Google’s Spam Update Just Completed: Here’s What Happened

Occasionally, Google rolls out their spam update which just ensures that the results on Google aren’t filled with spam.

Because if a user clicks on a spammy result, and if this continually happens, it creates a terrible experience and people would stop using Google.

They don’t give much detail on the spam update on their website, but luckily for you, we have two things that help us determine what the changes were.

The first thing we have is we track over 900 million domains on the web, so this allows us to see patterns.

The second, which is more relevant for this update is at our agency, NP Digital, we have 100 experimental sites that use AI-written content. The purpose of those sites isn’t to “game” Google, they are more so to figure out how Google perceives AI-written content. And I will go into more detail on what happened with those sites later in this post as the results were interesting.

Purpose of the update

As in the name, Google’s main goal is to reduce spam. Now they have multiple types of spam updates, such as in July 2021 they had a link spam update.

This update didn’t specify if it was link spam-related or just overall spam.

But when we look at the 900 million plus domains we track, here are the categories that got affected the most in a negative way globally.

As you can see from the chart above, news and sports sites got affected the most. Followed closely by arts and entertainment and technology and community sites.

Most of these sites are heavy content-based and not product oriented.

When we looked at the sites affected here’s what we found:

  • Thin content – most of them didn’t have amazing content… a lot of them had thin content. And to clarify that, by thin content, I don’t mean low word count, I mean content that really didn’t provide much value. In essence, the content was surface level and once you finished reading it you didn’t get many insights or any actionable points or value.
  • Poorly created meta tags – a lot of the websites affected had pages with duplicate meta tags or ones that were obviously written for search engines and not humans.
  • Keyword stuffing – shocking people are still keyword stuffing. Of the affected sites most of them didn’t keyword stuff, but roughly 3.89% of them did. Whether it was in their content on meta tags, they were using keywords in an excessive way that made the reading experience not ideal.

As you know there are many other factors in SEO. We just couldn’t find any other major patterns. From a surface level, some of the things they looked at seem kind of similar to the helpful content update.

We also looked at the backlinks of the sites that lost the most traffic we couldn’t find any patterns. Now, this doesn’t mean Google did or didn’t look at links as a factor of spam in this update, more so we just didn’t see any patterns.

Now here is where it gets interesting…

AI-generated content

Remember how I mentioned that we have 100 AI-generated websites? They are in a variety of industries, and they all have over 60 pages of content if not more that are all AI-generated, and of course, we manually built links (didn’t buy them, and you shouldn’t ever buy links) so that it would help the sites rank.

And in reality, we actually have over 681 AI-generated sites, but most of them don’t get enough SEO traffic. For example, when a site only gets 1,000 visitors a month from Google it is too hard to see patterns as visitor counts drastically change from day to day.

But 100 of the AI-driven sites generate at least 3,000 visitors a month from Google.

None of the sites sell anything or collect leads, they are just informational sites in different industries.

Now of the 100 AI content-generated sites, 53 have their content created purely through AI. And they also have their meta tags and even the headings within the article all created by AI.

Those pages don’t link out to other sites or even internal pages as AI content generation tools don’t really add links.

One thing to note is that most of the AI tools don’t really create content over 500 words unless you start adjusting the content or have the AI writer create content a paragraph at a time.

But for the first batch of AI sites (53 of them), we didn’t have humans modify or change up any of the content. We purely used the content that was created by AI in the form it was created including the meta tags the AI writer created.

Now in the second batch, we had 47 sites, on these sites we used AI to create the content, but then we had a human modify the content to ensure it was better and provided more value. Humans also added internal and external links, they modified the meta tags to be more user-friendly, and they added images and embed videos within the article when it made sense.

The one thing we didn’t do was increase the length much. Because from what we see from our Ubersuggest AI Writer most people just use AI-written content and don’t modify it much. When they do modify it, it tends to be slightly, and people really aren’t adding much in word count.

With our sites, we wanted to replicate what most marketers are doing with AI to get a sense of what Google is trying to solve.

Can you guess what happened to those sites?

The first group of AI-written content, which had no human intervention when it comes to modifying the content didn’t perform as well as the ones that had human intervention.

In essence, they saw on average a 17.29% drop in traffic and their keyword rankings dropped on average by 7.9 positions. Keep in mind that may seem like a lot but none of them really had number 1 rankings for any popular term.

The second group saw a 6.38% drop in traffic and on average a drop in ranking position by 3.3 positions.

But then when we dug deeper because I was curious to see the results for each site, we noticed that not all the sites were hit by the update.

Of the first group of 53 sites, in which the content was NOT adjusted by humans, 14 of them were hit by the update and saw traffic dips between 31.44% and 73.18%. On average the 14 sites lost 51.65% of their traffic.

From the second group, which had humans slightly modify the content, 8 sites were hit. They lost between 29.52% and 81.43% of their traffic. On average those 8 sites saw a 42.17% drop in traffic.

Now what’s funny is some of the other sites in both buckets saw smaller traffic drops such as a few percentage points and a few even saw slight traffic increase from SEO traffic by up to 4% when you compare pre-update and post-update traffic as it took 48 hours for the update to roll out.

But here is where it gets interesting, in the first group of the 14 sites that were affected, 13 of them also saw traffic drops from the helpful content update. And from the second group, all 8 of the sites were hit by the helpful content update.

One thing to note is that there weren’t tons of days of data post update from when Google finished rolling things out to when I released this blog post. And I didn’t want to compare Sunday traffic with Wednesday traffic. As you need to look at Sunday versus last Sunday to remove biasedness. Nonetheless, the above stats are what we saw and the ranking drops also confirm that these sites were hit by the update.

Conclusion

From what we are seeing, the majority of this update focused on content, meta tags, and keyword stuffing. It doesn’t mean Google didn’t look at other factors such as links or duplicative content, but we saw the biggest patterns related to the factors I mentioned above and AI-generated content.

If you want to do well in the long run focus on the user, it really is the way to win. In the short run, you may not come ahead but in the long run, you will.

Just ask yourself questions like is this piece of content going to be helpful to users? Is using the same meta tags on all pages helpful? Is my website providing enough value that people will want to link to me?

In essence, you are just spot-checking yourself and doing what’s best for users.

What did you see from the Google spam update?

Your Facebook Ads are Not Performing? Here’s Why

Looking for a diverse online ad platform that will put your marketing campaigns in front of tons of people? Facebook Ads is the way to go.

With an almost endless amount of detailed targeting options and features, you can reach virtually any Facebook user with an ad. Combine those targeting options with the functionality of Meta Business Suite; and you’re ready to dominate the platform.

But the sheer number of targeting options also presents big problems for the average Facebook advertiser. The platform is almost so complex that it can leave inexperienced users overwhelmed.

Case in point, most people create custom audience targeting on Facebook but have no idea how to optimize it. That’s a problem, given that there are more advertisers on Facebook than ever before. Competition is rife, which means businesses must make full use of the opportunities available to them.

If your Facebook ads are not working, it could be a problem with your custom audiences. Facebook custom audiences are the bread and butter of Facebook’s ad platform. It’s why it’s so popular in the first place. So when users don’t find success, they quickly give up, claiming that Facebook Ads don’t work. Or believing that Facebook isn’t meant for advertising.

But that’s not true. And thankfully, there are several ways you can fix your custom audiences to perform better.

Here’s why your Facebook custom audiences are failing and how you can fix them ASAP to improve your Facebook ad effectiveness.

Don’t Only Target Demographic Data

One of the biggest reasons your Facebook custom audience is not working is because you are using basic demographic data.

A standard marketing playbook will tell you to create simple buyer personas or customer profiles that describe your typical customers. These are a great tool when you are finding your target audience.

They usually look something like this:

Buyer personas are a summary of basic information, including a name, age range, gender, and job title.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Buyer personas are amazing. I use them on a daily basis to drive sales and traffic to my businesses. But when it comes to Facebook Ads, buyer personas aren’t sufficient. They aren’t nearly detailed enough to find scalable growth and profit.

But I’ve seen a lot of marketers take data from buyer personas and use it to create a new custom audience.

For example, if you head to the Meta Business Suite (formerly Facebook Business Manager) and create a new audience, do you create something fairly basic like this?

Saved audiences on Facebook are great. But not when you limit yourself to demographic-based targeting. Simple metrics like age and gender aren’t going to get you qualified buyers.

Just take a look at how diverse and large this audience is:

Only using demographic-based targeting on Facebook may be one reason why you're custom audience targeting is not working.

Trying to target 33 million people with a single ad set and a niche product isn’t going to get you very far. Why? Because if 33 million people were interested in your product, you wouldn’t need Facebook to advertise.

You simply can’t appeal to everyone. And that’s fine! If anything, it’s a good thing. Larger audience sizes on Facebook often perform poorly because the targeting isn’t specific enough. You could be wasting tons of money on clicks and impressions without ever seeing a dime in return.

Part of this is Facebook’s fault. It asks you to create an audience when you create a new ad.

The reason why your custom audience targeting is not working on Facebook is because Facebook only provides demographic data as its main options.

And the main options are demographic data.

On top of that, if you navigate to your audience insights within the Meta Business Manager, you also see a range of demographic data:

You can see demographic data if you navigate to audience insights within the Meta Business Manager.

Facebook constantly promotes the use of basic demographic data in its analytics and audience options. It’s the most visible, widely-used form of targeting they offer. But it’s not sufficient.

So, if you see your Facebook custom audience isn’t working, it’s probably because you are relying only on demographic data. Creating a custom audience that is not custom enough is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when managing Facebook ads.

Luckily, there are literally a dozen different ways you can create a custom audience that doesn’t focus on demographic data. These include:

  • Website data using a Facebook pixel
  • The activity of users on your app
  • A list of your customers
  • Offline data you collect in-person
  • People who watch your Facebook videos
  • People who have interacted with your Instagram account
  • People who clicked on your Facebook or Instagram shopping experiences

I’ll touch on some of these in more detail below, but why not give them all a try?

Use Interests and Exclusions

You should also focus on interests and exclusions when managing Facebook ads.

As I’ve already explained, you can’t use simple demographic data and expect stellar results. But people often glance over the Detailed Targeting option of interests and exclusions:

Use interests and exclusions within Meta Business Manager when creating a custom target audience on Facebook.

If you like to target by demographic data, but don’t use Detailed Targeting, then it’s no wonder your Facebook custom audience is not working.

