So, do you optimize Facebook ads and make it a smooth-and-easy process? Read our guide and discover 6 expert tips that will drive immediate results.

What Does Optimizing Ads Actually Mean?

Let’s start with clarifying what Facebook ads optimization is.

In general, optimizing ads means improving them – achieving better, more satisfying results. 

You could say: I can easily achieve this by increasing the ad budget! 

But that’s not really true for two reasons. The first is that expanding the budget doesn’t always translate into better results. The second is that marketers’ budgets are usually limited and can’t be endlessly increased.

In the majority of cases, optimizing ads means squeezing the most out of the given campaign budget and making smart data-driven decisions.

Types of Ads Optimization 

Also, keep in mind that ads optimization may concern various dimensions.

You can run, for example:

• Cost optimization
• Targeting optimization, including target audience optimization
• Placement optimization
• Ad formats optimization
• Copy or visual optimization
• Objective optimization
• Campaign budget optimization

Choosing the right optimization dimension will depend on the budget and campaign goal.

Every Facebook ad campaign can be optimized toward a different dimension. However, it’s not advised to optimize several dimensions at the same time, as it’ll be hard to assess which one made a difference.

How to Optimize Facebook Ads (and Instagram ads, too)

There are over a dozen ways of optimizing Facebook ads campaigns. Below, you’ll find the ones we find the most effective or worth spreading the word about.

Define Your Goal and Stick With It

One common issue with setting Facebook or Instagram ads is that marketers tend to forget the main campaign goal in the time-consuming process of setting ads.

The ad campaign objective you choose in the first step of setting your campaign has to be in line with your real goal and all ad settings.

Whether it’s brand awareness, lead generation, website traffic, or conversions, campaign objectives should always guide all other optimization steps.

Go through your previous Facebook campaigns and see whether the campaign goal matches the copy, visuals, and other settings. If you run an awareness campaign, you shouldn’t ask people to download an ebook or book a demo. Such a campaign won’t be effective, because Facebook will be reaching users who won’t be willing to take such an action.

Checking that should always be the first step in your ad optimization process.

Focus on Targeting Optimization

Playing with various targeting options is probably one of the best things you can do throughout the whole process of Facebook ads optimization.

With thousands of detailed targeting settings available, there is always room for improvement in this matter. How do you know if reaching a desired target audience by selecting settings like the ones shown below will be the most optimal? There are thousands of other interests that you could add, and figuring out the perfect set of only a few dozen may be a time-consuming and tedious process.

Fortunately, now with all the possibilities of AI, this process can be significantly quickened.

For example, Sotrender’s AI-driven Ads Optimization can significantly help in improving your ads performance by automatically recommending the most optimal ad settings.

How does it work? 

Based on the current ad settings, Ads Optimization recommends new ad settings in the following dimensions:

• Age
• Targeting (interests, job titles, life events, etc.)
• Device (mobile, desktop)
• Platform (Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger)
• Placement (within Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger)

You can decide, though, which dimensions you don’t want to change – for example, some audience characteristics may be non-negotiable, as they arise from the basic objectives of each campaign (such as age).

By using Ads Optimization, you can expect:

1. The reduction of costs – lower CPC, CPM, or CPE
2. More clicks or increased reach (depending on your campaign objective) with an unchanged budget

Using Ads Optimization and other AI-driven tools is not only a great way to increase your campaign effectiveness and achieve better results, but also to optimize your work and speed up tedious processes.

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Run A/B Tests on Repeat

In general, optimizing Facebook ads is all about testing. As Facebook won’t reveal all of its secrets, marketers can never be 100% sure about how it works and how to use it to their advantage. As we already mentioned, in the process of setting Facebook ads, there is a lot of guessing. That’s why performance marketing specialists spend the majority of their time not only on setting new ads, but also on optimizing current ones, testing various settings, and analyzing what’s working and what isn’t.

