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If you're running Facebook ads or having an agency run them for you, there are so many factors that go into the quantity of the leads you get and the quality of the leads that you get. So, if you wanna get good results with your ads, watch this video, learn from these ten mistakes that I myself have made made and seen other contractors make so that your ads can perform as good as possible. Let's dive in. So, mistake number one is adding too many qualifying questions in the lead forms.
So, when a homeowner is using Facebook, they're typically in escape mode, they're typically in relaxation mode. You know, they're trying to de stress, they're trying to relax. So even if they have a legit need, like they have an old HVAC system that needs to be replaced or they have a kitchen remodel they want to get done, at the specific time they're on social media that they're coming across your ad, they're not in work mode, they're in relaxation mode. And so even if they have that legit need and they see your ad and they click on it, if you're asking too many questions, you're just gonna turn them off and they're not gonna fill out your form at all.
So, if you have five different questions of what's your budget and when do you want to get started and what type of project are you looking for and all this stuff, rather than boosting the lead quality, you're just going to reduce the overall lead number that you get. Now, you really only need one to two qualifying questions on your lead form. So, that can be, you know, are you a homeowner? You could potentially ask about budget.
You could potentially ask about how soon are you looking to get started. That's usually enough to boost the quality of the leads, filter out the bots that fill out the forms, and help you just overall improve the lead quality without killing the lead quantity too much. Number two is trying to advertise too many different services in one ad. If you put an ad out there and you say, you know, hey we do kitchen models and bathroom models and this and that and the other.
What can tend to happen is you can be sending the message to your potential customers that you're just looking for any type of work you can get. And then what I've seen happen before is you get calls for people who are looking for handyman type of services. Another challenge with this is that it doesn't help the Facebook algorithm optimize very well because if you have a campaign about kitchens and you know that campaign is all about kitchens, those ads are all about kitchens, then that helps Facebook's algorithm show that ad to people who are interested in kitchens. So it helps performance, and it also helps you because when you are, you know, what what type of company or what type of project is most profitable for your company? Right? Is it, you know, just whatever you can get or are there specific types of projects?
You know, do you want HVAC installed specifically? Do you want, you know, one day shower type of bath projects, right? So whatever it is that's streamlined for your business model that you can easily fulfill, it's going to be profitable. That's kind of what you want to focus on anyways.
So your campaign should usually just focus on one type of project so you can get the best leads for you and then also optimize the algorithm to get the right types of customers reaching out. Number three is targeting that's way too specific. So I'm talking about you know, adding special interest in there, people who are interested in home improvement, people who live in these top ten percent of zip codes, people who, you know, are married, people who have kids, people who this that that. Facebook does have a lot of great targeting options that you can add in.
So So it's tempting to just throw a bunch of them in there. The thing is, what tends to happen is you end up narrowing it down way too much so that there's actually not enough people to get in front of for the algorithm to do its job to show your ad to the right people. So Facebook's algorithm, Facebook's AI basically analyzes potentially hundreds or thousands of different data points. It also kind of tracks people's activity to some extent.
So if somebody's been googling about kitchen models or googling about an HVAC system or googling about a roof, it's naturally going to show more roofing ads or more, you know, kitchen or whatever it is to that person. So, since the algorithm optimizes for you, you want to focus less on that strict targeting and you want to focus more on the messaging in your ads and having a body of the ad that talks in detail about the specific benefits you offer. And that'll help you, not narrow down too much and I think you'll see that you get a lot more leads and good quality leads than if you're just, trying to squish the targeting way too small.
Number four is only targeting a broad area. So this is more of a time constraint, you know, in a lot of cases. So, you know, it's a lot easier to create a campaign, or create multiple campaigns that span across a whole state or multiple counties or, you know, a fifty mile radius, which can be good at first to kinda get a little bit of data as far as what's gonna work. But what tends to work better that we've seen is doing micro campaigns for specific towns and neighborhoods and then calling out those specific towns and neighborhoods.
This has the effect of, you know, people who seeing the ad realizing how relevant it it is to them. So they know it's a local company. They know it's just not a broad ad they were targeted with. And it also helps you to prevent getting a lot of leads from outside the service area. Right? Because if you're targeting, you know, if you're calling out, like a local town here is Mechanicsburg. Right? If you're calling out Mechanicsburg and you someone lives in Mechanicsburg and they see that, they're likely to to associate a lot more with it and you're likely to get less leads that are gonna be from out of state.
So that's something that can really help. So I would say a mistake on that end would be just running the broad campaigns forever and then never testing out those smaller campaigns of just those super micro targeted areas. Number five is only using ad graphics. Ad graphics can be great to illustrate some type of, you know, big special discount, financing offer, you know, something that you really need visuals to communicate and need visuals to capture attention.
But in so many cases, we've seen that just real authentic pictures of people, you know, not super professionally done or anything like that, but just pictures of people working on HVAC system or working on a kitchen remodel or working on a roof tend to be the highest performing types of ads that get the lowest the lowest cost per lead. So if that's, what your goal is, which I'm assuming you're watching this video because you do win lots of leads, definitely at least consider testing out, some image ads that just feel, you know, personal, authentic, in addition to the graphics that you're running. Number six is not including an obvious offer. So for things that are more of like need purchases. So a roof is more of a need. An HVAC system is more of a need.
