Facebook page because of an ad, but doesn’t immediately purchase “your thing”, that doesn’t mean they never will. If they purchase something you offer in two years from now, it’s obviously more difficult to trace that back to your Facebook ad..

The point being, trust that Facebook ads can play a role on the “long-game” of growing your business.

There are many entrance points to most customer experience journeys, and Facebook ads are a great investment in learning about your audiences. They might see an ad, then Google your website and sign up for your email list independently versus through the ad.

The point being, track your metrics and understand your lifetime customer value or LTV.

I recommend HubSpot’s calculator here.

As online entrepreneurs, we’re used to high learning curves and dusting ourselves off when things haven’t gone perfectly.

Sinking money in to a Facebook ad campaign that didn’t offer an ideal return can certainly sting. But trust me, it has happened to the best of us.

Here are some of the reasons your campaign may have failed and what you can do next time.

Start your campaign off right.

I’m a huge believer in ad testing. But this can get tricky when you’re just getting started in advertising your business. If your budget is small and you’re testing, your ad budget might be “too small” to gain any social proof traction. You need about 10,000 impressions to evaluate which ads work and which don’t, so if you are working with a tiny budget, it can take a while to hit that threshold. If you’re serving the same target audience many different versions of the ad, your ads likely aren’t gathering the likes and shares that they might if you test one ad at a time.

In order to start your campaign off right, you can start with a much higher daily budget and taper off once you’ve figured out which ads are working. You can also set up your ad with a campaign budget versus daily budget and slowly increase your audience targeting.

Get Relevant.

You’ve probably heard of Facebook ads relevance score. If you haven’t, the Facebook relevancy score is a 1-10 number that shows how relevant your ad is to your target audience.

And having a low relevance score can cost you A LOT. AdEspresso recently published a test where they ran an ad with a relevance score of 2.9 points versus one with a relevance score of 8.0 points. The ad with the 2.9 score ran on an average of $0.142 per website click while the ad with the 8.0 score was at a cost per click of $0.03.

That’s a 473% difference! If you’re working with a small budget, that’s a HUGE difference in the amount of click throughs you’ll get.

The Ad Fatigue Struggle is Real

We like to think that everyone loves us and wants to see our ads… but the truth is people get sick of seeing them grace their newsfeed.

Ad fatigue is the symptom of people seeing your ads for multiple times. A high ad frequency means that the same user has seen a particular ad for already 5 or 10 times.

If someone has seen your ad three times or more and hasn’t clicked on it, odds are that they’re just. not. interested. Because of the high frequency of seeing the ads without taking action on it, your costs per action on your ad increase something fierce when your ad frequency increase above 3. Keep an eye on your audiences and the delivery frequency. If you notice your prices increasing and your click throughs dropping, this is a sign that now is a good time to switch up your advertising.

Make Sure You’re Optimizing Your Ads

If you’re running a great ad in the same campaign as a terrible ad, your overall spend and success is going to be somewhere in the middle.

You want to make sure you’re pausing your crappy & expensive ads and letting your best ads continue. You can also duplicate your best ads and make adjustments to the audience, headline, creative or ad copy.

You want to make sure you’re frequently checking in on your ad campaigns to get rid the low-performers and give the high-performers a boost.

Don’t Adjust Too Much Too Quickly

According to Facebook: “It takes our ad delivery system 24 hours to adjust the performance level for your ad. It can take longer when you edit your ad frequently. To fix it, let your ad run for at least 24 hours before you edit it again. “

If you’re jumping in to your campaign day after day to tweak campaigns and make adjustments, you’re not giving Facebook a chance to adjust and optimize the last changes you made. You only want to make an adjustment once every 24 hours, then let your campaign settle in before making more changes.

Too Much Text on Your Ad

If your ad is showing too much text (20% or more), you’ll likely be paying higher rates for its delivery.  If you need to include text, frequently check whether your ad’s being delivered at a normal rate. You may also receive a notification in your ad account from Facebook that your ad may be costing “too much” because of it’s high amount of text.

There are many more reasons that might  affect your Facebook ad campaign’s success.

If your last campaign was a flop, comb through the statistics and insights to see where you might improve next time.

Some insights and areas to focus on include:

• CTR
• Relevancy Scores
• Frequency
• Landing Page Conversion Rates
• Negativity Score

I’d love to hear what other mistakes and problems you’re experiencing with Facebook ads –  I’ll do my best to help you!