Yesterday, I saw a lady complain about spending over $1,000 in ads in a month, with zero results. Zero sales. And I couldn’t help but just feel pity. You have got to understand – this is a small business owner and shelling out such an amount for two months with nothing to show for it has got to hurt.

As a business owner, you might have noticed that ads weren’t what they used to be. The game has changed completely, and many are still playing by the old rules.

In this article, I’ll break down:

• How Facebook’s targeting options have shrunk over the years
• Why content is now truly king in the advertising space
• Practical ways to discover what content actually works for your audience
• How to keep your ad costs low while maximizing your results

Truth is, if you’ve been throwing money at Facebook and Instagram ads, but seeing nothing in return, the problem isn’t always the platform—it’s probably your creative approach. 

Let me show you how to turn this around…

The Ad Game Has Changed (And Most People Haven’t Noticed)

As a business owner, you might have noticed that the ad-game has changed. Some 5-7 years ago, most of what you needed to do to get the right audience revolved around how you aligned the interests in the adset section to the creatives you used.

Since we had more targeting options, if you felt your target audience were those who frequented an influencer’s page, or used a particular product, you could target them.

But today, with Facebook constantly bit-sizing the targeting options and its algorithm now smarter to find you the best audience, all you need to do is use the right creatives.

However, that could be a tough nut to crack. And I like to think that’s why many businesses struggle with their ads today – not testing enough creatives and not using the right ones.

In plain terms, content is king. And now is the time to do more with content creation than ever.

Finding the Right Content: Where Most Businesses Hit and Miss

How do you know the right content to work into your marketing plan?

There are no hard and fast rules to this. But these are a few tips that could work:

1. Study Your Best Performers

Study your page statistics to understand your best performing social media post ideas of the past. Find a pattern, is there a unique angle to them that made them go viral? If yes, create multiple variations of them to keep things fresh.

2. Mine Your Comments Section For Gold

Check your comments and inbox to find low-hanging fruit. Look out for what your customers are constantly complaining about or better still, their pain points. Create content that addresses their problems. You would be surprised by the number of non-followers that share similar problems.

Interesting fact: You can find low-hanging fruit by studying the comment section of your direct competitor. You would be surprised by the truckload of content ideas you are probably missing out on.

I promise you, nothing wrong about snooping in on your competitors 😉

3. Go Straight To The Source

Ask your customers. This looks like too much, but one of the best ways to know what people want is to ask them.

You could pick five of your best customers. Ask them: What were some concerns they had before buying from you? What were they looking to achieve before buying your product? And how your product was able to help them achieve that?

Market research doesn’t get better than that. Based on information culled from these customers, you could create a deluge of content that is tailored to address your ideal audience’s pain points.

Imagine that you’re dealing with hair loss, and then you come across someone talking about how that problem has been affecting them, how it makes them feel embarrassed, and how they’ve been searching for numerous solutions before finding one. Wouldn’t you want to watch that?

Real Talk: A Case Study That Proves This Works

Piggyvest did something similar. They know a large fraction of their users use the app to save towards their relocation plans. If you are familiar with the process, you would know some countries require you to show proof of funds. However, up until that time, only a few knew they could use their statement from Piggyvest as proof of funds.

Upon getting in touch with a customer (Amaka), they discovered how smartly she used their product to achieve a common goal. And ever since Piggyvest shared that video from Amaka, they have been attracting more people who are battling Amaka’s prior pain point. Because they could relate.

Just imagine how many people started using their product because of Amaka’s story?

From Content Ideas To Converting Ads

There are more ways to get content ideas but I reckon these are some of the most efficient ones I could cover in this post.

Now that you have content ideas, if you are not someone who knows how to create content, you could work with someone who does to bring these ideas to life.

Create multiple versions of each angle (idea) and use them as creatives for your ads.

You know why this strategy works? It’s because this is content you have seen work organically. You have posted it earlier and it got reasonable reach. It says what your audience is looking to hear.

Without having to do any serious settings under targeting, Facebook’s algorithm (as intelligent as it proves to be now) will help show your ads to people who are addressed in them.

Keep Creating, Keep Testing

The tough part about what ads have become today is that you have to keep creating. Test with new variations of your earlier content every week and add them to an existing adset.

How does this help?

• It gives the algorithm more to show those who see your ads.
• Helps you penetrate newer audiences.
• Ensures low ad costs. Since there are more creatives to work with, your ads hardly. experience fatigue (this is when people see one ad multiple times). Hence, reducing ad cost.

Yeah, all of this is a lot of work. But, if you want your ads to convert, you don’t have much of a choice right now.

Keep on creating, everyone!