3 Facebook Ads Hacks to apply to your ads today

With its 2.32 billion active users, Facebook is probably the company with the largest volume of data about humans, including demographic information of interest, behavior patterns and purchase history.

This, obviously, makes Facebook Ads one of the most powerful tools when it comes to serving ads to a large number of people with a low investment (currently you can advertise on Facebook by investing just R$1 per day). Not to mention, of course, the almost infinite possibilities for audience segmentation, ad placement, media types and bid settings.

But this world of possibilities within Facebook Ads, which at first glance can make the ad platform almost irresistible for small and medium-sized businesses, is also considered by many its biggest weakness: it is not uncommon to find companies and marketers confused about what that, how, when and where to publish your ads.

These people are attracted by the platform's accessibility and low cost, create ads without much quality criteria and do not dedicate the necessary time to positioning and bidding settings. In the end, they conclude that “Facebook Ads no longer work”.

My goal is to change this mentality a little and suggest some hacks for Facebook Ads that work in 90% of cases when I apply them to my clients' ads – and you can also apply them today.

Remembering that there is no magic formula and you will only know if the tips will work for your business through experimentation in the context of your business.

1. Export your Linkedin contact list to create a Lookalike Audience

By far, one of the most common mistakes I see people making when advertising on Facebook is not first creating a Lookalike Audience from an email list, popularly known as a “lookalike”.

Yes, Facebook will offer some tool options for those who don't have an email list to create a more qualified audience, but anyone who has tried advertising in this way knows that this is rarely effective.

Therefore, my recommendation is to always use a Similar Audience in your campaigns, even if it is not the most qualified in the world. If you don't already have an email list of leads and/or customers, a good start is to use your Linkedin.

• Log in to your Linkedin account and click on “My Network” in the top menu;
• Click on “Connections” in the left column;
• Click on “Manage synchronized and imported contacts” in the right column;
• Click “Export contacts” below “Advanced actions” in the right column;
• Only select the “Some” and “Connections” option;
• Click “Request files”.

After a few minutes, (the time will depend on the number of connections you have) return to this panel and click on “Start download”. Okay, now you have an email list to get started!

You may need to “tidy up” the leads table, eliminating blank fields and duplicate emails. The process can be a little tedious depending on the number of connections, but, trust me, it will be worth it.

With the email list properly edited, the next step is to create a Custom Audience and a Lookalike Audience on Facebook. To avoid repeating what Facebook itself already teaches in its Support Center, see the tutorials below:

Remember to create the Lookalike Audience from the Custom Audience and mark the 1% variation in “Audience Size”.

Okay, now you no longer need to waste so much time and money on the Facebook Ads learning curve until you find the right audience for your campaigns.

2. Make your ads more organic

You know that sophisticated art you spent hours making in Illustrator? I'm sorry to tell you this, but multiple reports from marketers and my experience with dozens of clients has increasingly shown that it is ineffective at attracting attention and engagement on Facebook ads.

Yes, it may be pretty and impress your coworkers, but it's more likely to alienate your target audience than help your conversion rate.

I could talk for hours about why, but I just need to ask one question: when you are browsing Facebook or Instagram and a super colorful image appears on your timeline, with special effects and super sophisticated text fonts, what is your first thought?

• “Oops, an ad! That’s not what I came to see on Facebook.”
• “That’s interesting, let me know more.”

Some may say that one thought doesn't interfere with the other (due to the nature of my profession, I myself love seeing ads) but the truth is that no one who is on these social networks wants to leave them, much less leave them to buy something.

Therefore, a good hack is to make your ads more organic with low-quality images (you didn't read that wrong) and more personal texts, with emojis and figures of speech common to users of these social networks.

But what if my company's communication is more corporate? Is branding worth breaking?

Well, if your company's communication is more corporate, you should rethink, firstly, whether it's really worth advertising on Facebook.

But never leave branding aside, consistency is more important than some people like to imagine.

A recent example was a meme-style campaign I created for a client in the time and attendance application segment. After testing more sophisticated arts and different calls, this simple version brought the most new experiments.

3. Select only people connected to Wi-Fi in some cases

This hack is more specific for those who want to attract leads through eBooks and other materials that the person needs to download: select “Only connected to Wi-Fi” in Positioning in your ads' audience settings.

Why?

Brazil is one of the developing countries with the worst internet in the world. To begin with, almost 70 million Brazilians don't even have access to the internet – let alone quality internet.

Who will say, even more so, quality mobile internet.

Therefore, when you run a campaign of this nature, select “Only connected to Wi-Fi” in the Positioning stage. Furthermore, avoid using words like “download” and “download” (replace with “access” or “see”) and leave the good old “Learn More” on the call button.

I hope you can take advantage of the hacks in your Facebook ads and that from today onwards you will no longer be the person who says phrases like “Facebook Ads don’t work!”.