7 Mistakes Landscaping Companies Make with Facebook Ads
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The Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
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No social media platform competes with the vast reach that Facebook has. Hootsuite reports that Facebook ads reach 63.7% of all Americans over the age of 13—which is an impressive statistic that shows how incredible Facebook is. But what good is this amazing tool if it’s not used correctly? And is Facebook really still relevant to growing a landscaping company?
You’ve likely read articles about how to market on Facebook, but the information applies primarily to influencers or large brands who want to create that viral piece of content that garners worldwide reach, countless likes, and millions of followers. That advice doesn’t really apply to landscape industry professionals simply because their goals are different.
If you’re in the residential or commercial lawn care industry, a landscape or pool contractor, or anywhere in between, your target audience is local, not worldwide. Leading companies also have a clearly defined niche that differentiates them and narrows their target customer base even further.
Running an effective Facebook Ads campaign looks different for landscape industry professionals than it does for other industries. It’s easy to be misguided or simply lost when it comes to Facebook ads. At HALSTEAD, we’ve managed millions of dollars of industry-specific ad spend and gathered some pretty interesting learnings along the way. There are definitely some common mistakes that we see industry pros make when it comes to running Facebook ads, and here we’ll highlight seven big ones in hopes of saving you loads of frustration and years of reduced ROI.
1. Not Dialing in the Target Audience
The secret to achieving that coveted formula of the perfect audience to creative match is thoroughly researching your audience and getting to know exactly who they are and what they want. According to Statista, there are nearly 3 billion monthly active users on Facebook, and World Population Review reports that there are approximately 240 million users in the United States.
You can understand why narrowing down your target audience is essential if you want to reach people who you have any possibility of converting. Targeting an audience that is far too broad or that isn’t your ideal audience results in a wasted ad budget.
Leading companies take the time to develop their ideal customer personas and decide which personas they want to target with a specific ad. Here are some questions to ask that will help you determine your target audience.
How old are they?
What do they do for a living?
Do they have children?
Where do they live?
What are their interests?
Knowing this information will help you match your creative strategy with your Facebook ad campaign goals. Here is an example of how a targeting strategy might look:
2. No Clear Goals or Objectives
If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve arrived? Setting clear goals or objectives is the first step in developing an effective Facebook ad campaign for your landscape or pool contractor business.
When choosing your objective, make sure it can be measured to see if it’s working or not. A Facebook KPI (key performance indicator) or metric is used to track details of a specific ad campaign. Analyzing the KPIs on any given ad campaign will help you determine if your goals are being met and if changes need to be made.
Facebook categorizes core objectives into three groups related to the customer journey: awareness, consideration, and conversions.
Awareness
If you want to increase people’s awareness of your business, your objective may be “brand awareness.” If you want your ad shown to as many people in your target audience as possible, then your objective may be “reach.”
For this example, we’ll say you run a landscape maintenance business that has been primarily residential. You’ve recently begun offering commercial landscape maintenance services, and you want to spread awareness to as many local property managers as possible to get the word out there.
Reach is important in this example because it calculates how many different people have seen your ad vs. views, which could include the same person seeing your ad multiple times. The objective is to reach as many people in your target audience as possible.
Since the main goal in this example is not to drive actual sales, you may want to use brand awareness ads mixed in with other advertising objectives to effectively convert viewers into prospects or leads. Brand awareness is the first step in a multi-step retargeting funnel because viewers are more likely to convert into leads later when they see retargeting ads.
Consideration
The consideration objective is meant to get your target audience to think deeper about your business and seek more information. Your goal within this objective may be to increase traffic to your website, boost video views, generate leads, or connect with potential customers on Messenger.
For this example, we’ll say that you are a pool contractor specializing in luxury builds and surrounding landscapes. You want your target audience to visit your online portfolio to view past projects that you have built, which effectively works as your website’s landing page for this objective. This actual ad that HALSTEAD created for a client is the perfect example of such an ad.
Facebook will track how many people click on your website link, and from there, you can use Facebook Pixel on your website to track activity. This data will help you measure the effectiveness of your Facebook ads efforts.