Unless, after many tests, you’ve already found a perfect set of settings, there is nothing worse than choosing the same settings over and over. 

Running Facebook’s built-in A/B tests can lead to some quick wins that should later be implemented into your campaign and entire strategy.

Further tests can be automated and sped up by using tools like Sotrender’s Ad Optimization, but the others, especially those related to budget and location, usually have to be done manually.

In essence, playing with your ad sets and various settings should result in increasing ad relevance, but also in preventing ad fatigue.

Remember:

• Facebook ad campaigns can typically start being optimized a few days after turning them on, as they need to leave the learning phase
• A successful ad campaign is almost never achieved with the initial settings
• Facebook ad optimization is a process

Play with Your Visuals

You’ll spend hours setting up your campaigns. Keep in mind, though, that what the end user sees is just your ad. That’s why you should also pay a lot of attention to the visual aspect of your communication – and test it as well.

Never go for one image (graphic) alone for one ad set – always set at least a few and compare how they perform. You may be surprised at how even small changes (like a different color of the button on the graphic) can make a big difference to users’ perceptions of your ad and its performance.

For example, in one case, it turned out that adding a colored border around a Facebook Ad image doubled its CTR.

If you’re ever wondering how to optimize Facebook ads, start off with simple changes, such as:

• Adding a different background color
• Highlighting a part of the text on the image
• Removing some graphic elements

Take Advantage of AI

Some of you are probably fed up with hearing and reading about AI everywhere. We understand that. 😉 However, AI tools can help you create, set up, and optimize Facebook ads campaigns.

Sotrender

Its Ads Optimization is a game-changer for marketers struggling with choosing the right ad settings. Trained on thousands of hundreds of ads from the Meta ecosystem, Ads Optimization can help improve ad effectiveness by up to several tens of percent.

One of Sotrender’s clients, Hotel Money, a marketing agency specializing in the hotel industry, successfully used Ads Optimization to enhance the performance of one of their ads targeting frequent travelers by over 60%.

Facebook 

Facebook is also implementing AI solutions into its ecosystem.

You can take advantage of, for example, the AI-driven text generation option, which suggests copy alternatives based on the original copy.

It’s a great way of generating copy ideas for your posts, which can be used in the current post as alternative copy or in your future ads. You can constantly challenge Facebook to generate more and more variations and choose only the ones you like most.

Captions AI

This is a great tool for creating Reels. It’ll automatically apply appropriate zooms, transitions, B-roll, graphics, subtitles, and more. The fully edited video will be ready to share on social media within minutes.

Keep Up with Facebook’s Ads Manager and Algorithm Changes

As Facebook often updates its algorithms and ad features, it’s important to stay updated with these changes to be able to adapt your strategies and campaigns accordingly. The most frequently changing settings are those related to interests – Facebook systematically removes some of them, but their availability is different between countries, too.

By keeping up with all the changes within the Meta ecosystem and Facebook Ads Manager, you can also gain an edge over your competitors, as Facebook promotes advertisers who are actively testing the latest solutions or targeting options. Doing so can help you outsmart your competitors but also improve your overall campaign performance.

Wonder no Longer About How to Optimize Facebook Ads (and Instagram Ads, too)

Even seasoned social media managers and performance marketing specialists struggle with optimizing paid media campaigns. Setting Facebook ads (and Instagram ads) is a no-brainer. However, to have satisfying results that support business goals, just setting ads is not enough – actually, it’s only the first step in the whole process. 

If you struggle with finding an answer on how to optimize Facebook ads, keep our guide and all the tips we shared in mind.

Facebook ad optimization is about delivering effective ads without increasing advertising costs. That’s why setting the right campaign objective, testing various ad creatives and targeting options, and figuring out the right bidding strategy is so important to having a successful campaign.

Remember that the process of creating Instagram ads is the same as Facebook ads, as they’re both set through Ads Manager. That’s why all the tips mentioned above apply also to your Instagram paid campaigns.