Three mistakes that may prevent your business from advertising online
Let’s not assuming your business can advertise Facebook & Google. I’m giving you here three quick checks that every small business must do before launching into digital ads.
You’ll be surprised by what you’ll learn!
Will Facebook or Google let you advertise your product? Have you checked…?
Do not assume that the answer to this question is yes. Um yeah, you heard me.
If you are making income claims, selling MLM, or offering products & services that come with health claims - even seemingly innocuous ones - you may find that both Facebook & Google reject your ads from running on their platforms.
It’s a bit of a shocking realisation for some business owners, that the product or service they have thrown everything into, can not be easily advertised online and it just goes to show how key social media is to our everyday lives, that we assume of course we can advertise our essential oils, muscle rub, weight loss programme, fitness programme, tooth whitening gel, hormone kit, business coaching on Facebook.
Often the devil is in the detail, and there are ways to ensure our creative & copy adheres to ToS but Facebook is proving over and over that if you attempt to submit ads that don’t meet their advertising policies, even just to test the water, you are risking having your entire advertising access revoked very quickly.
Do not assume you can run ads for your product or service on Facebook, Instagram or Google unless you check first! And don’t leave the checking to the very last step.
2. Are your business policies in order?
Do you have a privacy policy? What about a shipping & returns policy? Do you have two forms of contact on your website?
The policies you do or don’t have available on your website have various impact on your ability to advertise online or even the price you end up paying per click. Google reviews anyone advertising on Google Shopping for shipping & returns policies as well as two forms of contact on your website (email, address or phone) which is an uncomfortable shock for some small business owners who had been enjoying the relative anonymity an online business provides.
Facebook ads often require a privacy policy to be approved and if you are providing business or financial advice you may require an income disclaimer as well to ensure you are not flagged as scam.
3. Are you relying on paid ads instead of sorting out your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Both Facebook & Google rely on the quality of your product pages, including text both on-page and in meta titles/descriptions. If you are running Google ads and not seeing results, AND you are missing meta titles & meta descriptions on your products & pages…. then to add insult to injury you’re possibly overpaying for your clicks AND you aren’t getting all the clicks you could be. Not cool right.
Facebook catalogues pull data from your product descriptions, meta titles and other SEO fields, so if you want to speed up your ad creation process or run collection ads or dynamic re-targeting, you are going to be doing a pretty average job (or an impossible job) without good quality, completed on-page SEO.
What do I do now?
Talk to a Digital Ads expert about which platform you might be able to advertise on but know that if you have a bunch of rejected Facebook Ads, you may need a new strategy and account before you are able to advertise in the future
Talk to a lawyer who will ensure your business has robust terms & conditions that you can save to your website. I recommend Tamara at Calibrate Legal who understands small business requirements.