Facebook Ads For Bloggers: 5 Advertising Pitfalls + Solutions [Podcast Ep. 15]
Facebook Ads for bloggers.
In my opinion, it’s an important topic to focus on, as social media advertising can really help blog owners, content creators, influencers, and online entrepreneurs increase their traffic, build their email lists more rapidly, and ramp up their passive income.
Of course, for Facebook Ads to be effective you need to know what you’re doing — which is exactly what we’ll be covering in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Five important reasons your Facebook Ads might not be converting (with solutions for each pitfall!)
- What the different types of audiences you can target are (and how to choose the correct one for your ad!)
- My #1 piece of advice when it comes to Facebook Ads for bloggers (as in, a tip that almost always ensures profitable ads!)
- How to create a seamless user experience (so that viewers don’t click away from your ad!)
- How to use social media for marketing in a way that gets results
- And more!
5 Reasons Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Converting (& How To Fix Them) – Podcast Episode Audio
Listen to the full episode using this embedded player…
…or click the links below to tune in on your preferred audio platform:
Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts/iTunes
Click here to listen on Spotify
Click here to listen on TuneIn
To help you really jumpstart your blogging success, I’ve created a powerful 11-Step Blueprint For High-Converting Facebook Ads. And it’s free!
To create the blueprint, I sat down and compiled a list of the most important strategies and lessons I’ve gathered over the years, then laid them out into a beautiful and actionable PDF guide that will help you truly implement what you learn (instead of just reading a few tips and forgetting them).
Why Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Converting [Video]
Prefer video?
Watch above!
Here you’ll find a mini-version of this podcast episode.
You’ll learn three important reasons your Facebook Ads aren’t converting — while the podcast audio and transcript below contain five.
And, as always, I’ve included actionable troubleshooting tips to help you see success with your social media advertising.
Facebook Ads For Bloggers – Episode 15 Transcript
As a creator of online blogging classes, I often get the chance to speak with students on what their biggest challenges are when it comes to starting a profitable blog.
One thing almost everybody wants to know is what strategy can they implement to grow their blog quicker and with less overwhelm.
Because let’s be honest. As bloggers, we’re the CEOs of our own businesses and we’re also often the only employee.
We are writing the blog posts, we’re creating the social media graphics, we’re on social media, we’re coming up with the affiliate strategy, we’re negotiating brand contracts, we’re in charge of the design, we’re in charge of all the technical aspects.
It can be a lot.
Now, there are many things I’ve done to grow my blogging business:
- I’ve focused on search engine optimization to rank higher in Google search
- I’ve focused on creating a Pinterest strategy for bloggers to bring more traffic to my site
- I’ve crafted a list-building strategy for my blog so that I have a community of people that I can nurture and create digital products that truly benefit them.
But in terms of growing much faster and with less overwhelm, I have to say Facebook Ads has been the best thing that I’ve invested my time and money into.
With the way I run my ads I am able to earn more than I’m spending on the ads while more rapidly growing my email list. It really is a win-win.
The thing with Facebook Ads is, though, if you don’t know what you’re doing you can lose money and it can be confusing — which is why I created this episode where we are going to go over five reasons your Facebook ads might not be converting.
Free Facebook Ads Blueprint
Before we dive into those reasons, though, I want to point your attention to my free 11-Step Blueprint To High-Converting Facebook Ads.
This is a no-fluff freebie. I’m giving you 11 powerful tactics that will really help you see success with your ads.
And it’s not just text in this blueprint. I’ve also included visuals with workbook sections where you can input your own answers and really put learning into practice so you can determine how to map out your blogging goals and then crush them with the help of social media advertising.
So, feel free to pause the episode and go grab that.
You back?
Okay, let’s dive into the reasons why your Facebook Ads might not be converting.
Reason #1: Your Facebook Ads targeting is off.
You can have the best offer in the world with the most beautiful ad, but if you’re not showing it to the people who would truly benefit from it, you’re not going to see conversions.
Keep in mind:
There is a difference between warm audiences and cold audiences.
Your warm audiences feature people who have some idea of who you are. They’ve interacted with you at some point.
On the other hand, your cold audiences feature people who don’t know who you are.
Typically, you’re going to see an easier conversion with those warmer audiences.
Therefore, you might show your ad to people who have visited your website in the last 180 days, who are on your email list, or who have viewed a relevant video that you created. You might even consider showing your likeness in the ad — meaning your face — since these people will recognize you.
Now, there is another type of audience when it comes to Facebook Ads that I want to bring to your attention because it can be very powerful. It is called lookalike audiences.
To create a lookalike audience for your Facebook Ads you are going to need to provide Facebook with a source audience of at least a hundred people from a single country. That might be your customer list or your email subscribers.
With this, you’re basically saying, “Hey Facebook, find me people who are just like these” and then you’ll choose the country you want the lookalike audience to be from.
For instance, if you are trying to sell a product through Facebook Ads you can give Facebook your customer list for that product to create a lookalike audience. That’s probably going to be a high-converting audience.
