Facebook is the world’s third most visited website, and you can’t afford to pass up marketing there. However, with so many ads competing for space on feeds, what will it take for your Facebook ads to stand out? While your industry can determine best practices for getting traction, the common mistakes hurt all product categories equally.

Here are the most common digital marketer slip-ups for ads created on Facebook today.

Your Ads Are Poorly Targeted 

Facebook has removed some of the factors for ad targeting. However, there are plenty of ways to specify the target audience for your product. The problem comes when ad managers aren’t sure who the audience is.

Are moms buying your product?

Are you sure it isn’t stay-at-home dads or grandparents?

Could a life event or pop culture interest be the key to targeting down?

Don’t be afraid to target micro niches to find the perfect buyer. They may not be quite who you think they are.

You Shy Away From Video 

What do all the best social media platforms have in common? Video!

People love to consume video content, and they can spend hours scrolling, clicking, and sharing. When you create an ad that’s as fun to watch as non-commercial content, you’ve found your win. Create new video content regularly and reshare older videos to get the most out of every dollar.

How Accessible Are Your Videos?

Speaking of videos, do you know how people watch these days? If you guessed that they prefer to watch with the sound off, you’re correct. Some people choose to mute their ads, or they may be hard-of-hearing.

You can make a difference by creating accessible videos with text or captions.

You Don’t Use the Right Text Option 

There are a few ways to communicate through video with text. Captions are created to appear at the bottom of the video and match the sounds in the clip exactly. They are perfect for hard-of-hearing viewers or those who prefer not to disturb those around them.

To get an accurate caption, consider a service like Rev. It lets you upload your video to its usefulness for accurate text.

Why not use the accessible version of Facebook’s auto-captioning service to add text? In addition to being less accurate, it requires your entire video to process through Facebook’s AI to add subtitles.

Once you post a video to Facebook, the captions will appear but be watched within the Facebook environment. Facebook’s video editor is clunky, as well. Removing the “umms” from your video takes time you don’t have.

Speakers with accents or background music are other transcription factors to consider. Choosing higher-quality tools to transcribe audio over the free Facebook option may avoid more work for your teams.

If you choose to use the same video on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or your website, you’ll have to create captions for those separately. Save time by using a service to create text that you can burn into your videos. Then, share to any platform you please.

Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Clear

Finally, what do you want viewers to do after they’ve seen your video online? Whether redeeming an offer or sharing with friends, make sure you include a clear call to action. Choose just one, and make it easy to do from the social media landing page. Many ads online don’t have a clear intention or make the action confusing. Do you want them to buy or click to learn more? Say that and do it clearly when you add subtitles.

Don’t wait until the end of your ad copy to make the ask, either. Some people will be ready to take action earlier in the video. You don’t want to lose out on viewers who don’t make the final few seconds of your ad.

You Aren’t Actively Testing Your Video Ads 

Now that you have a few well-made ads, it’s time to try them out. Unfortunately, you’ll have to spend a bit to see which ones are destined to perform. Only change one factor at a time so you can isolate what’s working with video conversions. By taking a more scientific approach, you’ll know which of your design tweaks are moving the needle. 

You can also look for unexpected patterns in ad conversions. Are you getting surprise international traffic? It may be time to incorporate foreign subtitles versions of your videos.

Do you find your ads perform better at a specific time of day?

Maximize that window to show your best stuff, even if it costs more for that window.

Why You Should Invest in Better Facebook Ads 

We now know that 85% of viewers don’t listen to the ads they see on Facebook. Almost 90% of users only use Facebook on their mobile devices. They don’t want to disturb others with their phone noise. What they see (not what they hear) influences their buying decision.

This is all you need to know to commit to text transcription tools for all of your videos.

Creating accurate captions with Rev, and a quick turnaround time just takes a few clicks.