Interests and exclusions let you narrow down your audience from 33 million to a few hundred thousand. This gives you a much better shot at targeting qualified buyers.

Interests and exclusions let you target anything from income to spending habits and job positions. You can get hyper-specific with your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

For example, let’s say that I run an SEO agency that works with Fortune 500 companies. I can specifically target them using the interests section:

Use detailed descriptions when creating a custom audience audience targeting strategy on Facebook.

But even then, we’re not specific enough. My audience size is still in the millions. So let’s take a moment to think more about my ad. I can ask myself the following questions:

  • Do I sell to specific segments or industries?
  • Are there customer types that make up the majority of my sales?
  • What job positions do they hold?

Answering these questions can narrow down your audience even further. In this example, let’s say that I only find myself closing deals with chief marketing officers.

I’d select the following:

Include specific job titles like "Chief Marketing Officer" when diving into custom audience targeting on Facebook.

That gets us a little closer, but we still have a ways to go. Because even within this level of specificity, there will still be some segments of this audience that aren’t interested in my product.

For example, let’s say sales managers don’t show a lot of interest in my agency. So, I’d want to exclude them from targeting:

Include specific job titles involves "sales" when diving into custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Narrowing down your custom audience with interests and exclusions will help you refine your custom audience to a sensible size.

For example, I’ve narrowed my audience down to just over 700,000 thanks to those three inclusions and exclusions.

The audience size on Meta Business Manager indicates a potential reach of 730,000 people for a potential ad campaign.

Keep tailoring these groups as much as you can. Don’t limit your Facebook ad effectiveness because you haven’t been as specific as possible.

Make Sure Your Recency Window Isn’t Too Short

Most people use custom audiences when they run simple remarketing ads on Facebook. That’s because you can quickly set up a new website-visit-based remarketing campaign and audience within Meta Business Manager.

But custom audiences for remarketing often fail for one very specific reason: the default 30-day cookie window isn’t effective.

Here’s what it looks like when you create a new custom audience based on website visits:

Adjust your recency window beyond 30 days during your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Facebook defaults to custom audiences from the last 30 days.

This is the number of days you want people to remain in your audience after meeting the traffic criteria or goal. In plain English, this means that when someone visits your website, they will only remain in that audience for 30 days after that visit.

But that’s problematic when you look at the typical sales funnel:

Think about the typical sales funnel when you develop custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Most customers won’t make a purchase the first time they see your product. They’ll need to transition through the various stages of the buying process first.

In the awareness stage, customers are still trying to figure out what their problem is and how they can solve it. They are only just beginning their research. In the interest stage, they start to explore various products or services to fix their problem. They have still not committed to a purchase, and they are considering your competitors.

Next, they decide which business they think will help them the most. They still haven’t made a purchase at this stage. It’s only when they finally take action that you see a return on your investment and a full completion of the sales cycle. And that conversion cycle can last much longer than 30 days in many cases. In fact, research shows that almost three-quarters of B2B sales to new customers take at least four months to close.

If you’re lucky enough to convert prospects to sales in fewer than 30 days, you’re probably fine with Meta Business Manager’s default settings.

But if you are like most of us who aren’t able to convert a non-brand-aware user to a customer in under one month, you should be using a much longer window for your audience.

BigCommerce first noticed this mistake when they were running ads for clients and found that the conversion windows were heavily delayed:

Some of BigCommerce's Facebook ads were not working because their conversion windows were too short.

Tons of the sales for their client weren’t coming in until 12-30+ days. So a 30-day window wasn’t the most efficient option.

So if your retargeting Facebook ad is not working, use a longer window like 30-90 days, instead.

Use a 60 day window when developing custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Experiment with this number by creating two custom audiences with different cookie windows to see which performs best over the period of two months.

Target by Specific Page Visits and User Flow

One of my favorite ways to create better custom audiences and fix Facebook ads that are not delivering is to get even more specific by targeting users who visit specific pages and take certain actions.

We know that demographics don’t cut it. Even adding in interests and exclusions might not be enough.

When all else fails, you need to jumpstart your campaign with visitors who are highly likely to buy from you. And thankfully, with custom audience targeting on Facebook, you can target users taking incredibly specific actions from your website.

Let me give you an example before we dive in. Check out this advertisement I ran for a webinar that I hosted:

Neil Patel Facebook ad using custom audience targeting.

Notice how specific it is? It’s not a basic, awareness-style ad aimed at grabbing the attention of millions. It’s directly relevant to the webinar that I was hosting at the time. And these ads were only targeted to a custom audience that showed a deep interest in my webinar.

I ran these because I knew that people would convert if they had shown prior interest by visiting my webinar landing page. So instead of remarketing to all my website visitors, I targeted specific page visits and URLs where leads showed an interest.

This isn’t the only way you can use site behavior to optimize your custom audience. You can also target:

  • High average order customers by creating a conversion event when a purchase is 20% or more above your site average.
  • The users who spend the most time on your site by targeting the top 25% of active users
  • Users who haven’t visited your site in a while.

Here’s how you can implement the same strategy to improve Facebook ad effectiveness.

Open up your Meta Business Manager and go to the audiences tab:

Go to the "audiences" tab in Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

From here, create a new custom audience:

Click the "Create a Custom Audience" button within Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Select “Website Traffic” from the list of options:

Click the "Website Traffic" button within Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

But now, instead of selecting the basic remarketing option of targeting all website visitors, select “People who visited specific web pages”:

Retarget ads to people who visited specific web pages as a part of your custom audience targeting strategy on Facebook.

Next, you can outline specific buyer behavior patterns.

For example, do you notice that people are viewing multiple pages before they buy? Are they visiting your pricing page after a specific blog post?

What is the common user path?

If you don’t know, head over to Google Analytics and open up the “Behavior Flow” report:

Learn the common user path of people who go on your website by opening up "Behavior Flow" within Google Analytics.

This will show you how people are moving through and interacting with your site before they convert:

The Behavior Flow within Google Analytics will show how your website visitors are navigating your website.

Start to analyze the most popular entry points and typical viewing paths customers take on your website. If you start to notice trends and common sequences, you can take advantage of them to create a specific custom audience.

For example, a common user flow on my site looks like this:

About page -> blog post -> consulting page conversion

I’ve noticed that the majority of people who convert on my site follow that same route.

Once you’ve figured out a great behavioral pattern, head back to the Business Manager and input those links:

Input specific links into Meta Business Manager to help your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

This is the path I mentioned earlier, which will add visitors to a new custom audience when they land on these three pages over the course of 60 days.

This is a hyper-specific audience based on specific page visits that I’ve seen convert well. I’ve even received ads on my own Facebook page that I can tell are using this strategy.

For example, check out this ad from Hootsuite that I got after visiting their product page:

A Hootsuite ad on Neil Patel's Facebook page that demonstrates custom audience targeting.

They didn’t target this ad to everyone on their remarketing list or everybody who visited their website once. They only targeted visitors who visited a specific landing page.

Custom audiences tend to fail due to a lack of creativity and detailed targeting. If your Facebook ads are not delivering, try to create a custom audience based on site visits and behavior flow to drive more sales.

Make Sure to Target by Frequency

Another great way to fix a failing custom audience is to simply add another parameter: Frequency.

In theory, the more someone has visited your site, the higher the chance that they’ll buy from you.

First-time visitors aren’t likely to convert.

In fact, 92% will not purchase from you on the first visit. So if you don’t sort by frequency, you continue to risk targeting too large of an audience.

As we discussed, the sales funnel is complex. Especially when it comes to Facebook. Here’s an example of just how complex a sales funnel can be when using Facebook Ads.

The complexity of the sales funnel when using Facebook Ads.

Sometimes it takes upwards of five ads to convert a customer.

And it’s the same way with your website. If you can’t expect first-time visitors to buy, you shouldn’t waste ad spend on anyone who hasn’t visited your site more than once. That’s why you need to enable frequency targeting when managing Facebook ads.

Enable frequency tracking by clicking “Further refine by” when creating a custom audience.

Click "further refine by" when you are creating a custom target audience on Facebook.

Next, select a frequency from the menu.

Now you can add an extra buffer layer to your custom audience to give you an even better shot at converting users with less money and fewer ads:

A Facebook Manager screenshot showing how to add a buffer layer for a custom audience.

Here’s what your entire custom audience will look like:

Custom audience targeting on Facebook.

In the above example, a user will get added to your custom audience if they visit your specified URL two or more times within 60 days. This is one of the easiest fixes when your Facebook custom audience is not working.

Simply up the frequency, and you’ll narrow your audience to users who’ve shown strong engagement levels on your site.

Create a 1% Lookalike Audience

Lookalike audiences are pretty simple. You create a custom audience from your email list, and Facebook replicates that audience with new people.

Facebook does this by taking your existing customer list, matching those emails to accounts, and then finding other users with similar data that would also be interested in your products.

And it works.

It’s great for creating fast custom audiences without doing the legwork of interests, exclusions, or detailed remarketing optimization.

Lookalike audiences give you the option of choosing what percentage of the population you want to target:

Choose between 1% and 10% audience size when creating a lookalike audience.

The range is from 1 to 10%, with 10% producing the largest audience size and 1% producing the most specific and smallest audience size. 10% will net you 10% of the total population in the countries you choose, with those selected more closely resembling your other audiences and customers.

Given that Facebook’s user base totals 2.9 billion people, you might think that a 10% lookalike audience sounds like a good idea. A bigger custom audience will generate better results, right?

Actually, the exact opposite is true.

AdEspresso proved this by spending $1500 on a lookalike custom audience experiment in 2017. They wanted to test the three most common levels of lookalike audiences: 1, 5, and 10%. So they conducted a study over a period of 14 days, using the same ad for each audience.

AdEspresso's range of lookalike audiences ranging from 1,5, and 10% audience size.

These were lead-based ads that meant to capture emails via lead magnets. They offered deals to customers who had shown interest in their blog posts or services but weren’t ready to convert just yet. So when someone clicked on the ad, they had to enter information to receive the free e-books.

AdEspresso using lead-based ads to capture emails in order for those who clicked on their Facebook ad to receive their free guides.

Next, they created a new campaign and used Facebook’s A/B testing functionality to test their audiences against each other.

