Has Your Facebook Ad Campaign Been Running Too Long?

It's no secret that Facebook is the perfect platform for a marketing campaign. After all, it's easily the largest social media site in the world, with over two billion active users worldwide. A well-run ad campaign can potentially reach any of these people, but there is a limit to how long such a campaign can last.Simply put, ads have a shelf life, which is something that is sometimes lost to novice marketers. Ad campaigns are only effective for a limited time. After that, they need to evolve by adding new elements or be replaced completely. With that in mind, let's take a look at how long a Facebook ad campaign should run and what you can do once your own campaign has run its course.

Why Ad Campaigns Shouldn't Run for Too Long

The two biggest problems with ad campaigns that last for too long are ad fatigue and ad blindness. Ad fatigue happens when an ad has been seen too many times. Either the ad becomes so familiar to people that they stop noticing it on their Facebook feed, or they become bored or annoyed by it. The latter scenario is particularly problematic because your potential customers will start associating your brand with something they find annoying, and they may not want to do business with you as a result. In any case, ad fatigue is bound to happen with any advertisement, no matter how clever or eye-catching your ads may be.Ad blindness is similar to ad fatigue in that the advertisements that go onto your page become all but invisible to users. This can happen when users are bombarded by advertisements, especially those that copy techniques used by other ads. Many ads start to look the same, nothing stands out, and you end up with what is essentially wallpaper. This is why it is so important to test your ads to make sure that they will stand out from the countless other advertisements that people may be seeing when they log onto Facebook.

So, How Long Should Ad Campaigns Run?

Now that we've established why campaigns run their course, you're probably wondering how long you should let your own campaigns run. Sadly, there's not definite answer to that question. There are countless businesses advertising on Facebook, and each one has its own strategy. What works for one type of business might not work for others, and it's largely up to you to find out what works for your own business.In traditional media such as print and television, a successful advertising campaign will last for at least a month. This is the amount of time it usually takes for people to really start to notice the ads and for the campaign to really show results. After about 45 days, things might start to die down and ad fatigue might set in. A Facebook marketing campaign might take that long to show results, but many marketers like to switch advertisements out after a few weeks. Things just move faster in the Internet age, especially where social media is concernedKeep in mind that this refers to successful ad campaigns. That doesn't take into account the many test campaigns that are run by businesses to determine what might be successful. A test campaign might run for only a week before the plug is pulled and marketers try something else, although it's best to let test ads stay up for at least three to four days to see how well it works.

How to Know an Advertising Campaign is Working

Fortunately, it's not hard to determine whether or not a Facebook ad campaign is really working. There are tools that allow you to tell how many clicks or views a particular had may have gotten. When you monitor your ads every few days, take a look at how much attention your advertisements are getting. If they are getting clicks, "likes," or other responses from your target audience, things are going well and you can keep the ads up. If the amount of responses has gone down or was never very high to begin with, you can safely remove the ads that aren't working and replace them with other test ads. Keep in mind that it will take at least a few days for people to start to notice new ads. There are no such thing as immediate results in advertising, so you shouldn't pull a Facebook ad just because it doesn't perform hours or even a day after it has gone live.

Some Final Facebook Advertising Tips

Of course, none of this will help you if you don't get the basics of advertising on Facebook. It may not seem that different from advertising in any other medium, but there are still some tips that might prove to be helpful in your campaign. First of all, never stop testing and monitoring new ads. Yes, there are certain strategies that seem to "always" work in advertising, but you can never know what will be truly effective until you test it with real consumers. Second of all, don't bother targeting everyone. No product will ever appeal to everyone everywhere, so focus on finding your main consumer base and tailor your advertisements to them. Finally, don't forget about including a call to action in your advertisements. This can be anything from telling your potential new clients to contact you if they want to do business to encouraging users to share a clever video ad that you posted. Facebook is very interactive and relies on the "social" aspect of social media, so you need to do everything you can to keep users engaged.If nothing else, advertising on Facebook is a complicated affair, and even the top marketers are still trying to figure out how it all works. Even though it may be easy to say that a Facebook advertising campaign should only last for a couple of weeks, there really is no correct solution. As always, it's up to you and your own imagination to come up with effective advertisements and know when their shelf lives are up.