Advertising on Facebook is definitely among the best ways to get website traffic and acquire users, and absolutely anyone can do it.

Here are the five common myths about Facebook advertising that you should stop believing immediately.

Myth #1: You have to laser-target your audience

Endless articles and videos out there about Facebook targeting mention how you should laser-target your audience. Facebook offers all these unique ways to target people, why not make use of the knowledge Facebook has to reach exactly and only those people who are most likely to be interested in your offer? It makes sense, but unfortunately does not necessarily lead you to the best results possible.

Laser targeting can definitely help you reach the people who are likely to be interested, but not those who are also most likely to click your ad and convert.

Myth #2: Facebook ads are not effective for B2B

This is probably the most damaging myth for B2B companies. B2B marketers tend to pass on Facebook ads as a lead generation channel, because it’s a social media network and “they are trying to target professionals.”

Well, those professionals you are trying to target actually spend much more time on Facebook than on any other social media channel!

Myth #3: You need to use smiling people in your ad images

You’ve probably heard this before, maybe from a consultant, a colleague or even a famous blogger you might be following. They all say you should use smiling people in your ads because people respond to happy people. Well, they are right, but only partially.

Using smiling people in your ads might get you good results, but not the best results!

So, what will get you better results? Try to think of what would make you click on an ad on your Facebook newsfeed. In most cases, the ad will illustrate something appealing to you, that you’ll find worthy of checking out. In most cases, it won’t be just an image of somebody smiling (especially not if it’s a generic image provided by a platform such as Shutterstock).

Try to create ads that will instantly make your audience understand “what’s in it for them.” In other words, what’s the benefit to them for clicking your ad?

Myth #4: You need to invest in getting page likes

Probably the most common myth out there. So many companies invest in getting page likes and actually measure this as one of their main KPI’s, assuming it will eventually pay off since more people will see their page posts and eventually become customers. This is absolutely wrong for two reasons:

Just because someone liked your Facebook page, doesn’t mean he’s even close to becoming your customer.

Organic reach on Facebook is constantly dropping, so not even your “Likers” will see your page posts unless you boost them.

Myth #5: You should retarget all your site visitors

Retargeting your website visitors is always right; retargeting them all in a single ad set is wrong.

Different people visit your site through different campaigns and check out different sections of your site, or in a different step of your sales funnel; they should therefore be retargeted accordingly, with different ads, budgets and bids.

Final words

I hope you’ve found this article useful and that it will help you achieve killer results with your Facebook ads. I believed some of these myths, but my personal experience crushed each and every one of them.