AdEspresso used split testing as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

With Facebook, you can split-test multiple audiences, which is what AdEspresso used to simultaneously evaluate those three audience levels. Their timeline was 14 days with a budget of $1,500, which gave them $35 a day to spend:

AdEspresso spent $35/day for 14 days as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

They set up their three targeting percentages:

AdEspresso setting up 3 audience percentages as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

The results showed some significant data as to why many marketers were not finding success with this custom audience type. Here’s some of the most important information and concluding data that they found:

The results of AdEspresso split testing their lookalike audiences demonstrating Facebook ad effectiveness.

You can see the results of the study in the image above. The far left column is the 1% audience, the middle image is the 5% audience, and the far-right image is the 10% audience.

The 1% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $3.748. The 5% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $4.162, and the 10% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $6.364.

One key factor stood out that proved how effective smaller audiences are on Facebook:

The 10%-based lookalike audience was found to have a 70% higher cost per lead than the 1% audience. That could be a game-changer for improving Facebook ad effectiveness.

So, what’s the reason behind the results? Larger custom audiences just aren’t specific enough to drive great results.

10% audiences sound great in theory because they give you the option to corral tons of users, but they just don’t deliver specific enough results. Targeting a large audience usually works, but on Facebook, more users mean less targeting accuracy.

Creating a 1% lookalike audience of your own is easy. Simply navigate to your audiences section under your Meta Business Suite and select Lookalike Audience.

Create a lookalike audience in Meta Busines Manager as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Next, you need to choose the source for your lookalike audience.

Choose the source of your lookalike audience within Meta Business Manager.

The source could be anything from a custom audience to an email list to a specific page or profile. Once you’ve selected it, make sure you select 1% as your audience size.

Choose 1% for "audience size" when selecting a source for your lookalike audience for custom targeting.

If you want to perform your own A/B test like AdEspresso, click on Show Advanced Options.

Click "show advanced options" if you want to A/B test your lookalike audience as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Then, select the number of audiences and the sizes you want to create.

Click "show advanced options" if you want to A/B test your lookalike audience as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Try creating an audience at 1%, 5% and 10%, just like AdEspresso did. Once you’ve done this, head to your Ads Manager to create a new lead magnet ad.

Create a lead magnet ad as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Before continuing, make sure to select the split-testing feature to compare your audiences with the same ad.

Click the "Create Split Test" feature when creating an A/B test for lookalike audiences.

Now that you have enabled the split-test feature, scroll down to the variables section.

Choose which variables you want to test  when doing custom audience targeting on Facebook.

This is where you can choose what variables you want to test.

You have three options here. For this custom audience test, you want to select the Audience option:

Select the audience option for this custom audience test on Facebook.

You’ll notice two different ad sets to begin with. But thankfully, Facebook allows you to test more than two ad sets at a time.

Hit “Test Another Ad Set” to add a third to your list.

Test multiple ad sets to enhance Facebook ad effectiveness.

If you created four or even five lookalike audience versions, feel free to add the corresponding amount of ad sets to make this split test accurate.

Next, click “Edit” on each ad set to select your corresponding lookalike audiences.

Edit each ad set to split test multiple lookalike audiences as a apart of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to push your new ads live and see which audience produces the most conversions at the lowest costs.

Remember, Facebook custom audiences are all about specificity. Don’t make the cardinal sin of trying to cast too wide of a net. The more specific your audience, the better your conversion rate.

Custom Audience Targeting on Facebook FAQs

What is a #2654 error?

A #2654 is a failure to create a custom audience. It occurs when Facebook does not have permission to create a custom audience from one or more of your event sources.

What happens if your audience is too broad when you set up a Facebook ad?

If your Facebook ad audience is too broad it won’t be very effective. Targeting too many people will result in high CPCs and low conversion rates. That’s why it’s important to use a custom audience to narrow down your target audience as much as possible.

How long do Facebook custom audiences last?

The maximum time people can stay in your custom audience is 180 days. After that time, users will be removed unless they trigger an action that includes them in the audience again.

How small can a Facebook custom audience be?

The minimum number of people you can have in a custom audience is 100. That being said, you should be creating larger audiences if you want to have success with Facebook ads.

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Conclusion

Meta’s advertising platform is one of the best ways to reach new customers. With boost posts and ever-powerful remarketing, you can reach almost anyone. On top of that, custom audiences are a gold mine when it comes to detailed targeting.

But with so many options to choose from, they can often cause problems for marketers. Having tons of features is wonderful, but it can also be overwhelming. Targeting is the main reason your Facebook ad is not working.

If you target the wrong audience with the wrong offer, you won’t get a single sale. But if you target the right audience with a stellar offer, you can skyrocket sales almost instantly.

One of the biggest mistakes is targeting only demographic data. Most people don’t target interests and exclusions, either. Those are both huge mistakes when using custom audience targeting on Facebook.

On top of that, people target too narrow of a recency window, limiting their sales potential. Instead, try creating custom audiences using your Google Analytics data. This will allow you to target users who have shown proven interest with specific offers.

Try targeting by frequency, too. This will help you appeal to people further down the sales funnel who are more primed to buy. Lastly, create a 1% lookalike audience to find the best results.

Facebook custom audiences that are properly optimized are a solid way to amp up your return on investment, so make sure to get them set up to work for you.

What are some of your best custom audience hacks to generate better results?

The post Your Facebook Ads are Not Performing? Here’s Why appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

Your Facebook Ads are Not Performing? Here’s Why

Looking for a diverse online ad platform that will put your marketing campaigns in front of tons of people? Facebook Ads is the way to go.

With an almost endless amount of detailed targeting options and features, you can reach virtually any Facebook user with an ad. Combine those targeting options with the functionality of Meta Business Suite; and you’re ready to dominate the platform.

But the sheer number of targeting options also presents big problems for the average Facebook advertiser. The platform is almost so complex that it can leave inexperienced users overwhelmed.

Case in point, most people create custom audience targeting on Facebook but have no idea how to optimize it. That’s a problem, given that there are more advertisers on Facebook than ever before. Competition is rife, which means businesses must make full use of the opportunities available to them.

If your Facebook ads are not working, it could be a problem with your custom audiences. Facebook custom audiences are the bread and butter of Facebook’s ad platform. It’s why it’s so popular in the first place. So when users don’t find success, they quickly give up, claiming that Facebook Ads don’t work. Or believing that Facebook isn’t meant for advertising.

But that’s not true. And thankfully, there are several ways you can fix your custom audiences to perform better.

Here’s why your Facebook custom audiences are failing and how you can fix them ASAP to improve your Facebook ad effectiveness.

Don’t Only Target Demographic Data

One of the biggest reasons your Facebook custom audience is not working is because you are using basic demographic data.

A standard marketing playbook will tell you to create simple buyer personas or customer profiles that describe your typical customers. These are a great tool when you are finding your target audience.

They usually look something like this:

Buyer personas are a summary of basic information, including a name, age range, gender, and job title.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Buyer personas are amazing. I use them on a daily basis to drive sales and traffic to my businesses. But when it comes to Facebook Ads, buyer personas aren’t sufficient. They aren’t nearly detailed enough to find scalable growth and profit.

But I’ve seen a lot of marketers take data from buyer personas and use it to create a new custom audience.

For example, if you head to the Meta Business Suite (formerly Facebook Business Manager) and create a new audience, do you create something fairly basic like this?

Saved audiences on Facebook are great. But not when you limit yourself to demographic-based targeting. Simple metrics like age and gender aren’t going to get you qualified buyers.

Just take a look at how diverse and large this audience is:

Only using demographic-based targeting on Facebook may be one reason why you're custom audience targeting is not working.

Trying to target 33 million people with a single ad set and a niche product isn’t going to get you very far. Why? Because if 33 million people were interested in your product, you wouldn’t need Facebook to advertise.

You simply can’t appeal to everyone. And that’s fine! If anything, it’s a good thing. Larger audience sizes on Facebook often perform poorly because the targeting isn’t specific enough. You could be wasting tons of money on clicks and impressions without ever seeing a dime in return.

Part of this is Facebook’s fault. It asks you to create an audience when you create a new ad.

The reason why your custom audience targeting is not working on Facebook is because Facebook only provides demographic data as its main options.

And the main options are demographic data.

On top of that, if you navigate to your audience insights within the Meta Business Manager, you also see a range of demographic data:

You can see demographic data if you navigate to audience insights within the Meta Business Manager.

Facebook constantly promotes the use of basic demographic data in its analytics and audience options. It’s the most visible, widely-used form of targeting they offer. But it’s not sufficient.

So, if you see your Facebook custom audience isn’t working, it’s probably because you are relying only on demographic data. Creating a custom audience that is not custom enough is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when managing Facebook ads.

Luckily, there are literally a dozen different ways you can create a custom audience that doesn’t focus on demographic data. These include:

  • Website data using a Facebook pixel
  • The activity of users on your app
  • A list of your customers
  • Offline data you collect in-person
  • People who watch your Facebook videos
  • People who have interacted with your Instagram account
  • People who clicked on your Facebook or Instagram shopping experiences

I’ll touch on some of these in more detail below, but why not give them all a try?

Use Interests and Exclusions

You should also focus on interests and exclusions when managing Facebook ads.

As I’ve already explained, you can’t use simple demographic data and expect stellar results. But people often glance over the Detailed Targeting option of interests and exclusions:

Use interests and exclusions within Meta Business Manager when creating a custom target audience on Facebook.

If you like to target by demographic data, but don’t use Detailed Targeting, then it’s no wonder your Facebook custom audience is not working.

Interests and exclusions let you narrow down your audience from 33 million to a few hundred thousand. This gives you a much better shot at targeting qualified buyers.

Interests and exclusions let you target anything from income to spending habits and job positions. You can get hyper-specific with your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

For example, let’s say that I run an SEO agency that works with Fortune 500 companies. I can specifically target them using the interests section:

Use detailed descriptions when creating a custom audience audience targeting strategy on Facebook.

But even then, we’re not specific enough. My audience size is still in the millions. So let’s take a moment to think more about my ad. I can ask myself the following questions:

  • Do I sell to specific segments or industries?
  • Are there customer types that make up the majority of my sales?
  • What job positions do they hold?

Answering these questions can narrow down your audience even further. In this example, let’s say that I only find myself closing deals with chief marketing officers.

I’d select the following:

Include specific job titles like "Chief Marketing Officer" when diving into custom audience targeting on Facebook.

That gets us a little closer, but we still have a ways to go. Because even within this level of specificity, there will still be some segments of this audience that aren’t interested in my product.

