Why Your Social Media Ads Aren’t Working

When it comes to different forms of marketing, it’s important not to forget about social media as a great avenue towards sales. Estimates predict that almost half the world is on at least one social media platform, which means you do not want to miss this opportunity. 

However, you may already be trying to work your way onto the social media landscape but are having trouble gaining traction. You need to take a hard look at your social media campaign strategy, keeping in mind that thousands of other businesses promote social media ads daily. Don’t get discouraged; instead, look to see what you can do to stand out from the crowd.

Goals

The first aspect of the advertising strategy you need to evaluate is if your social media ads are working towards your goals or not. Every ad should have a clear purpose by which success is measured. So, you need to ask:

• Am I trying to get more engagement?
• Am I trying to get more followers? 

The goal of every ad is important because different types of ads will garner a different response. If you are trying to get clicks through to your website, you need to give them an incentive. 

Make sure that you avoid engagement baiting, which is essentially asking for likes. Facebook has called out these types of posts, causing the algorithm to demote this type of advertising as of late 2017.

Target Audience

The second step is to set a clear target audience for each ad, as that will dictate the type of ad you should be using. Within your analytics on each social media site, you can see what demographic your brand is currently appealing to online. 

If this is your target audience already, great! Keep doing what you’re doing! If not, you need to investigate alternative types of ads to reach them. For the food and beverage industry, you will want to focus on more visual ads. The visual nature of food and drinks gets enhanced on social media, especially through influencer marketing.

To investigate if your ads are reaching your demographic, Google Analytics is a free tool you can use to see how people respond to social media ads by tracking how many visits to your website you have garnered from the campaign and by whom. If all is well, keep it up. If not, adapt your strategy accordingly.

Formatting

The third aspect you should ensure is that your ads get formatted for whatever platform you are using. For instance, Facebook has many different format types, and Instagram has several different image ratios to consider when posting. Find which aspect ratios are possible for different Facebook and Instagram ads here.

Generally, you will be cropping your images on Instagram to fit their square format. If you place an ad in the standard Instagram feed that is not properly formatted, it will look sloppy and have people scrolling by. However, this also means that you will need to create separate content for each social media platform to fit that platform in the most optimized way.

While this might seem like a lot of work, there are several sites and apps that allow you to resize content easily, such as Photo Resizer. Find other handy social media tools here.

Platform

The last aspect you should be looking at is what social media platform you are using to attract your target audience. For the food and beverage industry, the best platforms emphasize visuals that provide the most optimum experience for your audience to view your product. 

This industry does well on Instagram because food and drink pictures already dominate that space. The specific demographics of people you are trying to convert into customers will determine this for you. If you’re looking for a younger audience, it would also be good to look at TikTok, as nearly half the user base there is under 30 years old.

These are just a few ways you can improve your social media ads, but the key to getting it right is at your fingertips. Understand where your audience is, and you will find them. Go in with clear goals, and do not be afraid to stand out. If you are still struggling, reach out to us for a free consultation!