Conversions
Your primary objective in most of your advertising efforts is ultimately conversion, and a multi-step funnel is the path that leads there. The conversion objective can be measured by tracking the people who submit a form with their contact information on your website, send you a message via Messenger, or call your business. It’s a way to transition the solo prospect journey into a more personal one where you can help encourage them along the customer journey.
For this example, we’ll say that you run an outdoor living design and build firm specializing in complete landscapes, which include outdoor kitchens, shade structures, pools, lighting, sound, etc. At this step in the journey, your objective is to encourage potential customers to set up an appointment for a consultation.
Facebook will track how many people click on your link to set up an appointment. This helps you determine if the Facebook ad creative is working effectively and leading to conversions. No matter your goal or objective, you can use the data to make changes to improve overall performance.
3. Failing to Develop a Strategy
An effective Facebook Ads strategy considers the user experience primarily because the social platform’s main objective is to keep users hanging out on Facebook. Facebook users are on the platform for social purposes, not necessarily for purchasing purposes. They’re looking to be entertained, stay in touch with their families and friends, and to learn new information.
Your strategy will vary depending on what your goals and objectives are. Leading firms utilize multiple techniques to guide a lead through the customer journey.
Educational Marketing Strategies for Landscape Contractors
At HALSTEAD, we’ve found that leading with an educational or content marketing strategy is an excellent way to provide value to potential leads so that they will engage with your content. This then signals the Facebook algorithm that your content is valuable in regard to keeping their users engaged. It’s a careful balance between appealing to your target audience while also appeasing Facebook’s algorithm.
So what does an educational marketing strategy look like? It means creating content that helps your target audience in some way. It means being people-focused and leading with value and providing solutions for their pain points. Technically referred to as inbound marketing, it’s a great strategy for landscape marketing.
For example, if your company provides residential lawn care services, a potential pain point for your customer might be that their lawn is brown and/or filled with weeds. Ultimately, they want their lawn to look green, impressive, and healthy, and they need a solution to make it happen.
Top companies would run a Facebook ad campaign that targets this pain point and shows how their services can be the solution to this problem. This ad could feature a before and an after photo, for instance, showing the dramatic difference your fertilization or irrigation services have made on lawns just like theirs.
Successful Facebook ads have a call to action (CTA) to click on a link that takes the user to a page on the website. Perhaps if the user is in the middle stage of the funnel, this could be a blog post on your website about why fertilization or irrigation should be included in a lawn care plan. This content will be educational and provide value while also sparking interest in your company’s services.
Strategically Creating an Irresistible Ad
The entire process of creating Facebook ads should be strategic, including the choice of words, the visuals/media included, and the CTA that is suggested. All of these elements go into creating an irresistible ad that will help you reach your goals and meet your objectives.
Here are some of the common mistakes companies make when creating content for their Facebook ads.
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MISTAKE #1: CREATING AD TEXT THAT’S TOO LONG
While Facebook recommends limiting the primary text to 125 characters, it’s very hard to get people interested in just one sentence. At HALSTEAD, we have found that the text shouldn’t be too long for the top of the funnel, but text used in retargeting can be slightly longer since the user already knows you.
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MISTAKE #2: NOT USING VIDEOS FOR MARKETING
According to HubSpot, link posts receive 73% less engagement than video posts. That’s a considerable difference and one that leading companies don’t ignore. Professional videography is irresistible and attracts the attention of potential leads by appealing to their emotions.
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MISTAKE #3: NOT INCLUDING A HIGH-QUALITY IMAGE
Photos or images make Facebook content much more compelling than text alone, especially when they are professional quality. In fact, The Social Shepherd reports that posts with photos hold an engagement rate of 4.36%, while text posts hold only a 1.66% engagement rate. This shows the incredible influence that graphics can have. Neither of these compares with the 6.04% engagement rate that video holds, although not all ads can be video ads.
