Facebook Advertising is still one of the best ways to reach your target audience and share your products and messages with them effectively and efficiently.

But what results should you expect when investing in your business through the platform’s robust algorithm and almost scary targeting features?

In this blog post, I’ll break down some myths of advertising on Facebook and share what you should expect when getting started on the platform.

This comes from learning with over $50,000 in ad dollars invested and thousands of hours of testing.

Let’s start by breaking down some common myths...

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Myth #1: When you spend money you make money.

So let’s just address the elephant in the room here.

All business owners want to see an ROI from their investment into advertising, right? I think we all can agree on that.

But what’s important to remember when starting online advertising is that just because you are investing money into Facebook that doesn’t mean you should expect to see a return right away.

Especially if you are new to the scene and have no brand presence other than your friends and family.

There is time that goes into testing different ad creatives and angles and offers. But even before that, there is the time that must be invested in finding the right audiences to test.

The research time alone could take a few days to a couple of weeks (I don’t recommend waiting THAT long to start testing though).

A typical campaign launch will include 3 creative image tests with 2 ad copy angles for each target market. And then there are the different campaign objectives to use. I recommend starting with a Page Post Engagement Campaign and/or a Traffic Campaign to start collecting data on your Facebook Pixel.

The Facebook Pixel is a small line of code that is put on your website that tracks all the activity on the pages of the site. Why this is so awesome is that we can take all that data and use it in our future advertising campaigns.

You know those ads that follow you everywhere? The Facebook Pixel allows us to do things like that — but before any of that badass ninja stuff can take place, the Pixel needs data.

The first month or two (depending on your budget) will probably be spent collecting data on your pixel. While this should be your main focus, you should also be starting to get some leads and sales just because you’ve done the work in the research and the ad creation phase.

**Note: if you are scaling quickly and have the budget to do so (I’m talking like close to hundreds or thousands of spend per day per ad set), then obviously you are going to be feeding the Facebook Pixel a TON more data and you’ll be able to move more quickly and make better decisions faster.

With all of that said, the goal of advertising on Facebook is not always to make money back. There are other pieces that can and should be in place and running (and spending money) to really have a well-oiled machine that is building your brand, building your audience, and then, generating leads and sales.

Myth #2: People want to buy your stuff.

Take a seat — this may come as a shock to you. No one wakes up in the morning caring about whatever it is you sell or do.

Here’s the deal. Too many business owners think that if they just put ads up and jump into the game of advertising online that they’ll grow their business substantially right out the gate.

Not. The. Case.

Fact: People don’t want to buy your stuff.

Solution: Help them change their mind.

The process to do that is called... Marketing.

And like all great processes, marketing can take some time to do what it’s meant to do — change the beliefs in the market.

It’s kind of like dating.

It’s our job as marketers and business owners to date our target audiences. They need to know us, like us, and then trust us enough to give us their money, right?

The main variables that tip the scales in the marketing equation are time, resonation, and desire.

First, it’s going to take time to do things right. Accept it.

Also, understand that the more money you can spend, the more people you can reach in the beginning, but it still takes the same amount of time to build trust.

Second, your message and offer need to resonate with your ideal customer.

You need to spend some time DECIDING who that ideal customer is. It is your choice as a business owner. As I mentioned above, I recommend testing 3 images with 2 different hooks per target customer.

Third, it’s our job as marketers to pull out the desire already in people to solve their pains and problems.

When using Facebook Advertising and testing different images and hooks, the focus should be on hooking into that person’s desires. As advertisers, we do not create desire, we simply touch on the desire that’s already in people - specifically a desire or pain that your product or solution solves.

What you should expect.

The simple answer is — it’s complicated.

Some factors that affect outcomes and that should guide your expectations are:

• Daily budget
• Profit margins
• Audience size
• Amount of pixel events fired
• Average order value

These 5 points can be used to determine what your breakeven return on ad spend is and how much and how fast you can test audiences and creatives.  

I hope you’re starting to see that advertising on Facebook is not as black and white as you first may have thought.

Success with a smaller ad budget (around or below $2000/m for example) will take some time to collect data — especially for a brand new account. Depending on the advertiser’s strategy, you should expect to lose money the first one or two months acquiring data and fine tuning your ad and targeting.

To increase success out of the gate, get really clear on the target audience and create an irresistible offer.

If you’ve got a great offer you’ve got a fighting chance.

Conclusion.

I hope this has been helpful!

If you are looking for help with your digital advertising, feel free to visit our website and shoot us a message. We’re happy to answer any questions and would love to talk about you and your business. And the cool thing is, we do so much more than just Facebook Advertising.

To your continued success,

Peter Diaz