Timing is important

Marketing and tech snafus happen to the best of us.

That’s why we have protocols here at Legal Marketing Maven to leave enough time to test our clients’ Facebook ads well in advance of a big event in case there’s something funky happening on the backend.

We didn’t always have this rule. We learned the hard way after encountering some of these headaches after placing our ads:

  • The copy the client wanted was NOT approved.
  • Facebook decided to lock down the client’s entire ad account for some reason (needed to verify billing, had to provide a copy of their license to show they were not a bot, etc.). We had to file appeals, upload docs, and sometimes it took a few weeks to resolve.
  • There was a glitch in the way the ad was communicating with the landing page. We ran into a situation where the ad worked fine on the computer, but when we tested it on our mobile devices, no one could fill out the form. If we didn’t catch that and fix it before it went live, it would have been a huge waste of money!
  • The ad turned itself off. This literally just happened to us. We don’t know why. We have the notification that the ad was approved. We went back to check on it because we didn’t see registrations coming in and the ad was magically turned off and glitching. We deleted it and started over.
  • There’s a mistake in the ad. It happens. Again, if you are placing your ads far enough in advance and taking the time to test things, you’ll have some breathing room to fix mistakes in your targeting or copy if they come up.

We generally like to place our ads about 28-30 days prior to an event so we can get it approved, tested and then we can pause till our actual planned start date.

And, we TEST the ads! Facebook will generate a link directly to your ad so you can share it with your team and ask other people to “opt-in.” Be sure to test from as many types of devices and browsers as possible. This will give you peace of mind knowing that your ad is working on all devices.

Facebook ads can be tricky… even for those of us who run them on a regular basis. Always give yourself enough of a buffer to deal with any mistakes or issues that might come up along the way.

Of course, if you have any specific questions about running ads, I’m happy to help. Hop over to our FREE Facebook group and let me know what’s on your mind.