Facebook recommends some best practices for image ads, including using high-resolution images. It’s also important to use the recommended aspect ratio with the asset customization feature in Ads Manager so that the image appears correctly no matter where it is viewed.
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MISTAKE #4: NOT INCLUDING A CLEAR AND ACTIONABLE CTA
The CTA is perhaps the most critical part of any Facebook ad because it directs the user to the next step of the customer journey. 78.1% of those surveyed by Databox report that Facebook ads with CTA buttons perform significantly better than those without them. Facebook makes it easy by providing a list of CTA button copy options that you can choose from, including contact us, get a quote, learn more, open link, send message, and more.
Here is an example of an ad that HALSTEAD created for a leading landscape contractor. Note that it’s educational, the text length is ideal, and there’s a clear call to action.
4. Not Testing Creatives
Even the most successful companies do not create a perfect ad the first time; they do A/B testing and tweak their ads accordingly. Some variables you may want to test include the creative copy and imagery itself, the CTA, targeting criteria, and the ad format. Businesses that run successful Facebook Ads campaigns test one of these variables at a time to strategically determine what works and what doesn’t according to their KPIs.
5. Only Running One Ad for the Whole Season
The most effective Facebook marketing strategies include multiple campaigns with different ads to reach different personas and audiences along each stage of the customer journey. Each of these marketing efforts can be enhanced using retargeting techniques.
For example, one of your ad campaigns could target people who are interested in having an outdoor living space designed and built. Tactically, this ad could include a CTA button to learn more.
Simultaneously, you may also have a campaign for retargeting with a “contact us” CTA button. Tactically, this may mean an ad retargeting website visitors or people who have engaged with your Facebook business page, ideally within the past 90 to 180 days.
In addition, Facebook ad campaigns only remain effective for a finite period of time—for some ads, this may mean only two weeks. According to Databox, 51.2% of those surveyed saw a performance drop after an ad had run for a few weeks.
Showing the same ad to the same audience for an extended period of time can result in something called ad fatigue. Think of all of the times you have switched the TV channel because you’ve seen the same ad so many times already—this is ad fatigue.
A single ad cannot be run for an entire season and remain effective. It’s essential to run fresh, targeted ads to keep your audience from growing bored–which results in less engagement, fewer impressions, and lower click-through rates (CTR). This can be a daunting task for a business owner with an overflowing plate as it is, which is why recruiting the help of a marketing agency to manage your Facebook ads can be so beneficial.
6. Ignoring Analytics & Abandoning Their Ads
Top landscaping companies monitor their Facebook Ads metrics weekly at a minimum. A common mistake that many companies make is creating an ad and then ignoring the analytics and abandoning the ad. Checking back in on the ad’s progress to see how it is performing is an essential strategy. Is it accomplishing your objectives and meeting your goals? If not, it’s time to make some changes so that it is. If you’re not utilizing the valuable insight that Facebook analytics provides, you’re simply throwing your money away.
However, don’t make changes too quickly. Allow a few days to see how the ad is performing so that you have ample data to inform your decisions. Marketing with Facebook Ads requires patience. You may not see the results you’re looking for immediately or even quickly. Remember that the online customer journey takes approximately 79 days, a concept HALSTEAD shared in an article posted by the National Association of Landscape Professionals.
7. Improperly Retargeting
Since the online customer journey takes considerable time, retargeting your warm audience is critical. Facebook Ads Manager provides several retargeting options that allow you to create custom audiences using data, such as your customer email lists, those who watched a particular video, those who visited your website within a specific time period, landing page visitors, those who have engaged with your Facebook and/or Instagram page, and those who submitted a lead form. Facebook Pixel will be a critical tool in determining how to properly retarget to move leads through your funnel.
Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes have undoubtedly made things challenging for marketers—but, as with all the numerous changes in the past, we’ve learned to adapt using new strategies. For example, we can segment the audience and target Android vs. iOS users, run lead magnet campaigns to collect data, broaden website-based custom audiences, and create custom audiences based on Facebook sources. Effectively adjusting to the ever-changing digital marketing “rules” is what separates professional Facebook marketers from those who dabble.