If you’re thinking, “Okay, that’s great, but my product is new and I don’t have 100 customers yet.” Well, you could also use your email list.
Here is the thing with this:
You want to make sure that the people on your email list are the people who would also want your product.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say that your paid product is an online course on travel hacking, and to get people onto your list you create a freebie that is a free travel hacking cheat sheet or challenge, to name a few opt-in offer ideas.
Well, you know that that segment of your email list is interested in travel hacking, so it could be worth creating a lookalike audience of them.
Now let’s talk about…
Reason #2: You’re choosing the wrong Facebook Ads objective.
When you choose your ad objective, you’re essentially telling Facebook who you want it to find more of.
I’ve seen this error come up quite a bit with students in my blogging courses. For instance, They’ll run an ad showing their lead magnet and then the people who opt-in are placed into a funnel where they’ll be pitched a relevant product either right away on the thank you page or a few days later in an email sequence.
In this case, they should be optimizing for purchases, even though the ad looks like a lead ad.
This is because ultimately you want Facebook to find more people who actually purchased, and not just opted in.
Therefore, when you’re choosing your objective really think about that end result that you want.
Let’s move on to…
Reason #3 your Facebook Ads might not be converting: There’s a disconnect between your ad and your landing page.
Picture this:
You see a Facebook Ad for a travel backpack. The photo is bright pink with feminine writing and an image of millennial women clinking mugs and laughing around a fire.
But when you click the ad, you’re taken to a landing page with a dark navy blue background, bold fonts, and a masculine feel.
Well, you’re probably going to feel confused. You might wonder if you’re in the right place. You might feel tricked. And you probably won’t opt-in to whatever that offer is.
What you want to make sure is that every step of the viewer’s ad journey has a cohesive, seamless feel so that they always feel like they are in the right place.
This could mean continuously using your own branded fonts and colors, and maybe even using the same imagery in your ad and on your landing page, or at least images with the same vibe.
Okay, let’s chat about…
Reason #4 you may not be seeing success with Facebook Ads: Your copy focuses on features over benefits.
Features refer to what is actually included in the offer, while the benefits are the ways that the person’s life will be better after opting in.
So if you’ve decided to learn how to make money with webinars, and you run an ad to your free webinar on travel hacking, the features could be that there is a Q&A, that the webinar is live, and that you’ll be sharing a step-by-step strategy.
The benefits, though, would be things like the fact that they’ll learn how to book five-star hotels on a hostel budget.
What I like to do to find benefits is to list out the features and just place the words “so that” after.
Here is an example:
“There will be a live Q&A so that you get all of your most pressing travel hacking questions answered.”
By the way, if you need help with your webinar strategy check out this video:
And finally…
Reason #5 you may be having trouble with your Facebook Ads strategy: The timing is off.
Sometimes the success of an ad can be based on seasonality. For instance, maybe your US audience isn’t interested in seeing a bathing suit ad in winter.
Other times another blogger with a larger budget may be promoting a similar offer and your ad just can’t compete.
There are so many reasons an ad doesn’t convert or converts and then stops converting, and this is definitely one to take into consideration.
My advice would be to turn your ad off and then turn it back on in a few weeks. Then see if that does anything to help.
If it doesn’t, no worries. My free 11-Step Blueprint To High-Converting Facebook Ads has a ton of other ideas to help you troubleshoot the ads that aren’t converting and give you powerful tactics to help you create better ads altogether.
Oh, and a quick bonus tip:
If you’d like to monetize your Facebook Ads quickly, I recommend sending people to a tripwire offer. You can use this tripwire funnel template to get started! This is one of the top ways to monetize your travel blog.
And on that note, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you’ll feel inspired and empowered to go run your own Facebook Ads campaign.
Make sure to subscribe on iTunes so you get notified when future episodes publish, too.
Happy blogging!
Connect With The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast
Subscribe + Review (To Win A Prize!)
Love learning new blogging strategies to help grow your website traffic, community, and income?
Click here to subscribe on iTunes to be notified when new episodes publish.
As this is a new podcast, I’d also be extremely grateful if you’d leave a review right here and let me know your favorite part of the episode or a takeaway you walked away with. By leaving a review, you help the show be seen by more people, helping the episodes to have a greater impact.
Bonus:
Each month, I’ll be choosing one reviewer at random to win a FREE seat inside one of my masterclasses.
Winners can choose from:
- How To Grow Your Blogging Income Through Facebook Ads
- How To Land Paid Press Trips As A Travel Blogger
- How To Make Money (Fast) With Affiliate Marketing
- How To Start A Tour Company In Your Own Backyard
- How To Start A Blog, Grow An Audience & Make Money
- Build Your Blogging Profit Plan Masterclass
Winners will be chosen at random from the reviews and will be notified via email.
Stay In The Loop
Do you want to get notified when new episodes publish?
Interested in hearing about opportunities to join livestreamed podcast interviews so you can engage, ask questions, and turn your blog into a profitable business more easily?
Then make sure to opt-in for podcast email notifications sent to your inbox!
You can do that by clicking here.