12 Things I Hate About Facebook Ads
12 Things I Hate About Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are a platform that allows you to reach potential customers through Facebook. The social media site sells ad space, which can be in mobile apps, right-hand column of Facebook pages, right-hand column of the desktop newsfeed, and within the desktop or mobile newsfeed. However, Facebook ads do have their shortcomings and below is a list by Tony Guo (http://www.linkedin.com/in/tyguo/) of the most incensing.
1. It is Hard to Maintain Control
The process of controlling what appears on your public profile can be time-consuming. The reason for this is that anyone can post photos or videos on your Facebook wall. If you do not have someone watching what people post to your Facebook page all the time, it can be quite damaging to your brand. Thus, you need to employ someone to handle what is posted all the time. It is quite expensive.
2. Maintaining Professionalism is Difficult
Facebook was created to be a fun place where people can socialize. Consequently, a brand needs to work extra hard if it hopes to maintain a professional image. There is a risk that your brand may not be taken seriously if it is o Facebook. Thus, one needs to spend more time augmenting their ads to ensure that they look quite professional. However, Facebook does not help much with this. Nightclubs ads look quite similar to those of law firms for instance.
3. Extensive Cluttered
The Facebook newsfeed looks quite cluttered even to a casual observer. Just at the moment when your ad appears, there could be a funny meme next to it, which distracts the viewer. The result is that users of Facebook Ads have to be extra creative to ensure that no other images in the newsfeed obscure their ads.
4. Low CTR
Compared to a platform like AdWords, the Facebook CTR rate are quite low. The result is that your dollars could end up going to waste. With the extremely low CTR rate on Facebook, you may never actually convert to significant levels after spending so much time creating your perfect ad.
5. Irrelevant Ads
If you use Facebook, you have no doubt seen some bizarre ad appear in your newsfeed. Facebook is still working hard to get rid of this problem. If you are an advertiser, you know that your ads are appearing to the wrong kind of people. It is just one more reason why I hate Facebook Ads.
6. Competition
On Facebook, you work is prone to easy duplication. People can pose as your fans or friends, while in the real sense they are competitors who want to copy your strategy. Facebook makes it quite hard for advertisers to maintain a discrete strategy. Thus, you will have to work more to beat the competition than you would on forums such as AdWords.
7. There is a lot of Negativity
One issue that everyone can agree on about using Facebook Ads is the high number of negative comment. Some of the comments come from trolls while others are from people who may have good intentions but their comments come out sounding wrong. Deciding how to deal with each comment can be quite stressful especially when each comment section can have thousands of comments.
8. It is Crowded
Since Facebook shows a lot of promise, the competition is everywhere. Even companies that may have traditionally shied away from digital marketing use Facebook Ads. The result is that when you are trying to sell something, there are hundreds or tens of other competitors trying to sell the same product to your target audience.
9. Measuring Results is Hard
Facebook introduce the unsubscribe feature, which allows people to unsubscribe from your page even when they like it. The result is that you may never know how many people actually see what you post. The result is that estimating the success of a campaign can be quite difficult.
10. Fake Clicks
The problem with Facebook is that it is proliferated with fake accounts. The fake accounts are automated to click on your ads and your page. They do this in an attempt to look genuine. However, it can create huge problems for you in terms of advertising dollars.
11. Problems with Credibility
Facebook has no control over who can advertise on their site. The result is that there is an incredibly huge amount of scams being run in ad sections. The result is that even when people see your ads, they have a hard time believing in them. The result is that you would have to use other mediums of advertising in an attempt to build credibility for your product. It also means that you to take more time to design an ad that will appear credible than on other platforms.
12. Few Advertising Choices
On Facebook, the size of banner ads is quite limited. Besides that, other options for designing ads are quite limited. The result is that most ads on the social network look quite similar. It is also worth noting that people using social media take banner ads with less seriousness than on other types of advertising sites.
When you are thinking of using Facebook ads, consider these 12 twelve things that I hate about it. They may help you save a few dollars.
