Paid social ads are one of the most effective ways to reach your target markets, drive web traffic and increase direct bookings – however, seeing worthwhile ROI from paid social ads is one of the main challenges that brands come to us with.
Running paid social ads and not seeing the results you were expecting? It’s time to troubleshoot and fix the issues to avoid wasting money. Below, we have compiled a list of four signs that your hotel’s Facebook ads aren’t working.
1. HIGH NUMBER OF LINK CLICKS AND LOW NUMBER OF LANDING PAGE VIEWS
A high number of link clicks but a low number of landing page views means there could be an issue with the loading speed of your website or landing page. In the world of social media and instant gratification, we are becoming increasingly impatient – if a web page is taking too long to load, people are more likely to lose interest and click off before your content appears.
This means potential guests who have shown an interest in your brand may drop off before finding out more about what you offer and going on to potentially book a stay. Without fixing this issue, you are missing out on vital revenue opportunities as well as wasting the money you’ve invested into the ad campaign(s).
To rectify this issue, you should request your website developer to conduct a page speed audit. Alternatively, you could use a page speed optimisation tool such as Google Chrome’s Developer Tool – the insights you will retrieve from this platform will enable you to pinpoint the problem areas of your site and work to solve the issues.
2. HIGH NUMBER OF LANDING PAGE VIEWS YET NO OR LOW CONVERSIONS
Is your ad campaign receiving a high number of landing page views but very few conversions? This could be due to a number of factors including irrelevant information on the landing page linked to your ad, a difficult user journey on your website or poor targeting.
In the first instance, we recommend pausing the ad campaign and reverting back to your paid ads strategy. If you don’t have one, this could be one of the main reasons why your ads are not working. A solid understanding of what you are trying to achieve, who you are targeting and how you are engaging your audience is fundamental in ensuring your ad campaigns convert lookers into bookers.
Another way to rectify this issue is to ensure that you are creating separate ad funnels for each of your target markets. Using a universal ad which is shown to all will drive fewer conversions – segmenting your ads allows you to reach people with messaging that resonates on a more personal level, increasing the likelihood of converting social media browsers into confirmed bookers.
Leading on from this, review the user journey of your ad funnel and ensure that your landing page is optimised for conversions. This includes checking all links are correct, ensuring advertised information is clear and pinpointing obstacles that the user could encounter on the journey from landing on the web page to booking a stay.
3. LOW AD REACH AND NOT SPENDING YOUR ALLOCATED BUDGET
Is your ad campaign not spending your allocated budget? The reason why is simple – your targeting is too specific.
While we always recommend utilising the targeting tools that Facebook provides to reach your audience, you must ensure that you aren’t being too specific with the interests and behaviours you choose. If Facebook can’t create a big enough pool of users who fit the targeting you have set, they will not run your ad campaign.
To solve this issue, hit ‘edit’ on your campaign in Ads Manager, head to your ad set and check the ‘Audience Definition’ graph (located on the right-hand side of the page). Ensure the arrow is within the green section of the graph prior to sending your campaign for approval as this means your targeting is defined enough to be shown to the target audience.
4. COST PER RESULT IS INCREASING OVER TIME
If the cost per result of your ad campaign is increasing over time and your results – aka your bookings – are stagnating, you need to troubleshoot your ads.
One of the main reasons we see this issue occurring is failure to apply a frequency cap on ads using the Reach, Video Views, Brand Awareness or Engagement objectives. If you don’t apply a frequency cap, this means you are paying for the same pool of users to be shown your ad repeatedly.
Bombarding the same pool of users with the same ad over and over again could lead to ad fatigue as your audience grows annoyed at seeing the same content repeatedly in a short time frame. It risks turning people off your brand and is a poor use of your budget.
Luckily, it’s an easy fix – when setting up ads in Facebook Ads Manager, we recommend setting the frequency cap to no more than once every three days.
So, there you have it – 4 red flags to look out for when using Facebook Ads. Looking for support with paid ads? Click here to get in touch with our expert team and let’s chat about how we can help.