Usually, what works best to generate leads is some type of financial incentive or offer or, you know, you could run a free repair. You could run a, you know, a free inspection or a discount on a system or a financing on a new roof, something like that. It's usually those in the financial types of incentives that people respond to. So, you know, if you're in one of those types of verticals and you're just offering a free quote or something or, yeah, just something that's really generic, call our company, whatever.
You're probably not gonna get a very good volume of leads reaching out through the ad. Now those types of ads can work good for remodels if it's just kind of more generic. There's not a financial offer, but it does talk about the unique benefits of your remodeling company. Those do tend to work and in a lot of cases they actually work better than the financial incentives because they get a better quality of lead. but again, for those need type purchases where you know, HVAC is boring, right? Nobody wants to replace their HVAC system until they really need to and it's getting super old and then, you know, they see an ad that says how they can pay over time. That's appealing, right? So having some kind of financial incentive in your ads for those need based services will probably help you get a higher volume of leads than not having them.
Number seven is no call to action after the lead submits their form. So let me explain what I'm talking about. So, on Facebook lead forms, whenever the lead submits their information, they go to a second page that's just like a thank you page. And you have so many opportunities here. You could try to get people to call in right away. That might save you some time on the follow-up. You can send them to a landing page that has a bunch of testimonials. You can send them to your website. At the very least, you can send them to, you know, a video that's just, you know, you kinda talking to them like a video sales letter. They're getting to know you better. They're building trust. There's a lot you can do with that empty space that I don't think very many people do much with.
You know, you can have them potentially go schedule their own appointment on your calendar. There's so much. So, you know, look at what can you do with that, what would make the most sense for your business, and then maybe implement one of those so that those people that are already becoming leads, they're taking an extra step that's an additional step towards your business, towards signing on with your business. Number eight is only running call now ads. So, again, when somebody's on social media, they're in relaxation mode.
A lot of times, it'll be after work, you know, six, seven, eight PM, something like that. And if they are relaxing on social media and and it's for a service that's not necessarily urgent, so maybe it's important to replace their old HVAC system, maybe it's important to talk to contractors for a kitchen remodel. But at that specific time of relaxation, you know, tapping the button to call now and talk to somebody on the phone is just not a super appealing option. It's just not a, you know, my first instinct, right, to call somebody when I'm trying to relax.
So for something like that, or for something like Facebook, what really helps is having the lead forms that are, you know, they go in, put in their information, and they request a callback. They can, you know, claim the special offer, whatever it is, and then you call them back later. We tend to see that you get a lot more leads when you're doing that, when you're doing a strict, call now type of thing. Now Now one alternative that you could do or one kind of midpoint that you could do is still having your phone number in the ads.
And that way you're kind of capturing those people who maybe are a little bit higher intent, maybe they do want to talk to somebody right now, but then the vast majority of people can still go and click on the lead form, fill out their information, and have their information get sent to you. Number nine, and this is probably the biggest one, is incorrect follow-up. So a lot of people treat social media leads the same way they treat Google lead, which is you know, it's a speed to lead game. They'll call a bunch of times really fast, and then if that lead does not you know, respond and does not schedule, they assume it's a dead lead and then they don't touch it anymore.
With the social media lead, they are very close to the end of the buying funnel. They are well, if the messaging is right in your ads, right, they're very close to the end of the buying funnel, but they're not all the way there yet. And so with a social media lead, you have to extend that follow-up to be a little bit longer. You wanna call that first whole week, you wanna text them, and then you wanna follow-up once a month or once every three months or something like that to make sure that you're walking with them in the rest of their buying journey so that you get that customer.
Super important to implement that, super important to, just treat that lead a little bit differently and have that extended follow-up that maybe you wouldn't have on a Google lead. And I think you'll see that when you do that, you'll book a lot more and sell a lot more of your social media leads. So mistake number ten is just giving up and swearing off Facebook ads way too soon. So according to Napoleon Catt, there's about seventy four point five percent of the entire US population on Facebook.
So whoever your customers are, even if they're super high end customers, it's very unlikely that they're not on Facebook. Even if you take that seventy four percent of the US population and really scrunch it down to your ideal target audience, it's still very likely that they are on Facebook. So, it's more about finding the right messaging and finding the right way to sort of get them into your funnel and and knowing how to talk to your customers specifically in order to make Facebook work for you. And in some cases, it might be more of a trust thing, it might have to be a longer term process, but it probably is doable and probably just takes some time and experimentation.
So don't make the mistake of trying because there are so many different ways to do it. So don't make the mistake of trying one Facebook ads company, and then that not working for you, and then you swear it off completely. You're trying to run them yourself and it not working, and then sorting them off completely. It does take a lot of it's competitive.
It takes time. It takes attention. It takes testing several different things out, but usually it can be done. So that's it. Those are the ten mistakes. Hopefully you learned something from this video. If you did, like, comment, subscribe. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below and I'll do my best to answer them for you. And I look forward to seeing you in the next video.