It’s no secret that digital advertising has gone mobile. Smartphones and mobile devices are now the primary vehicles shoppers use to research purchases, access social media and consume digital content. And marketers have taken notice: According to eMarketer, mobile will account for more than 62 percent of digital ad spending in 2016.
Nowhere is this shift to mobile more noticeable than with Facebook. Facebook is truly a mobile-first platform, with more than 1 billion mobile daily active users. What’s more, 56 percent of Facebook users access the network exclusively on mobile.
With numbers that overwhelming, It’s no wonder that 84 percent of Facebook ad revenue is now mobile.
So if you are looking to drive conversions and customers from Facebook advertising, it’s clear that you must think mobile-first. And that means avoiding these common mobile-related mistakes.
Mistake No. 1: Location, Location, Location
In mobile advertising, location is often the strongest signal of consumer intent. Someone seeing your Facebook ad within a few blocks of your store, dealership or business is most likely a higher-quality lead than someone seeing it at home.
Facebook has several geo-targeting options to help you get the right message in front of the right person at the right time. For example, you can show ads to consumers who are traveling or vacationing in a specific area with messaging or offers relevant to their situation. Or you can provide special offers to shoppers who have recently passed by a specific store—or are near or at a competitor’s location.
Be sure that the content in the ad and on the landing page is hyper-localized, showing information—including address and local phone number—for that specific location.
Mistake No. 2: Ignoring Call Conversions
When consumers engage with digital advertising on their smartphones, they often convert by calling. Facebook and social media advertising will drive more than 12 billion calls to U.S. businesses this year, and that number will triple to over 36 billion in 2019. Those are staggering numbers.
And while historically call conversions haven’t been something most digital marketers have given much thought to, that has begun to change thanks to smartphones and click-to-call functionality. Smartphones are still phones, after all, and thanks to click-to-call, a phone call is the easiest and most natural conversion path for consumers researching a purchase on their smartphones. So be sure to optimize your Facebook advertising for call conversions. This includes:
- Testing the “call now” button in your Facebook local awareness ads.
- Including a prominent phone number or call button on every page of your website.
- Testing landing pages with “call now” as the main call to action.
- Making sure you attribute call conversions from your Facebook ads to accurately measure cost per lead and prove (and improve) return on investment.
Mistake No. 3: Failing to Offer the Right Incentives
Facebook advertising is different than search advertising. People seeing your ads in their Facebook News Feeds aren’t actually searching for your products or services. It’s important to give them a reason to stop what they’re doing and click on your ad.
You should test different promotions, from percentage discounts to value-added incentives, to see what works best for different demographics.
One tip is to make your offer smartphone-related. You know the person seeing your ad is an active smartphone user, so if you are a hotel chain, for example, show ads promoting free mobile check-in or free WiFi. You might be surprised what offers or incentives mobile users will bite on.
Mistake No. 4: Not Getting Specific With Your Retargeting
Retargeting consumers who have visited your website with Facebook ads is a no-brainer. But don’t settle for one-size-fits-all ad messaging. Smartphone users give you a wealth of nuanced targeting options to test.
For example, you can show a relevant ad and offer for someone who has visited your site and called you from a specific webpage. You can combine targeting options to show ads to previous visitors who are also traveling in your area. You can show ads to people who filled out a form on your site but haven’t called you—and who your sales team has been unable to get on the phone—to get them to call back.
Smartphone users expect relevant, personalized ads, and mixing and matching Facebook targeting options helps you tailor your messaging and offers to optimize conversions.
Avoiding these four mobile Facebook advertising mistakes is a good start, but as with other digital channels, true success on Facebook requires continual testing and optimization. Don’t restrict yourself to the same tactics you’ve always used with desktop ads: Take advantage of the wide variety of targeting and conversion options Facebook and smartphones offer, accurately measure results and keep optimizing for what’s really working.
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