For example, let’s say sales managers don’t show a lot of interest in my agency. So, I’d want to exclude them from targeting:

Include specific job titles involves "sales" when diving into custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Narrowing down your custom audience with interests and exclusions will help you refine your custom audience to a sensible size.

For example, I’ve narrowed my audience down to just over 700,000 thanks to those three inclusions and exclusions.

The audience size on Meta Business Manager indicates a potential reach of 730,000 people for a potential ad campaign.

Keep tailoring these groups as much as you can. Don’t limit your Facebook ad effectiveness because you haven’t been as specific as possible.

Make Sure Your Recency Window Isn’t Too Short

Most people use custom audiences when they run simple remarketing ads on Facebook. That’s because you can quickly set up a new website-visit-based remarketing campaign and audience within Meta Business Manager.

But custom audiences for remarketing often fail for one very specific reason: the default 30-day cookie window isn’t effective.

Here’s what it looks like when you create a new custom audience based on website visits:

Adjust your recency window beyond 30 days during your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Facebook defaults to custom audiences from the last 30 days.

This is the number of days you want people to remain in your audience after meeting the traffic criteria or goal. In plain English, this means that when someone visits your website, they will only remain in that audience for 30 days after that visit.

But that’s problematic when you look at the typical sales funnel:

Think about the typical sales funnel when you develop custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Most customers won’t make a purchase the first time they see your product. They’ll need to transition through the various stages of the buying process first.

In the awareness stage, customers are still trying to figure out what their problem is and how they can solve it. They are only just beginning their research. In the interest stage, they start to explore various products or services to fix their problem. They have still not committed to a purchase, and they are considering your competitors.

Next, they decide which business they think will help them the most. They still haven’t made a purchase at this stage. It’s only when they finally take action that you see a return on your investment and a full completion of the sales cycle. And that conversion cycle can last much longer than 30 days in many cases. In fact, research shows that almost three-quarters of B2B sales to new customers take at least four months to close.

If you’re lucky enough to convert prospects to sales in fewer than 30 days, you’re probably fine with Meta Business Manager’s default settings.

But if you are like most of us who aren’t able to convert a non-brand-aware user to a customer in under one month, you should be using a much longer window for your audience.

BigCommerce first noticed this mistake when they were running ads for clients and found that the conversion windows were heavily delayed:

Some of BigCommerce's Facebook ads were not working because their conversion windows were too short.

Tons of the sales for their client weren’t coming in until 12-30+ days. So a 30-day window wasn’t the most efficient option.

So if your retargeting Facebook ad is not working, use a longer window like 30-90 days, instead.

Use a 60 day window when developing custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Experiment with this number by creating two custom audiences with different cookie windows to see which performs best over the period of two months.

Target by Specific Page Visits and User Flow

One of my favorite ways to create better custom audiences and fix Facebook ads that are not delivering is to get even more specific by targeting users who visit specific pages and take certain actions.

We know that demographics don’t cut it. Even adding in interests and exclusions might not be enough.

When all else fails, you need to jumpstart your campaign with visitors who are highly likely to buy from you. And thankfully, with custom audience targeting on Facebook, you can target users taking incredibly specific actions from your website.

Let me give you an example before we dive in. Check out this advertisement I ran for a webinar that I hosted:

Neil Patel Facebook ad using custom audience targeting.

Notice how specific it is? It’s not a basic, awareness-style ad aimed at grabbing the attention of millions. It’s directly relevant to the webinar that I was hosting at the time. And these ads were only targeted to a custom audience that showed a deep interest in my webinar.

I ran these because I knew that people would convert if they had shown prior interest by visiting my webinar landing page. So instead of remarketing to all my website visitors, I targeted specific page visits and URLs where leads showed an interest.

This isn’t the only way you can use site behavior to optimize your custom audience. You can also target:

  • High average order customers by creating a conversion event when a purchase is 20% or more above your site average.
  • The users who spend the most time on your site by targeting the top 25% of active users
  • Users who haven’t visited your site in a while.

Here’s how you can implement the same strategy to improve Facebook ad effectiveness.

Open up your Meta Business Manager and go to the audiences tab:

Go to the "audiences" tab in Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

From here, create a new custom audience:

Click the "Create a Custom Audience" button within Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Select “Website Traffic” from the list of options:

Click the "Website Traffic" button within Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

But now, instead of selecting the basic remarketing option of targeting all website visitors, select “People who visited specific web pages”:

Retarget ads to people who visited specific web pages as a part of your custom audience targeting strategy on Facebook.

Next, you can outline specific buyer behavior patterns.

For example, do you notice that people are viewing multiple pages before they buy? Are they visiting your pricing page after a specific blog post?

What is the common user path?

If you don’t know, head over to Google Analytics and open up the “Behavior Flow” report:

Learn the common user path of people who go on your website by opening up "Behavior Flow" within Google Analytics.

This will show you how people are moving through and interacting with your site before they convert:

The Behavior Flow within Google Analytics will show how your website visitors are navigating your website.

Start to analyze the most popular entry points and typical viewing paths customers take on your website. If you start to notice trends and common sequences, you can take advantage of them to create a specific custom audience.

For example, a common user flow on my site looks like this:

About page -> blog post -> consulting page conversion

I’ve noticed that the majority of people who convert on my site follow that same route.

Once you’ve figured out a great behavioral pattern, head back to the Business Manager and input those links:

Input specific links into Meta Business Manager to help your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

This is the path I mentioned earlier, which will add visitors to a new custom audience when they land on these three pages over the course of 60 days.

This is a hyper-specific audience based on specific page visits that I’ve seen convert well. I’ve even received ads on my own Facebook page that I can tell are using this strategy.

For example, check out this ad from Hootsuite that I got after visiting their product page:

A Hootsuite ad on Neil Patel's Facebook page that demonstrates custom audience targeting.

They didn’t target this ad to everyone on their remarketing list or everybody who visited their website once. They only targeted visitors who visited a specific landing page.

Custom audiences tend to fail due to a lack of creativity and detailed targeting. If your Facebook ads are not delivering, try to create a custom audience based on site visits and behavior flow to drive more sales.

Make Sure to Target by Frequency

Another great way to fix a failing custom audience is to simply add another parameter: Frequency.

In theory, the more someone has visited your site, the higher the chance that they’ll buy from you.

First-time visitors aren’t likely to convert.

In fact, 92% will not purchase from you on the first visit. So if you don’t sort by frequency, you continue to risk targeting too large of an audience.

As we discussed, the sales funnel is complex. Especially when it comes to Facebook. Here’s an example of just how complex a sales funnel can be when using Facebook Ads.

The complexity of the sales funnel when using Facebook Ads.

Sometimes it takes upwards of five ads to convert a customer.

And it’s the same way with your website. If you can’t expect first-time visitors to buy, you shouldn’t waste ad spend on anyone who hasn’t visited your site more than once. That’s why you need to enable frequency targeting when managing Facebook ads.

Enable frequency tracking by clicking “Further refine by” when creating a custom audience.

Click "further refine by" when you are creating a custom target audience on Facebook.

Next, select a frequency from the menu.

Now you can add an extra buffer layer to your custom audience to give you an even better shot at converting users with less money and fewer ads:

A Facebook Manager screenshot showing how to add a buffer layer for a custom audience.

Here’s what your entire custom audience will look like:

Custom audience targeting on Facebook.

In the above example, a user will get added to your custom audience if they visit your specified URL two or more times within 60 days. This is one of the easiest fixes when your Facebook custom audience is not working.

Simply up the frequency, and you’ll narrow your audience to users who’ve shown strong engagement levels on your site.

Create a 1% Lookalike Audience

Lookalike audiences are pretty simple. You create a custom audience from your email list, and Facebook replicates that audience with new people.

Facebook does this by taking your existing customer list, matching those emails to accounts, and then finding other users with similar data that would also be interested in your products.

And it works.

It’s great for creating fast custom audiences without doing the legwork of interests, exclusions, or detailed remarketing optimization.

Lookalike audiences give you the option of choosing what percentage of the population you want to target:

Choose between 1% and 10% audience size when creating a lookalike audience.

The range is from 1 to 10%, with 10% producing the largest audience size and 1% producing the most specific and smallest audience size. 10% will net you 10% of the total population in the countries you choose, with those selected more closely resembling your other audiences and customers.

Given that Facebook’s user base totals 2.9 billion people, you might think that a 10% lookalike audience sounds like a good idea. A bigger custom audience will generate better results, right?

Actually, the exact opposite is true.

AdEspresso proved this by spending $1500 on a lookalike custom audience experiment in 2017. They wanted to test the three most common levels of lookalike audiences: 1, 5, and 10%. So they conducted a study over a period of 14 days, using the same ad for each audience.

AdEspresso's range of lookalike audiences ranging from 1,5, and 10% audience size.

These were lead-based ads that meant to capture emails via lead magnets. They offered deals to customers who had shown interest in their blog posts or services but weren’t ready to convert just yet. So when someone clicked on the ad, they had to enter information to receive the free e-books.

AdEspresso using lead-based ads to capture emails in order for those who clicked on their Facebook ad to receive their free guides.

Next, they created a new campaign and used Facebook’s A/B testing functionality to test their audiences against each other.

AdEspresso used split testing as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

With Facebook, you can split-test multiple audiences, which is what AdEspresso used to simultaneously evaluate those three audience levels. Their timeline was 14 days with a budget of $1,500, which gave them $35 a day to spend:

AdEspresso spent $35/day for 14 days as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

They set up their three targeting percentages:

AdEspresso setting up 3 audience percentages as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

The results showed some significant data as to why many marketers were not finding success with this custom audience type. Here’s some of the most important information and concluding data that they found:

The results of AdEspresso split testing their lookalike audiences demonstrating Facebook ad effectiveness.

You can see the results of the study in the image above. The far left column is the 1% audience, the middle image is the 5% audience, and the far-right image is the 10% audience.

The 1% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $3.748. The 5% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $4.162, and the 10% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $6.364.

One key factor stood out that proved how effective smaller audiences are on Facebook:

The 10%-based lookalike audience was found to have a 70% higher cost per lead than the 1% audience. That could be a game-changer for improving Facebook ad effectiveness.

So, what’s the reason behind the results? Larger custom audiences just aren’t specific enough to drive great results.

