Running ads on Facebook is extremely difficult. There’s a lot of ins and outs that you have to understand otherwise you are pissing away money. There’s obviously been a ton of hacks to help with this but I can assure you a lot of it is mere quackery. So I wanted to write an article talking about the three biggest mistakes people make on Facebook ads.
These mistakes are all ones that you can fix pretty easily and shouldn’t be too technical. First and foremost is getting your geographic targeting right. Then it’s a question of hitting your interests properly. We will break both of those down. The big secret though is retargeting – you’ve got to master this to grow.
Geographic Targeting Mistakes
Perhaps the number one mistake I see is people whose geographic targeting is too broad. If you make your targeting ‘the world’ then your ad will do great but you will get mostly clicks in Indonesia and stuff. If you make it just ‘North America’ you’re still not safe as most of your clicks will come from a few small villages in Mexico you aren’t selling any records in.
What you want to be doing is targeting the specific countries you want to be pushing your band in. For me this usually means targeting Western Europe, USA and Canada. Also be aware targeting people specifically in cities will always be more expensive since they are marketed too constantly. Cost per click in NYC for instance is often twice as high as cost per click elsewhere.
Getting Your Interest-Based Targeting Right
big one I see people messing up all the time. Interest-based targeting should be focused on specific bands whose fanbases you are similar too – not genres. This is a mistake I see get made all too often and it’s frustrating to see.
The reason for this is that if you’re a black metal band trying to hit Darkthrone fans and you input ‘Black metal’ as a relevant interest you’re going to get fans of Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. That’s not really a relevant audience. Learning how to work within this is important – find the bands relevant to you and go from there.
Retargeting
This is the big one and the one I see people mess up the most. Once you’ve pinged people with your previous ads hitting a correct audience you need to remind them that your product exists. Think about how you buy – you don’t buy right from the get-go right? You need to see something a few times.
Well, guess what – your FB and IG ads can go and target the specific people who interacted with your previous ads. This is where you close most of your sales because these are the people who know about your band already and are going to be interested in what you have to say. There’s a ton of options – just go under ‘custom audiences’ in ads manager.
So I bet you were making at least one of these mistakes – but they are all easily fixed! Just make sure you are targeting specific countries and bands. Then when it comes to retargeting – just realize you need to keep on people, reminding them your product exists!
MATT BACON
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Matt Bacon is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. Having worked with everyone from Glam Rock icon Phil Collen of Def Leppard, to post Black Metal titans Alcest, by way of legendary thrashers Exhorder as well as labels including Prophecy Productions and Ripple Music, he has dedicated his life to helping young bands develop. Having started his own blog at the age of 14 he views his career in artist development as ‘a hobby that got out of hand’. In 2015 he formed Dropout Media in order to better support the artists he loves. We sit here now, years later with countless tours booked, records released and deals signed, and loving every minute of it.
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