Articles on optimising your Facebook advertising abound but few actually provide the nitty-gritty details you need to really take action…until now. Every tip on this list is meant to bring you closer to achieving your FB advertising ROI goals. So without further ado…the list:

1. Get in touch with your Facebook representative, not everyone has access to this level of service at FB but if you do, ask for access to customer clusters. FB has many databases at their disposal to aggregate customer data. Taking advantage of their powerful tools will allow you to target users based on demographics instead of interest.
2. When segmenting your audience, exclude lookalikes (LAL) for each other – this will create cleaner targeting by reducing overlap. Resist the urge to get overly complex with this setting – just start with your largest group and go from there.
3. If your campaign includes geographic targeting, carefully make your selections to ensure that your offer matches your target. Facebook will allow you to reach out to both those who live in the selected region and those who just happen to be in the area. In most cases, it is better to target those who live in the target area.
4. Target friends of fans. It takes multiple interactions with a brand before anyone actually takes action. Your fans may have mentioned you to a friend – targeting this group is a great way to capitalize on those recommendations.
5. Start new campaigns with a 3% to 10% lookalike of purchasers.
6. If possible, setup these lookalike audiences:
   1. 1% to 10% repeat purchasers
   2. 1% to 10% purchasers
   3. 1% to 10% net promoter score of 8 or higher
   4. 1% to 10% top 20% of clients
7. Setup audience exclusions to prevent frustrating portions of your audience by coming on too strong:
   1. Purchased in the previous 30 days (pixel)
   2. Received email campaign in the last 14 days (catch this group in a remarketing FB campaign instead)
   3. Purchased in the last 30 days (email upload)
   4. Visited the website in the last 30 days
8. Always setup remarketing audiences with specific CPA’s. These are my bread and butter:
   1. Bounced off website in last 3 days
   2. Added to cart but did not checkout in last 7 days
   3. Added to cart but did not checkout in last 14 days
   4. Added to cart but did not checkout in last 21 days
   5. Visited website but did not purchase
   6. Ran into a validation or JavaScript error on the website
9. Run Dynamic Product Ads (DPA) – they are fantastic and everyone should be doing them.
10. Use Facebook’s import and export functionality in Power Editor to quickly and easily create and update campaigns.
11. What’s in a name? Everything! Here are the naming conventions I use:
    1. Campaign : (Campaign type)_(Country)_(Languages)
    2. Adset: (Campaign type)_(Country)_(Language)_(Device)_(Placement)_(Targeting)_(Age Range)_(Gender)_(Notes)
    3. Ad: (Ad Type)_(Image)_(Copy Variation)
12. UTM parameters are small snippets of text added to the end of a URL to track the success of a campaign. Each time a link is clicked, that information is sent back to your analytics. A custom Google Analytics report makes it easy to gauge the impact of your campaigns. If you aren’t using either of these right now…stop reading and go set them up….now.
13. If your audience reach is less than 500k use CPC bidding and manually optimize your campaigns. If your audience reach is more than 500k, use OCPM.
14. Stay on top of your CPA numbers. Check your FB ad-set daily to learn the ebb and flow of your CPA. Usually, a spike in CPA plateaus over the following two days. A good approach is to increase your budget over three days or  – if these are going great – not at all. Increasing the budget too quickly can lead to audience exhaustion (reaching everyone in the audience too quickly).
15. Setup your FB pixel and firing events through GTM and ensure that its firing order is #2, just behind GA.
16. This is one is more FYI than FYA – Know that Google Analytics (GA) and FB data will never match-up; a 20% to 30% discrepancy is common. GA is session-based, if a user is using different browsers or surfing without a GA client ID it is impossible to keep track of who is reacting to what. GAP (Google Analytics Pro) is a little better…but not much.
17. Include your FB pixel in your email signature and ensure that your staff does the same. Create a targeted, trackable offer that links back to the email signature pixel.
18. Ad creatives perform best when they match the copy and images on your landing page; dynamic landing pages are perfect for this; dynamically change your page based on UTM parameters. If you are looking to streamline this process, check out Unbounce.
19. Don’t give up on an ad to quickly; gather at least 2k impressions before deeming an ad a success or failure. If, at the end of 2k impressions, you are still unsure about the success of the campaign, let it ride a little longer and keep an eye on CPA numbers – you are looking for your CPA number to change 10% to 20% on either side before judging the effort a success or failure.
20. Test mobile, desktop and tablet together and separately; for some markets/audiences a combined approach is best while the opposite is true in others. The only way to find out what will work best for your approach is to test.

There you have it…20 epic tips and tricks to bring your Facebook marketing to the next level. Implement a few now and remember to track your results with as much granularity as possible; there is no substitute for real data

Do you have some tips for performance marketing on Facebook? Share them below.