10% audiences sound great in theory because they give you the option to corral tons of users, but they just don’t deliver specific enough results. Targeting a large audience usually works, but on Facebook, more users mean less targeting accuracy.

Creating a 1% lookalike audience of your own is easy. Simply navigate to your audiences section under your Meta Business Suite and select Lookalike Audience.

Create a lookalike audience in Meta Busines Manager as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Next, you need to choose the source for your lookalike audience.

Choose the source of your lookalike audience within Meta Business Manager.

The source could be anything from a custom audience to an email list to a specific page or profile. Once you’ve selected it, make sure you select 1% as your audience size.

Choose 1% for "audience size" when selecting a source for your lookalike audience for custom targeting.

If you want to perform your own A/B test like AdEspresso, click on Show Advanced Options.

Click "show advanced options" if you want to A/B test your lookalike audience as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Then, select the number of audiences and the sizes you want to create.

Click "show advanced options" if you want to A/B test your lookalike audience as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Try creating an audience at 1%, 5% and 10%, just like AdEspresso did. Once you’ve done this, head to your Ads Manager to create a new lead magnet ad.

Create a lead magnet ad as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Before continuing, make sure to select the split-testing feature to compare your audiences with the same ad.

Click the "Create Split Test" feature when creating an A/B test for lookalike audiences.

Now that you have enabled the split-test feature, scroll down to the variables section.

Choose which variables you want to test  when doing custom audience targeting on Facebook.

This is where you can choose what variables you want to test.

You have three options here. For this custom audience test, you want to select the Audience option:

Select the audience option for this custom audience test on Facebook.

You’ll notice two different ad sets to begin with. But thankfully, Facebook allows you to test more than two ad sets at a time.

Hit “Test Another Ad Set” to add a third to your list.

Test multiple ad sets to enhance Facebook ad effectiveness.

If you created four or even five lookalike audience versions, feel free to add the corresponding amount of ad sets to make this split test accurate.

Next, click “Edit” on each ad set to select your corresponding lookalike audiences.

Edit each ad set to split test multiple lookalike audiences as a apart of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to push your new ads live and see which audience produces the most conversions at the lowest costs.

Remember, Facebook custom audiences are all about specificity. Don’t make the cardinal sin of trying to cast too wide of a net. The more specific your audience, the better your conversion rate.

Custom Audience Targeting on Facebook FAQs

What is a #2654 error?

A #2654 is a failure to create a custom audience. It occurs when Facebook does not have permission to create a custom audience from one or more of your event sources.

What happens if your audience is too broad when you set up a Facebook ad?

If your Facebook ad audience is too broad it won’t be very effective. Targeting too many people will result in high CPCs and low conversion rates. That’s why it’s important to use a custom audience to narrow down your target audience as much as possible.

How long do Facebook custom audiences last?

The maximum time people can stay in your custom audience is 180 days. After that time, users will be removed unless they trigger an action that includes them in the audience again.

How small can a Facebook custom audience be?

The minimum number of people you can have in a custom audience is 100. That being said, you should be creating larger audiences if you want to have success with Facebook ads.

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Conclusion

Meta’s advertising platform is one of the best ways to reach new customers. With boost posts and ever-powerful remarketing, you can reach almost anyone. On top of that, custom audiences are a gold mine when it comes to detailed targeting.

But with so many options to choose from, they can often cause problems for marketers. Having tons of features is wonderful, but it can also be overwhelming. Targeting is the main reason your Facebook ad is not working.

If you target the wrong audience with the wrong offer, you won’t get a single sale. But if you target the right audience with a stellar offer, you can skyrocket sales almost instantly.

One of the biggest mistakes is targeting only demographic data. Most people don’t target interests and exclusions, either. Those are both huge mistakes when using custom audience targeting on Facebook.

On top of that, people target too narrow of a recency window, limiting their sales potential. Instead, try creating custom audiences using your Google Analytics data. This will allow you to target users who have shown proven interest with specific offers.

Try targeting by frequency, too. This will help you appeal to people further down the sales funnel who are more primed to buy. Lastly, create a 1% lookalike audience to find the best results.

Facebook custom audiences that are properly optimized are a solid way to amp up your return on investment, so make sure to get them set up to work for you.

What are some of your best custom audience hacks to generate better results?

The post Your Facebook Ads are Not Performing? Here’s Why appeared first on #1 SEO FOR SMALL BUSINESSES.

The post Your Facebook Ads are Not Performing? Here’s Why appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

Your Facebook Ads are Not Performing? Here’s Why

Looking for a diverse online ad platform that will put your marketing campaigns in front of tons of people? Facebook Ads is the way to go.

With an almost endless amount of detailed targeting options and features, you can reach virtually any Facebook user with an ad. Combine those targeting options with the functionality of Meta Business Suite; and you’re ready to dominate the platform.

But the sheer number of targeting options also presents big problems for the average Facebook advertiser. The platform is almost so complex that it can leave inexperienced users overwhelmed.

Case in point, most people create custom audience targeting on Facebook but have no idea how to optimize it. That’s a problem, given that there are more advertisers on Facebook than ever before. Competition is rife, which means businesses must make full use of the opportunities available to them.

If your Facebook ads are not working, it could be a problem with your custom audiences. Facebook custom audiences are the bread and butter of Facebook’s ad platform. It’s why it’s so popular in the first place. So when users don’t find success, they quickly give up, claiming that Facebook Ads don’t work. Or believing that Facebook isn’t meant for advertising.

But that’s not true. And thankfully, there are several ways you can fix your custom audiences to perform better.

Here’s why your Facebook custom audiences are failing and how you can fix them ASAP to improve your Facebook ad effectiveness.

Don’t Only Target Demographic Data

One of the biggest reasons your Facebook custom audience is not working is because you are using basic demographic data.

A standard marketing playbook will tell you to create simple buyer personas or customer profiles that describe your typical customers. These are a great tool when you are finding your target audience.

They usually look something like this:

Create buyer personas for custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Buyer personas are a summary of basic information, including a name, age range, gender, and job title.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Buyer personas are amazing. I use them on a daily basis to drive sales and traffic to my businesses. But when it comes to Facebook Ads, buyer personas aren’t sufficient. They aren’t nearly detailed enough to find scalable growth and profit.

But I’ve seen a lot of marketers take data from buyer personas and use it to create a new custom audience.

For example, if you head to the Meta Business Suite (formerly Facebook Business Manager) and create a new audience, do you create something fairly basic like this?

Basic way to create a target audience on Meta Business Suite.

Saved audiences on Facebook are great. But not when you limit yourself to demographic-based targeting. Simple metrics like age and gender aren’t going to get you qualified buyers.

Just take a look at how diverse and large this audience is:

Only using demographic-based targeting on Facebook may be one reason why you're custom audience targeting is not working.

Trying to target 33 million people with a single ad set and a niche product isn’t going to get you very far. Why? Because if 33 million people were interested in your product, you wouldn’t need Facebook to advertise.

You simply can’t appeal to everyone. And that’s fine! If anything, it’s a good thing. Larger audience sizes on Facebook often perform poorly because the targeting isn’t specific enough. You could be wasting tons of money on clicks and impressions without ever seeing a dime in return.

Part of this is Facebook’s fault. It asks you to create an audience when you create a new ad.

The reason why your custom audience targeting is not working on Facebook is because Facebook only provides demographic data as its main options.

And the main options are demographic data.

On top of that, if you navigate to your audience insights within the Meta Business Manager, you also see a range of demographic data:

You can see demographic data if you navigate to audience insights within the Meta Business Manager.

Facebook constantly promotes the use of basic demographic data in its analytics and audience options. It’s the most visible, widely-used form of targeting they offer. But it’s not sufficient.

So, if you see your Facebook custom audience isn’t working, it’s probably because you are relying only on demographic data. Creating a custom audience that is not custom enough is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when managing Facebook ads.

Luckily, there are literally a dozen different ways you can create a custom audience that doesn’t focus on demographic data. These include:

  • Website data using a Facebook pixel
  • The activity of users on your app
  • A list of your customers
  • Offline data you collect in-person
  • People who watch your Facebook videos
  • People who have interacted with your Instagram account
  • People who clicked on your Facebook or Instagram shopping experiences

I’ll touch on some of these in more detail below, but why not give them all a try?

Use Interests and Exclusions

You should also focus on interests and exclusions when managing Facebook ads.

As I’ve already explained, you can’t use simple demographic data and expect stellar results. But people often glance over the Detailed Targeting option of interests and exclusions:

Use interests and exclusions within Meta Business Manager when creating a custom target audience on Facebook.

If you like to target by demographic data, but don’t use Detailed Targeting, then it’s no wonder your Facebook custom audience is not working.

Interests and exclusions let you narrow down your audience from 33 million to a few hundred thousand. This gives you a much better shot at targeting qualified buyers.

Interests and exclusions let you target anything from income to spending habits and job positions. You can get hyper-specific with your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

For example, let’s say that I run an SEO agency that works with Fortune 500 companies. I can specifically target them using the interests section:

Use detailed descriptions when creating a custom audience audience targeting strategy on Facebook.

But even then, we’re not specific enough. My audience size is still in the millions. So let’s take a moment to think more about my ad. I can ask myself the following questions:

  • Do I sell to specific segments or industries?
  • Are there customer types that make up the majority of my sales?
  • What job positions do they hold?

Answering these questions can narrow down your audience even further. In this example, let’s say that I only find myself closing deals with chief marketing officers.

I’d select the following:

Include specific job titles like "Chief Marketing Officer" when diving into custom audience targeting on Facebook.

That gets us a little closer, but we still have a ways to go. Because even within this level of specificity, there will still be some segments of this audience that aren’t interested in my product.

For example, let’s say sales managers don’t show a lot of interest in my agency. So, I’d want to exclude them from targeting:

Include specific job titles involves "sales" when diving into custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Narrowing down your custom audience with interests and exclusions will help you refine your custom audience to a sensible size.

For example, I’ve narrowed my audience down to just over 700,000 thanks to those three inclusions and exclusions.

The audience size on Meta Business Manager indicates a potential reach of 730,000 people for a potential ad campaign.

Keep tailoring these groups as much as you can. Don’t limit your Facebook ad effectiveness because you haven’t been as specific as possible.

Make Sure Your Recency Window Isn’t Too Short

Most people use custom audiences when they run simple remarketing ads on Facebook. That’s because you can quickly set up a new website-visit-based remarketing campaign and audience within Meta Business Manager.

