We all make mistakes, but when it comes to your social media advertising efforts these seemingly innocent blunders can end up costing you—a lot.
I spoke with Hootsuite’s social ads expert Gabrielle Maheux to find out what the biggest social ad mistakes are. Continuing reading to learn how you can avoid these mistakes—and save your budget.
Stop Making These 6 Social Media Ad Mistakes
1. Not setting the right goals
“Before you even think about creating a single social ad,” says Maheux, “you need to know why you’re doing it.” Are you trying to build brand awareness or are you solely focused on getting leads? Consider what exactly you are hoping to achieve with your social ad campaign.
We recommend setting S.M.A.R.T. goals—goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Instead of a goal to “boost sales,” think about an actual percentage you (or your business) wants to increase sales by and what your timeline is. Once you have set these business goals, it’s much easier to plan your campaign.
If you aren’t establishing tangible goals, you’re not setting your ads up for success. To help figure out the kinds of goals you should be setting, think about what audience questions and pain points you need to address.
As Maheux explains, “An audience question could be “How do I measure the impact of our social efforts effectively? Once you know what question you are trying to answer, you can better test different variations on the core message.”
2. Not tailoring your ads to the specific platform
Not all ads are created equal. Every social network has different requirements and specs for the social ads they host and if you aren’t optimizing your ad content to adhere to these, you’re hurting your chances of success.
“You need to think about what platform [your ads] will be running on, as well as what kinds of devices,” Maheux explains. “Specs for different networks are important to pay attention to so you can make sure your ads look as good as possible.”
Our post, A Day in the Life of an Experienced Social Ads Manager, shares the following specs for quick reference:
- Facebook ad specs:Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixelsHeadline: 25 charactersText: 90 characters
- Instagram ad specs:Caption: Text only, max 2,200 charactersImage size: 1080 x 1080 pixelsLimited support for landscape format
- Twitter ad specs:Tweet copy: 116 characters are available (24 characters are used for the link)Hashtag: 21 charactersHeadline: 23 characters
- LinkedIn ad specs:Thumbnail image size: 1200 x 627 pixels (1.91:1 ratio) displayed on mobileCompany logo: The recommended minimum logo size is 100 x 100 pixelsPrimary CTA (below images): Maximum 50 characters…
