Four Signs You Might Not Be Ready For Facebook Ads

If you think running Facebook or Instagram ads is going to result in instant sales then prepare to spend a lot of money finding out you had a few missing pieces 🙃 or writing off Meta Ads entirely.

1. You haven’t thought about your marketing funnel

All we mean is putting at least some basic thought into each step a customer or lead is likely to make before they decide to purchase from you. And then some thought into what happens after they have purchased from you.

And if they didn’t purchase after visiting your website the first time around….

What do you want to tell them?

How often?

On which platforms and in which formats?

What about after that? 

And if they do purchase immediately….when should they hear from you next? And what will that message be?  

You’re not silly, you know that Facebook Ads will not make up for a poor customer experience, lack of follow up or slow AF website. So having a Digital Marketing approach that considers the end to end experience is key and it’s only then your digital ads will fly.

2. You haven’t thought about your customer lifecycle

How much is a new customer worth to you or how much would you be willing or able to pay to have ten or twenty new customers walk through your door with their wallets open ready to spend $100, $150, $200?

What is your customer return rate like?

How much does an average customer spend with your business over six months or a year?

And once you have a paying customer or client what are you doing to get them back in the door and buy again?

If you haven’t considered any of this, you might not be ready for Facebook or Instagram advertising campaigns today…. but you can get yourself ready by figuring out these answers ASAP.

3. You don't understand your data

Too many business owners shy away from deep diving into their Google Analytics but the answers to all you seek are more than likely sitting there ready to be analysed.  So if you don’t know the following you might not be ready for Facebook Advertising:

Where your website traffic coming from

Where your conversions coming from

How many times someone might visit your site before they convert

Your most searched for content

If you haven’t setup your GA4 events since the switch from Google Universal Analytics in 2023, then you might struggle to answer these questions! If you’re already chatting with Digital Advertising Agencies about managing your campaigns for you, keep in mind that they can’t promise you any kind of success or result without being able to establish your baseline. Which you may not have.

4. Your only goal is to make money ASAP

Here’s a fun business secret for the uninitiated, it takes more time, energy and money to nail digital ads than you think. It takes time and analysis and testing and money to achieve a consistent ROI and the ability to throw it all away and start again when campaigns inevitably stop returning a result.

You and your agency will need to move with the times, listen to what the data is telling you, re-work your angles, your messaging, your creative.

Your digital ads results will be impacted by elections, the economy, sporting events, wars that happen far from home, politics that have little to do with your day to day life and many things that don’t relate to your business in the slightest…. and ones that do.

If you’re new to digital advertising, if you don’t have a lot of data, if you’ve only just installed GA4 or have really only just established a digital marketing strategy then expecting instant sales is a recipe for disappointment.

If you’re already in discussion with a Digital Ads provider make sure to ask them directly what metrics they will own/can influence so you can decide if that is the outcome you want to be investing in. And even better if you ask a few different agencies, and people inside those agencies to compare answers.

You may learn a hard lesson about your expectations or find the perfect provider for you who knows their stuff and can explain it to you in a way that ticks all your boxes.

So what now?

1. If you can tick off even one of these outstanding actions before jumping into Meta Advertising you will be in a much better position than you are right now

2. Ask your agency or service provider what metrics they are working to influence and what happens if they can’t move the needle in a way that makes financial sense for your investment…most Digital Ad Agencies are not trying to rip you off or mislead you, they just might not have missed a trick when it came to communicating expectations in the beginning of your relationship.

3. Remember that your Digital Ads Agency is often not responsible for the end to end sales and marketing plan, so they can’t be responsible for delivering all of your sales revenue. Work with them as a partner and an expert, and make sure your broader strategy supports the work they are doing to get your best results.

If you want a chat, our inbox is always open!