But custom audiences for remarketing often fail for one very specific reason: the default 30-day cookie window isn’t effective.

Here’s what it looks like when you create a new custom audience based on website visits:

Adjust your recency window beyond 30 days during your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Facebook defaults to custom audiences from the last 30 days.

This is the number of days you want people to remain in your audience after meeting the traffic criteria or goal. In plain English, this means that when someone visits your website, they will only remain in that audience for 30 days after that visit.

But that’s problematic when you look at the typical sales funnel:

Think about the typical sales funnel when you develop custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Most customers won’t make a purchase the first time they see your product. They’ll need to transition through the various stages of the buying process first.

In the awareness stage, customers are still trying to figure out what their problem is and how they can solve it. They are only just beginning their research. In the interest stage, they start to explore various products or services to fix their problem. They have still not committed to a purchase, and they are considering your competitors.

Next, they decide which business they think will help them the most. They still haven’t made a purchase at this stage. It’s only when they finally take action that you see a return on your investment and a full completion of the sales cycle. And that conversion cycle can last much longer than 30 days in many cases. In fact, research shows that almost three-quarters of B2B sales to new customers take at least four months to close.

If you’re lucky enough to convert prospects to sales in fewer than 30 days, you’re probably fine with Meta Business Manager’s default settings.

But if you are like most of us who aren’t able to convert a non-brand-aware user to a customer in under one month, you should be using a much longer window for your audience.

BigCommerce first noticed this mistake when they were running ads for clients and found that the conversion windows were heavily delayed:

Some of BigCommerce's Facebook ads were not working because their conversion windows were too short.

Tons of the sales for their client weren’t coming in until 12-30+ days. So a 30-day window wasn’t the most efficient option.

So if your retargeting Facebook ad is not working, use a longer window like 30-90 days, instead.

Use a 60 day window when developing custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Experiment with this number by creating two custom audiences with different cookie windows to see which performs best over the period of two months.

Target by Specific Page Visits and User Flow

One of my favorite ways to create better custom audiences and fix Facebook ads that are not delivering is to get even more specific by targeting users who visit specific pages and take certain actions.

We know that demographics don’t cut it. Even adding in interests and exclusions might not be enough.

When all else fails, you need to jumpstart your campaign with visitors who are highly likely to buy from you. And thankfully, with custom audience targeting on Facebook, you can target users taking incredibly specific actions from your website.

Let me give you an example before we dive in. Check out this advertisement I ran for a webinar that I hosted:

Neil Patel Facebook ad using custom audience targeting.

Notice how specific it is? It’s not a basic, awareness-style ad aimed at grabbing the attention of millions. It’s directly relevant to the webinar that I was hosting at the time. And these ads were only targeted to a custom audience that showed a deep interest in my webinar.

I ran these because I knew that people would convert if they had shown prior interest by visiting my webinar landing page. So instead of remarketing to all my website visitors, I targeted specific page visits and URLs where leads showed an interest.

This isn’t the only way you can use site behavior to optimize your custom audience. You can also target:

  • High average order customers by creating a conversion event when a purchase is 20% or more above your site average.
  • The users who spend the most time on your site by targeting the top 25% of active users
  • Users who haven’t visited your site in a while.

Here’s how you can implement the same strategy to improve Facebook ad effectiveness.

Open up your Meta Business Manager and go to the audiences tab:

Go to the "audiences" tab in Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

From here, create a new custom audience:

Click the "Create a Custom Audience" button within Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Select “Website Traffic” from the list of options:

Click the "Website Traffic" button within Meta Business Manager to create custom audience targeting on Facebook.

But now, instead of selecting the basic remarketing option of targeting all website visitors, select “People who visited specific web pages”:

Retarget ads to people who visited specific web pages as a part of your custom audience targeting strategy on Facebook.

Next, you can outline specific buyer behavior patterns.

For example, do you notice that people are viewing multiple pages before they buy? Are they visiting your pricing page after a specific blog post?

What is the common user path?

If you don’t know, head over to Google Analytics and open up the “Behavior Flow” report:

Learn the common user path of people who go on your website by opening up "Behavior Flow" within Google Analytics.

This will show you how people are moving through and interacting with your site before they convert:

The Behavior Flow within Google Analytics will show how your website visitors are navigating your website.

Start to analyze the most popular entry points and typical viewing paths customers take on your website. If you start to notice trends and common sequences, you can take advantage of them to create a specific custom audience.

For example, a common user flow on my site looks like this:

About page -> blog post -> consulting page conversion

I’ve noticed that the majority of people who convert on my site follow that same route.

Once you’ve figured out a great behavioral pattern, head back to the Business Manager and input those links:

Input specific links into Meta Business Manager to help your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

This is the path I mentioned earlier, which will add visitors to a new custom audience when they land on these three pages over the course of 60 days.

This is a hyper-specific audience based on specific page visits that I’ve seen convert well. I’ve even received ads on my own Facebook page that I can tell are using this strategy.

For example, check out this ad from Hootsuite that I got after visiting their product page:

A Hootsuite ad on Neil Patel's Facebook page that demonstrates custom audience targeting.

They didn’t target this ad to everyone on their remarketing list or everybody who visited their website once. They only targeted visitors who visited a specific landing page.

Custom audiences tend to fail due to a lack of creativity and detailed targeting. If your Facebook ads are not delivering, try to create a custom audience based on site visits and behavior flow to drive more sales.

Make Sure to Target by Frequency

Another great way to fix a failing custom audience is to simply add another parameter: Frequency.

In theory, the more someone has visited your site, the higher the chance that they’ll buy from you.

First-time visitors aren’t likely to convert.

In fact, 92% will not purchase from you on the first visit. So if you don’t sort by frequency, you continue to risk targeting too large of an audience.

As we discussed, the sales funnel is complex. Especially when it comes to Facebook. Here’s an example of just how complex a sales funnel can be when using Facebook Ads.

The complexity of the sales funnel when using Facebook Ads.

Sometimes it takes upwards of five ads to convert a customer.

And it’s the same way with your website. If you can’t expect first-time visitors to buy, you shouldn’t waste ad spend on anyone who hasn’t visited your site more than once. That’s why you need to enable frequency targeting when managing Facebook ads.

Enable frequency tracking by clicking “Further refine by” when creating a custom audience.

Click "further refine by" when you are creating a custom target audience on Facebook.

Next, select a frequency from the menu.

Now you can add an extra buffer layer to your custom audience to give you an even better shot at converting users with less money and fewer ads:

A Facebook Manager screenshot showing how to add a buffer layer for a custom audience.

Here’s what your entire custom audience will look like:

Custom audience targeting on Facebook.

In the above example, a user will get added to your custom audience if they visit your specified URL two or more times within 60 days. This is one of the easiest fixes when your Facebook custom audience is not working.

Simply up the frequency, and you’ll narrow your audience to users who’ve shown strong engagement levels on your site.

Create a 1% Lookalike Audience

Lookalike audiences are pretty simple. You create a custom audience from your email list, and Facebook replicates that audience with new people.

Facebook does this by taking your existing customer list, matching those emails to accounts, and then finding other users with similar data that would also be interested in your products.

And it works.

It’s great for creating fast custom audiences without doing the legwork of interests, exclusions, or detailed remarketing optimization.

Lookalike audiences give you the option of choosing what percentage of the population you want to target:

Choose between 1% and 10% audience size when creating a lookalike audience.

The range is from 1 to 10%, with 10% producing the largest audience size and 1% producing the most specific and smallest audience size. 10% will net you 10% of the total population in the countries you choose, with those selected more closely resembling your other audiences and customers.

Given that Facebook’s user base totals 2.9 billion people, you might think that a 10% lookalike audience sounds like a good idea. A bigger custom audience will generate better results, right?

Actually, the exact opposite is true.

AdEspresso proved this by spending $1500 on a lookalike custom audience experiment in 2017. They wanted to test the three most common levels of lookalike audiences: 1, 5, and 10%. So they conducted a study over a period of 14 days, using the same ad for each audience.

AdEspresso's range of lookalike audiences ranging from 1,5, and 10% audience size.

These were lead-based ads that meant to capture emails via lead magnets. They offered deals to customers who had shown interest in their blog posts or services but weren’t ready to convert just yet. So when someone clicked on the ad, they had to enter information to receive the free e-books.

AdEspresso using lead-based ads to capture emails in order for those who clicked on their Facebook ad to receive their free guides.

Next, they created a new campaign and used Facebook’s A/B testing functionality to test their audiences against each other.

AdEspresso used split testing as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

With Facebook, you can split-test multiple audiences, which is what AdEspresso used to simultaneously evaluate those three audience levels. Their timeline was 14 days with a budget of $1,500, which gave them $35 a day to spend:

AdEspresso spent $35/day for 14 days as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

They set up their three targeting percentages:

AdEspresso setting up 3 audience percentages as a part of their custom audience targeting on Facebook.

The results showed some significant data as to why many marketers were not finding success with this custom audience type. Here’s some of the most important information and concluding data that they found:

The results of AdEspresso split testing their lookalike audiences demonstrating Facebook ad effectiveness.

You can see the results of the study in the image above. The far left column is the 1% audience, the middle image is the 5% audience, and the far-right image is the 10% audience.

The 1% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $3.748. The 5% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $4.162, and the 10% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $6.364.

One key factor stood out that proved how effective smaller audiences are on Facebook:

The 10%-based lookalike audience was found to have a 70% higher cost per lead than the 1% audience. That could be a game-changer for improving Facebook ad effectiveness.

So, what’s the reason behind the results? Larger custom audiences just aren’t specific enough to drive great results.

10% audiences sound great in theory because they give you the option to corral tons of users, but they just don’t deliver specific enough results. Targeting a large audience usually works, but on Facebook, more users mean less targeting accuracy.

Creating a 1% lookalike audience of your own is easy. Simply navigate to your audiences section under your Meta Business Suite and select Lookalike Audience.

Create a lookalike audience in Meta Busines Manager as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Next, you need to choose the source for your lookalike audience.

Choose the source of your lookalike audience within Meta Business Manager.

The source could be anything from a custom audience to an email list to a specific page or profile. Once you’ve selected it, make sure you select 1% as your audience size.

Choose 1% for "audience size" when selecting a source for your lookalike audience for custom targeting.

If you want to perform your own A/B test like AdEspresso, click on Show Advanced Options.

