Why targeted advertising doesn't work? 10 key mistakes

Why my company's targeted advertising doesn't work? 10 key mistakes and the ways to solve them by sol.agency 

Ineffective creative ads

The ineffectiveness of the creative ads is indicated by a low CTR (advertising click-through rate).

Why is he low?

The same creatives are used for different target audiences

Users often see the same creative and have already stopped paying attention to it

Too much text on the screen

Poor image quality

Text is too small

Solution:

Study creative ads of successful brands and develop observational skills

Do not mislead the user and use only a real USP (unique selling proposition)

Do not place a lot of text on the creative. The optimal ratio is 70% of space - product/service image, 30% - text with information about the discount, benefits and call to action

Consider the characteristics of the target audience

Test each idea and picture on a specific audience, since the reaction may be unexpected. It is advisable to create at least three creatives for one group

Wrong target audience

Ads will definitely not be effective if they are aimed at the wrong audience. Even one product often has several categories of customers with different needs and interests, so the settings and creatives for them should be different.

Solution:

Create a portrait of your client

Segment your target audience into small groups and identify current needs for each

Conduct testing. A/B tests with small budgets will help you make sure that your target audience is chosen correctly.

Non-selling texts

The texts do not meet the needs of the selected target audience, usage of complex and obscure words, lack of the message purpose and not being specific in the text.

Solution:

Focus on making the text easy to understand, engaging from the first words, and pushing on the reader's "pains and needs".

Small budget

Algorithms for displaying targeted advertising on social networks are self-learning, but this takes some time. That's why a small budget is simply not enough for the system to show creatives to the required number of users, analyze their reactions and select your target audience.

Solution:

It’s obvious - don’t skimp on the budget for targeted advertising. Plan amounts for initial testing, the main campaign, and tests of additional hypotheses, etc.

Your website or social networks are looking unpresentable

The effectiveness of the targeted ads largely depends on the platform where the advertisement leads - no one wants to spend their time in an empty web-page or unattractive community.

The lack of necessary information, a small number of comments under posts, and slow feedback can be off-putting. Accordingly, there will be no applications at all, or they will be too expensive due to low conversion.

Solution:

For example, if we are talking about a website, you need to check the functionality of the buttons, the relevance of the information, its design, ease of perception, and page loading speed.

Too general interests selected

The principle “the more the better” regarding the interests of the target audience does not work. When choosing a large number of interests, the algorithm does not understand what to focus on and chaotically shows ads to everyone.

Solution:

Determine the main interests of your audience - no more than 2-5, in rare cases - up to 5-10.

Don't forget about segmentation. If your potential audience is interested in sports, cars, and vegetarianism, you don't need to list them all at the same time.

You can use formulas and operators (commands “and”, “or”, “not”), intersection of audiences

No Call To Action (CTA)

Users sometimes don’t understand or don’t want to figure out what exactly they are required to do after reading an ad. Sometimes it's hard to deside whether you should subscribe, register or buy something.

Solution:

Think about what action you expect from the user and mention it in the text. The call must be one and specific, usually in the form of an imperative verb: “Subscribe”, “Register”, etc.

Advertising budget limits are not specified

They allow you not to spend more than the originally planned amounts. But novice targetologists sometimes simply forget to set them up. As a result, all the money are spend in a short period of time.

Solution:

Be sure to set budget limits for targeted advertising. They come in two types:

24 hours limit (the amount per day for a specific ad, upon reaching which impressions automatically stop and start again at the beginning of the next day);

Limit for a specific advertising campaign

Professionals believe that it is better to choose the first option so as not to spend the entire budget at once. If several campaigns are running simultaneously, specify limits for the entire group so that the budget is distributed between ads in favor of the most effective ones. The amount should be chosen taking into account your goals and capabilities. It can be changed at any time.

Frequently changing campaign settings

Changing the settings of a running advertising campaign immediately after any of the indicators deteriorate is a bad idea. They can be associated with bursts of activity at different times of the day and days of the week, compliance with the established limit, etc. Conversions are also uneven throughout the week: on weekdays their number can increase, on weekends the price of the target action increases.

The system also needs time to train (test impressions to different segments, analysis and focusing on the appropriate audience), and when changing settings, the process starts anew each time.

Solution: 

Do not take decisive action right away and analyze the dynamics, otherwise you will not be able to draw objective conclusions. If you really want to test new settings, launch a new campaign with new parameters.

Incorrect GEO setting

In this case, you are simply showing all users an advertisement that is irrelevant to them.

Solution:

Use different options for setting up geo: city name, points on the map indicating the preferred radius, indirect signs (for example, community subscribers in your city).

We hope this article was useful for you and you will no longer make annoying mistakes that are blocking your targeted ads performance.

Well, in order to be 100% sure in the effectiveness of your ads, contact sol.agency, and your ad campaign is guaranteed to be effective.