Facebook ads are a FANTASTIC way to grow your business and we've had some great results for our clients. However even for us, they can certainly be frustrating! Succeeding on Facebook requires constant testing to figure out which part of the campaign is actually failing. I'm going to show you our four-step formula for fixing our campaigns at Mastered Marketing, so the next time you are face palming you’ll know just what to look for! 

1. Check Your Offer.

The success of your campaign hinges on your offer, and this should be the first thing you check.

These are often free guides / discounts / lead magnets etc. but can also be content, videos or a blog article. The format of your offer isn’t what we’re actually look for right now.

The real question is… Do people actually want what you’re offering? You need to know what your audience wants the most. Think about their pains and desires, and give them something that helps them get from where they are now to where they want to be.

Having a 10% off coupon does NOT count! Who wants that? Your offer should be something they'd be crazy to ignore. Are you offering something so good that it makes people want to stop scrolling and leave Facebook to get it?

If your answer is no, you’ve already found your problem. This is the most common issue people face – they just aren’t offering something people want. 

ACTION PLAN: Upgrade your offer! 

2. Check Your Targeting.

If your offer is great and you’re still having no luck, the next thing to check is targeting.

It doesn’t matter if you have the most epic ad or marketing message in the world – if you put your offer in front of the wrong people, it will fail!  The most common targeting mistake is going too broad. People do this to ‘avoid missing out’ on potential customers, but it’s a big no-no.

Your offer should make a specific solution promise to solve a specific problem to a specific person, so that it resonates highly with that audience. It's okay if the other people don't get it - they're not your customers!

Get into the shoes of your customer to understand who they are, where they are, and what they want. Put those interests and demographics into your Facebook targeting and if you can, test multiple audiences to see what works best. 

One final note - if you have an existing database, you can upload that to Facebook ads and create a Lookalike audience, which will find people that are similar to your customers or subscribers. Pretty cool! 

ACTION PLAN: Refine your targeting and update your audiences. 

3. Check the Creative

You can have an awesome offer in front of the right people and still fail if you aren’t catching their attention or giving them a reason to take action.

You want to use your creative to really strike a nerve with your audience, call out their problems to hit a pain point, and then position your offer as the solution. Now whilst every ad is different, here's a quick ad copy checklist: 

• Clear, concise, benefit-rich headline that grabs attention.

• Call out a specific person

• Mention the pain or desire

• Focus on the best user benefits.

• Convey WHY they should want it

• Talk how your customers talk.

• Be conversational and straight to the point.

• Communicate that you have what they need.

• Make sure ads match the landing page

• Avoid generic language. Use a specific call to action

Once this is in place you want to pick an awesome image that is engaging, catches people’s attention, and is a visual representation of the copy. You'll also want to use at least 3 different images per ad set.

ACTION: Make an awesome ad that calls out the customer and their problems, and makes them want to click! 

4. Check the Landing Page

People often don't realise that the quality of your landing page or destination URL has a large impact on the actual ad performance itself.

If you're sending traffic to a landing page that isn't optimised, you're pouring money into a leaky bucket.  Your landing page not only needs to look great, it needs to have a ‘message match’ with your ad. You don’t want your ad to look totally different from the page.

Imagine clicking an ad for something, but then you end up somewhere different… that process should be seamless. Lack of a ‘message match’ is a common problem with advertising campaigns.

Final note - it absolutely MUST work perfectly on mobile. 80% or more of your traffic will likely be from mobile so make sure it looks schmick.

ACTION: Update your landing page, and make sure it works perfectly.



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If you assess all four of these areas, you will have a much higher chance of bringing your campaign to life! Remember that success in Facebook Ads is all about testing, tweaking and finding that winning formula. It’s not always easy – but once you find it, you can have a wildly profitable campaign! If you’d like to discuss a Facebook campaign for your business, feel free to reach out below. Happy advertising!

Mitch Hills @masteredmarketing