Click "show advanced options" if you want to A/B test your lookalike audience as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Then, select the number of audiences and the sizes you want to create.

Click "show advanced options" if you want to A/B test your lookalike audience as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Try creating an audience at 1%, 5% and 10%, just like AdEspresso did. Once you’ve done this, head to your Ads Manager to create a new lead magnet ad.

Create a lead magnet ad as a part of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Before continuing, make sure to select the split-testing feature to compare your audiences with the same ad.

Click the "Create Split Test" feature when creating an A/B test for lookalike audiences.

Now that you have enabled the split-test feature, scroll down to the variables section.

Choose which variables you want to test  when doing custom audience targeting on Facebook.

This is where you can choose what variables you want to test.

You have three options here. For this custom audience test, you want to select the Audience option:

Select the audience option for this custom audience test on Facebook.

You’ll notice two different ad sets to begin with. But thankfully, Facebook allows you to test more than two ad sets at a time.

Hit “Test Another Ad Set” to add a third to your list.

Test multiple ad sets to enhance Facebook ad effectiveness.

If you created four or even five lookalike audience versions, feel free to add the corresponding amount of ad sets to make this split test accurate.

Next, click “Edit” on each ad set to select your corresponding lookalike audiences.

Edit each ad set to split test multiple lookalike audiences as a apart of your custom audience targeting on Facebook.

Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to push your new ads live and see which audience produces the most conversions at the lowest costs.

Remember, Facebook custom audiences are all about specificity. Don’t make the cardinal sin of trying to cast too wide of a net. The more specific your audience, the better your conversion rate.

Custom Audience Targeting on Facebook FAQs

What is a #2654 error?

A #2654 is a failure to create a custom audience. It occurs when Facebook does not have permission to create a custom audience from one or more of your event sources.

What happens if your audience is too broad when you set up a Facebook ad?

If your Facebook ad audience is too broad it won’t be very effective. Targeting too many people will result in high CPCs and low conversion rates. That’s why it’s important to use a custom audience to narrow down your target audience as much as possible.

How long do Facebook custom audiences last?

The maximum time people can stay in your custom audience is 180 days. After that time, users will be removed unless they trigger an action that includes them in the audience again.

How small can a Facebook custom audience be?

The minimum number of people you can have in a custom audience is 100. That being said, you should be creating larger audiences if you want to have success with Facebook ads.

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Conclusion

Meta’s advertising platform is one of the best ways to reach new customers. With boost posts and ever-powerful remarketing, you can reach almost anyone. On top of that, custom audiences are a gold mine when it comes to detailed targeting.

But with so many options to choose from, they can often cause problems for marketers. Having tons of features is wonderful, but it can also be overwhelming. Targeting is the main reason your Facebook ad is not working.

If you target the wrong audience with the wrong offer, you won’t get a single sale. But if you target the right audience with a stellar offer, you can skyrocket sales almost instantly.

One of the biggest mistakes is targeting only demographic data. Most people don’t target interests and exclusions, either. Those are both huge mistakes when using custom audience targeting on Facebook.

On top of that, people target too narrow of a recency window, limiting their sales potential. Instead, try creating custom audiences using your Google Analytics data. This will allow you to target users who have shown proven interest with specific offers.

Try targeting by frequency, too. This will help you appeal to people further down the sales funnel who are more primed to buy. Lastly, create a 1% lookalike audience to find the best results.

Facebook custom audiences that are properly optimized are a solid way to amp up your return on investment, so make sure to get them set up to work for you.

What are some of your best custom audience hacks to generate better results?

Do You Want a Million Dollar Business Loan? Here’s What You Need to Know

What could your small business do with a million dollars? Most small business owners think getting a million dollar business loan is a dream come true. Yet, do you really know what it takes not just to get a business loan of that size, but to pay for it? How much does a million dollars cost? Here’s what you need to know. 

The First Step is Building a Fundable™ Foundation

Your small business needs a Fundable™Foundation to qualify for business loans. The foundation is how your business is set up.

A small business that isn’t set up to be Fundable™ will be hard pressed to get business loans of any type, especially traditional bank business loans.

For sure, a million dollar small business loan will be difficult to get. This is what sets your business apart from you as the owner. As a result, the foundation is the kick start to overall Fundability™.

What’s In a Fundable™ Foundation? 

A Fundable™ Foundation is necessary for any type of business loans. That means a small business loan, vendor credit, credit cards, or any other type of business funding. It includes the following. 

Business Name

First, your business name needs to be registered with the Secretary of State.  Furthermore, it should not include or allude to a high-risk or restricted industry. Lenders do not like risk, and most are not in the habit of making business loans to businesses in high-risk industries.

Consistency

Also, your business name has to be consistent everywhere you use it. If it changes, change it everywhere, and be sure it is the same.

Consider the following examples. 

“Bill & Tom’s Discount Fishing Lures, Inc.” 

“Bill and Tom’s Discount Fishing Lures”

“Bill’s and Tom’s Discount Fishing Lures”

Of course, they are similar. Yet, they are not the same. So, if you use one of these on your registration with the Secretary of State and one of the others on your million dollar loan application, you may not even make it to the underwriting process.

Likely, your application will be automatically denied for business loans due to fraud concerns. 

Business Address

This must be a deliverable physical address, never UPS box or a PO Box. It’s true, a virtual address can work.  Yet, we know of at least one credit provider that will not accept them. 

EIN

You can get an EIN, or Employer Identification Number, free at IRS.gov. Then, use it to open a bank account and to build a business credit profile.

Be sure to verify that all agencies, banks, and trade credit vendors have this number and associate it with your business .

Business Entity

Using a corporation or LLC structure gives you more credibility.  Better yet, it reduces your personal liability. 

Business Phone and 411 Listing

Remember, toll-free phone numbers are best.  Also, it should be listed in the 411 directory. 

Business Licenses

Always make sure you have the proper licensing. 

Web Domain and Professional Website

For many reasons, you need a professional website that is helpful. Lenders will research your business online, especially before lending a million or more. 

As a result, you should pay for web hosting. Unfortunately,  this is not the time to use a freebie. Also, the domain should be the business name, if possible.

In addition, you need a company email address. It should be the same domain as your website.  

Business Bank Account in the Business’s Name

Due to the fact that business banking history is vital to getting business financing, it is necessary to have a separate, dedicated business bank account.  Of course, the longer the bank history is, the better. 

Next Step is to Build Strong Business Credit

As you know, lenders like to see a strong business credit profile. As a result, while personal credit isn’t ignored, good business credit can soften the impact of a bad personal credit score. 

Nothing Replaces a Strong Business Plan

Without a strong business plan you won’t get business loan approval. Whether you are looking for a traditional loan, SBA loans, or working with online lenders, this is important. This is true even though online lenders tend to be less strict with business financing approvals, a strong business plan never hurts. The presentation should be professional in both appearance and content.

Business Plan Writing Resources

You can hire a business plan writer, or do it yourself, but use all available resources.  

The Small Business Administration offers helpful business plan writing resources, and not just for SBA loans.

The Small Business Development Centers have a number of helpful aids also. Check with local universities to find one near you.

The Major Clincher for a Million Dollar Business Loan is Revenue

Obviously, you can’t get funding without revenue. Of course, this is because business loan repayment comes from revenue, and lenders want to know they will be repaid.

But, exactly how much is the payment on a million dollar business loan? 

Example Monthly Payments on a Million Dollar Business Loan

Business loan terms and payment amounts are variable based on terms and rates. Consider a $1M loan with an interest rate of 4% fixed for 20 years. The monthly payments on that business loan would be $4,774.15.

Then, consider the same business loan with the same interest rate for 15 years.  The payment on that is $7,396.88 a month. 

A Word About Collateral

If you have a Fundable™ Foundation and strong business and personal credit, the next step to getting more funding is collateral. It allows for better loan terms, including more money with lower interest rates and better terms. Furthermore, many SBA loans require collateral anyway.

Types of Collateral

Collateral can be pretty much any valuable asset. These include:

  • Buildings
  • Equipment
  • Inventory
  • And more

What Does it Take to Get a Million Dollar Business Loan?

To get the most funding possible, whether through small business loans or other funding, you need: 

  • Fundable Foundation
  • Good business and personal credit score
  • Professional business plan
  • Collateral

Credit Suite Can Help

We can help with the Fundability and business credit. We know the secret sauce to get you started and help you grow in the most efficient way possible.

Then, you can get the funding you need, when you need it. With Credit Suite, you may be eligible for a million dollar loan sooner than you think.  

The post Do You Want a Million Dollar Business Loan? Here’s What You Need to Know appeared first on Credit Suite.

It’s Not Worth It: Here’s What 6 Organizations Have to Say About Buying Business Tradelines for Sale

You probably know why you need tradelines on your business credit reports. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to get them there. Adding tradelines is important, but you should definitely avoid business tradelines for sale. Buying tradelines can hurt more than it helps. 

Buying Business Tradelines for Sale Isn’t The Shortcut it May Seem

Honestly, there are no shortcuts in life or business. Think about it. Inevitably when you try to cut corners to make things go faster, you miss something important. More times than not, it ends up costing more time and money than it would have if you had just done it the right way to begin with. This is as true about building business credit as it is anything else. 

Still, some people try shortcuts anyway. The top three “shortcuts” to building business credit are:

For many, buying tradelines seems like the easiest and least risky shortcut. However, these 6 organizations agree, it’s just not worth it. 

#1 Federal Reserve

“The potential distortions in credit scores that piggybacking credit may introduce suggest that a reconsideration of existing regulations, industry practices, or both may be warranted to preserve the predictiveness of credit scoring models.”

Credit Where None is Due? Authorized User Account Status and “Piggybacking Credit”, Robert B. Avery, Kenneth P. Brevoort, Glenn B. Canner (Federal Reserve Board, March 5, 2010) 

# 2 Dun & Bradstreet

According to a Former D&B Employee:

“Opening a business credit account with any company is free. If you are paying for it, you are being ripped off. When the company who sold that tradeline to you gets taken down, all of their clients will get punished, too, with a mound of debt and a cursed credit file that will keep you from getting more credit to be able to pay it off.”

Joy Greenwood, 10 Common Trade-Line Mistakes, June 5, 2015

# 3 The FBI

When commenting on a 2013 bust of a fraud ring, “A second kind of tradeline is the “authorized user” tradeline, where a credit card holder adds another, so-called “authorized user,” to a credit card account. This raises the credit score of the authorized user, who inherits some of the primary user’s credit history.

