Have you wanted to grow your business using paid advertising but don’t really know where to start? Have you stared for hours at the Facebook Manager account page and felt like you were reading Chinese? Don’t worry, us too!!

We work with an incredible marketing team that wanted to share some of the top mistakes we see retailers make when it comes to Facebook advertising.

1.Missing a Facebook Pixel:

If you don’t have a Facebook pixel currently installed on your website, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to collect data and build a warm audience of engaged website viewers and customers to advertise to 24/7. The Facebook pixel is code that you place on your website. It collects data that helps you track conversions from Facebook ads, optimize ads, build targeted audiences for future ads, and remarket to people who have already taken some kind of action on your website.

2. Boosting Posts:

Most retailers see that shiny blue button hoping that with one little click they can attract thousands of eyeballs on their product only to find that although FB shows a huge amount of reach, there is never really any measurable engagement or sales that come from it. Most retailers we speak with spend hundreds, if not thousands, every month on boosting posts to their product without having any idea of whether or not it is effective. Instead of boosting posts, run them through FB Ads Manager as ‘conversion’ campaigns.

3. Not Utilizing Dynamic Retargeting Ads (DRA):

Have you ever been on a website looking at a product only to click away and a few hours later you see that exact product stalking you on Instagram, FB, YouTube, or another platform? These are called Dynamic Retargeting Ads (DRA) and they allow advertisers to send unique ads to users on their website dynamically depending on what the user visited on their website most recently. If you have a candle listed on your website and someone visits the product page but doesn’t checkout, you can set up dynamic retargeting ads to show that exact same candle to that person for 1-30 days. To get the most out of your DRA’s, you’ll need to have your Facebook Pixel installed, a Business Manager account, and your product catalog installed.

4. Chasing Engagement:

Perhaps the biggest mistake we’ve seen from working with retailers is putting too high of an importance on ‘vanity metrics’ such as likes, shares, and comments. While it certainly feels nice to spend money on an ‘engagement campaign’ and see your post go from no engagement to hundreds of likes and comments, it is very difficult to attribute any measurable ROI to likes and shares. From my experience, running campaigns with the goal of engagement is a good way to flush money down a beautiful looking toilet.

5. No Clear Definition of Success:

Most retailers we work with often have a dedicated monthly marketing budget (which is an important first step) but don’t usually have a clear picture of what that budget should be doing for them or a clear way to see if what they want to have happened is actually happening. Before you start spending money on ads ask, “What does success look like to you?”. This will help you have a clear direction and then you can determine ad spend, total costs per acquisition and dozens of other KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to help set the foundation of your goal setting.

We hope these tips can help up your Facebook advertising game. The Complete Boutique is all about creating a safe community where retailers can come together, support each other, and educate each other on new topics like this one! Have any more questions? Join our FREE TCB Facebook group where we dive into more topics like this as a community.