Facebook Ads Checklist: 5 Quick Questions to Ask Before You Hit "Go"

Congratulations, you got your ad spend approved! SEM is ready to go, display ads are starting to get served up, and your new native advertising partner has such a subtle touch that the users will never even know (yeah, right…). Now it’s time to finish up your Facebook ads and hit “go.”

Not so fast, there. Your Facebook ads shouldn’t just be passable to get started. They should be set and ready to start attracting clicks and generating leads right away. To make sure that your ads are good and ready, take a few minutes and go through our quick Facebook Ads Checklist before you start spending that money.

Here are the five questions you need to answer before you launch that new Facebook ads campaign.

1. What is the goal?

Mission creep is a heck of a thing. By the time you’ve gone all the way through the dozens of steps necessary to launch a Facebook ads campaign, you need to make sure the final product lines up with your initial goal.

There are plenty of options for Facebook ad types, so it’s easy to get distracted by cool features or new tools while you’re setting up a campaign. But you need to have clear goals laid out before you begin so that you can refer back to them throughout set up, and especially before hitting “go.”

Your goals will help you select your ad campaign objectives, what ad types you want to run, and how to create KPIs to make sure you hit those goals.

To learn more about setting goals for your Facebook ads, check out these resources:

• 7 Ways to Use Facebook for Marketing
• How to Create Killer Facebook Ad Campaigns with Your Existing Assets
• 75 Super-Useful Facebook Statistics for 2018

2. Have I properly targeted my audience?

Great creative can elevate the success of your Facebook ads, but if you are not targeting the right audience, you might as well be tossing that money on the grill. Before you set your ad campaign into motion, you should first identify who you are targeting as it relates to the campaign goals and objectives.

You need to know if you are:

• Targeting new fans, current fans, or both.
• Running A/B tests on a few audiences to see which ad resonates most.
• Incorporating specific parameters that need to be identified like age, gender, and location.

To learn more about targeting on Facebook, check out these resources:

• 5 Ridiculously Powerful Facebook Ad Targeting Strategies
• How to Create Amazing Facebook Audiences You Can Actually Sell To
• Big Changes to Facebook Custom Audiences: What You Need to Know

3. How’s the balance of text and imagery?

Facebook’s 20 percent rule is no longer, but having too much text on your image can still cause your ad to not get approved.

To get help with creating Facebook ads, check out these resources:

• The Complete Guide to Creating Great-Looking Facebook Ads
• The Quick & Easy Facebook Advertising Cheat Sheet
• 4 Facebook Ad Fails and How to Fix Them

4. What’s the frequency?

No one likes to be bombarded with the same ad over and over, so it’s important to check this setting before you get started. Try to make sure you continue to check your ad frequency often to see if you are over-indexing your audiences, which can lead to fatigue and negative feedback.

Note, however, that “warmer” audiences tend to be more receptive to your messaging, so you can usually show remarketing ads more often and still drive conversions.

To learn more about Facebook ad frequency, check out these resources:

• The Ridiculously Awesome Guide to Facebook Remarketing
• The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Ad Placement Optimization
• 9 Ways to Lower Your Facebook Ad Costs
• 8 Common Facebook Ad Myths, Debunked

5. Would I click it??

This question requires a qualifier or two, sure, but it’s an important gut-check. If you fall reasonably within the audience for the ad in question, would you potentially interact with your own campaign?

Think about it. If you wouldn’t want to click, maybe it’s better to delay hitting “go” and rework your Facebook ads.

To learn more about how to improve your ads, check out these resources:

• 9 Tips to Write the Best Facebook Ads Ever (with Examples)
• 5 Reasons Your Facebook Ads Aren’t Working
• How to Create Amazing Ads for Facebook and Twitter