Running Facebook and Instagram ads can be an effective way to grow your business, but many business owners make common mistakes that lead to poor results and wasted budgets. Below are the top five mistakes I’ve noticed, along with practical solutions to help you maximize your ad performance. These tips are specifically for conversion (sales) and lead generation campaigns, not for engagement, awareness, or traffic campaigns.
1. Starting with Too Small a Budget for Competitive Markets
One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make is launching a conversion campaign with an insufficient budget—especially when targeting high-cost markets like the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, or Western Europe.
❌ Common Mistake: Some business owners try to start with as little as $5 per day in these markets, which is not enough to gather meaningful data or see real results.
✅ Solution:
- For lead generation campaigns, start with at least $15–$20 per day.
- For sales campaigns, plan a minimum of $25–$30 per day.
- If your budget is too small, you might only see a few Add to Carts or link clicks, leading to the false assumption that the product or campaign isn’t working.
🔹 Example: Instead of running a $5/day ad for 10 days and getting no significant results, you’d be better off running a $30/day ad for five days to gather better insights and optimize effectively.
2. Stopping the Campaign Too Soon
Facebook and Instagram ads take time to optimize, and stopping them too early is a common mistake.
❌ Common Mistake: Business owners often panic if they don’t see immediate results and stop a campaign after just 2–3 days.
✅ Solution:
- Give your campaign at least 7–14 days to collect data and optimize properly.
- Keep in mind that daily fluctuations are normal, and short-term underperformance doesn’t mean failure.
🔹 Example: Spending $60 over two days and stopping your campaign prematurely can result in wasted money. Instead, let it run longer to gather more meaningful data and adjust accordingly.
3. Not Properly Configuring the Facebook Pixel
The Facebook Pixel is crucial for tracking conversions, optimizing ads, and retargeting potential customers. If it’s not set up correctly, your campaign may perform no better than an awareness campaign.
❌ Common Mistake: Creating a Facebook Pixel but not properly installing it on the website or checking if it tracks events like purchases, Add to Carts, or leads.
✅ Solution:
- Ensure your Facebook Pixel is installed and firing correctly on your website or landing page.
- Use the Meta Pixel Helper Chrome Extension to verify event tracking.
- Check Facebook’s Event Manager to confirm your Pixel is recording conversions.
🔹 Example: Without a properly configured Pixel, your conversion campaign could be wasting money by targeting the wrong audience with no data-driven optimizations.
4. Poor Targeting Strategy
Targeting is one of the most critical aspects of running successful Facebook and Instagram ads.
❌ Common Mistakes:
- Overtrusting Advantage+ Targeting, which may not always understand your product/service correctly.
- Using broad, unstructured interest targeting, which dilutes your audience quality.
- Misusing retargeting and lookalike audiences, leading to poor campaign performance.
✅ Solution:
- If using Advantage+, monitor results closely to ensure it’s reaching the right people.
- When targeting interests, narrow them into multiple layers rather than stacking them all at the same level.
- Be mindful of how you train your audience sources. For example, if you run a page likes campaign in a cheap market (e.g., Pakistan) and later create a lookalike audience from that page, your conversions in high-cost markets (e.g., the USA) may suffer.
🔹 Example: If you’re selling pet products in the USA but trained your Facebook engagement audience with low-quality traffic from another country, your lookalike audiences will be skewed and ineffective.
5. Poor Ad Creatives and Messaging
Even with great targeting and budgets, your ads won’t convert if the creatives are weak.
❌ Common Mistakes:
- Using a default call-to-action (CTA) like “Learn More” instead of a more relevant one.
- Leaving the heading or primary text fields empty.
- Using improper image or video sizes, causing them to appear cropped or distorted.
✅ Solution:
- Use a strong CTA such as “Shop Now” for sales or “Sign Up” for lead generation.
- Ensure all ad copy fields are filled in and visually appealing.
- Use proper ad sizes: 1:1 (1080x1080px) is a universal safe format.
🔹 Example: An ad with a poorly cropped image, a weak CTA, or no headline will likely perform worse than a well-structured, visually optimized ad.
Final Thoughts
Creating successful Facebook and Instagram ads is a process that requires testing, patience, and continuous optimization. Avoiding these five common mistakes will help you spend your budget wisely and improve your overall performance.
Want to improve your ad performance? Contact me for a 30-minute consultation call for only $5! Let’s optimize your campaigns and boost your results.