Some defendants created and sold fake lines of credit for false identities made up by other defendants. These fraudulent primary tradelines were then used to increase the credit limits on fraud cards, so that the defendants could reap even larger profits. Defendants used the authorized user tradelines to create new identities.”

#4  FICO

FICO’s opinion on piggybacking is obvious here: “A … shadier version of piggybacking has been promoted by some CROs who offer to “rent” to their credit-challenged customers the trade lines of established account holders, in an effort to boost their customers’ credit profiles and scores.”

#5 Equifax

Equifax: “… authorized user abuse occurs when low-risk primary card owners “rent” their tradelines with extensive credit histories, high credit limits and solid repayment profiles to others – most times, knowingly, to fraudsters.”

#6 Experian

Experian: “Buying tradelines may be viewed as deceptive by lenders and credit reporting agencies, and could even put you in danger of committing bank fraud.

Credit scores are designed to help lenders determine a borrower’s creditworthiness, and most use your credit scores and credit reports to determine whether to approve a credit application and what terms you qualify for.

If you pay money to improve your credit scores without doing any of the work or even getting a card to use, you could be falsely representing your creditworthiness to potential lenders.”

Buying Business Tradelines for Sale

So, what are business trade lines, and how does buying business tradelines for sale work? Legit business trade lines are lines of credit extended to businesses by vendors. A business gets goods or services and agrees to pay for them at a later date. Tradelines are often established between a business and a vendor, rather than a line of credit offered by a bank. They can help businesses build credit by rapidly building positive credit experiences. 

There are many companies online which promise to sell ‘seasoned’ tradelines. If your company has poor or little credit, you can pay to have your business piggyback on the account of someone with well established, strong credit. This allows new business owners to seem more creditworthy than they really are. Sounds fishy right? 

How Does Piggybacking a Tradeline Work?

A third party uses a creditworthy borrower’s accounts to improve their own credit. The borrower adds the third party as a user of his lines of credit. But, he or she does not actually provide the third party with credit cards or account numbers. The third party has no way to actually make charges against the account. As a result, that third party user never actually uses the credit. 

The benefit to the third party is an improved credit rating. It appears they already have higher limit revolving accounts. In theory, showing you already have credit makes you more creditworthy for higher limit accounts. Some companies claim to be able to secure $100,000 – 250,000 credit lines once these accounts are reporting.  Obviously, this buying of business tradelines for sale is dishonest.

A company offering the piggybacking service maintains a network of creditworthy ‘card holders’ or ‘vendors.’ They will add strangers to their accounts as users for a fee. A third party, looking to increase their credit score, contacts the company. Then, the company selects one of the business  tradelines for sale to the client, and charges the client a fee per account. 

It Works for Personal Credit, so What’s the Problem?

 Now, it’s important to note that personal credit works differently than business credit in this area, and many other areas for that matter. 

Consumer trades such as this are legitimate. A person with poor credit can use this strategy without issue. So, if you know someone with great credit, it is perfectly fine to ask if you can become an authorized user on their card. You never need to use the card, and it can still help to raise your personal credit scores.

But, in the business credit realm, things are much different. Consider what the following agencies have to say. 

Lenders Know All About Business Tradelines for Sale 

Lenders and CRAs know all the unethical methods out there. They know what to look for, and they are looking.  For example, when they see a change in company ownership, or a new authorized user on a card, they dig deeper.  Furthermore, sooner or later D&B will figure out you are using business tradelines for sale. If a tradeline sales company inquires into your credit report, D & B finds out.

Any time you buy a tradeline, the seller checks your credit. Of course they do, because they want to be sure they get paid. When this happens, here is what happens next:

  • D&B shuts down tradeline(s) 
  • They red flag your entire profile, including legit trades alongside the illegitimate ones
  • You lose whatever time you think you gained by using business tradelines for sale
  • Plus, you’re out the cost of the tradelines

In addition, when a company has a reputation of being a tradeline seller, that company will be flagged as such. Any new inquiries by that flagged tradeline seller harms buyers, including older tradeline sales. There is no Statute of Limitations on this.  That means, if you bought tradelines 50 years ago, D&B may still find out and it can still harm you. 

Buying Business Tradelines for Sale is Not Worth It

Buying tradelines involves buying tradelines that belong to others and putting them on your credit report. While not technically illegal, it is dishonest.  If a lender figures out you are doing it, you could be black balled.  It isn’t worth it.

Still, adding tradelines to your business credit report is vital. You just have to do it the right way. Our Business Finance Suite helps you do just that. It walks you through the process step-by-step, so you get your own tradelines that you can actually use.  Find out more today by getting a free Business Finance Assessment with a Credit Suite specialist. 

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Here’s When to Dip Into Your Line of Credit

The Best Ways to Use Your Business Line of Credit 

A business line of credit (LOC) is a powerful tool to help business owners handle surprise expenses or navigate a dip in revenue. Having an LOC to draw from can be the difference between business failure and survival.

But like any money you borrow, LOCs must be repaid—with interest—so it’s important to think through the best ways to use this funding option. 

Here’s what you need to know about a business LOC and how you should use it.

What, exactly, is a business line of credit?

An LOC is an arrangement by which a bank or other financial institution agrees to provide a customer—an organization or individual—access to funds up to a certain limit. The customer can draw funds up to that limit at any time and must pay interest on the amount borrowed until they repay it. After repayment, the customer can borrow those same funds again (and again) to cover further expenses. 

A business LOC is different from other common business funding options in several ways. The option it most closely resembles is a credit card. This is since both of these function by allowing the borrower to draw money over and over up to a given limit. An LOC is unlike a credit card, in that an asset like a home or business property might secure it. This often leads to lower rates (traditionally 3% to 7%) and higher limits than credit cards.

Another common option for business funding is a business term loan. You might secure it with a business asset, as with an LOC. Unlike an LOC, though, a business loan is due in set installments that can range from three months to 25 years. While with an LOC, payment is typically due monthly on the amount you borrowed, and interest only accrues on what you don’t pay back on time.

What is a business line of credit best used for? 

It is best to use business LOCs when you know you can back the funds relatively quickly. Hence business owners who lean on LOCs to finance regular business operations may quickly find themselves in trouble with repayment. 

“A line of credit is meant to be a short-term bridge rather than a long-term fix,” says Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. “It is meant to provide a consistent access to funds to help businesses push through short-term crunches, such as waiting for a client to pay an invoice or seasonal dry periods.”

When deciding whether to use an LOC for a given expense, err on the side of caution. You want to preserve borrowing capacity to maintain a safety net. But if the expense in question is the type that a safety net is made for, then borrow away. Here are five situations where you may want to consider using your business LOC.

Unexpected emergencies

An LOC can be a good way to respond quickly to a true emergency in your business. For example, a natural disaster that damages your property. Or the complete breakdown of vital equipment. You need to fix these problems right away. They may be expensive to address. But an LOC can accommodate this. 

However, it’s best to think ahead about how you’ll repay the large expense quickly. This is to regain your borrowing power and reestablish your LOC safety net for the next time something comes up. In the case of a natural disaster, you may anticipate receiving insurance money that you can use to repay the LOC. 

Equipment repairs

A small equipment repair is an excellent use case for a business LOC. It’s best to try to limit your use to repairs that are relatively inexpensive and quick. This is so that you don’t tie up too much of your credit limit for too long. That’s why it’s best to finance major, nonemergency repairs or the purchase of new equipment in another way, such as via a business loan. 

“If you’re talking about new equipment altogether, [using a line of credit] might not be the best fit,” says Shulz. “Tying up the funds from a line of credit in a big equipment purchase means that there is less of it to use as a safety net in case cash-flow woes or other short-term financial hiccups occur.”

Ramping up 

Using an LOC to help you pay for necessary expenses while you’re ramping up your business can be a good idea, assuming you’re sufficiently sure of success and anticipate being able to pay the LOC back by way of increased revenues in the near future.

Borrowing money from an LOC to start a business you’re unsure will succeed is an unwise choice. You’ll be liable for repayment even if the business fails. 

Busy seasons

Some businesses have de facto busy seasons or are explicitly seasonal, which can put a strain on business resources at certain times of year. An LOC can help you cover all the expenses required to function optimally in the busy season. This is with the anticipation that revenues from those heightened sales will allow for quick repayment after higher sales ebb. 

“The extra funds from the line of credit can help you handle those extra expenses while you wait for the cash to start rolling in during that busy period,” says Shulz. The key is ensuring that you have full confidence that the sales will indeed be rolling in soon. 

Awaiting payment

An LOC can help when you’re waiting for payment—especially late payment—from a customer. Or when ramping up to handle an important new client. In both cases, you know money will be forthcoming, which will allow you to repay whatever you borrow very soon. 

Just be sure that if you borrow from an LOC as an advance on forthcoming payment that you are absolutely certain that money will be coming along soon. You can get in hot water if you dip into your LOC only to have your client default on payment you’re expecting. 

Secure an LOC before you really need it

Ideally, you should have an LOC set up before you need the money. Establishing a business LOC can require an initial investment — if the lender charges closing costs. So it may be hard to stomach setting one up before you feel you absolutely have to. But the security it provides is well worth the initial outlay. 

“It can definitely be smart to get that line of credit before you really need it,” says Shulz. “Remember that you don’t have to use it when you get it. You’re only charged interest on the amount that you actually use.”

In a best-case scenario, you establish your LOC and never have to borrow against it. But you’ll sleep easier at night knowing it’s there. 

Line of Credit author Katherine Gustafson guest blogger

 

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance finance and business writer specializing in content marketing and thought leadership. Her work has appeared in finance and business publications such as MagnifyMoney, StudentLoanHero, Forbes, and Business Insider.

The post Here’s When to Dip Into Your Line of Credit appeared first on Credit Suite.

Here’s a Customized List of Keywords You Can Rank For Today

Everyone says SEO takes a while and it does.

Especially if you want to rank for competitive terms like “auto insurance” or “credit cards”.

But there must be a list of keywords that you can rank for today that is super easy to rank for, yet the keywords are still good in which they will drive traffic and sales.

And to help you find those keywords we released a new Ubersuggest feature that will show you a list of keywords that are perfect for your site in less than 60 seconds.

What do you consider “easy” Neil?

What’s easy for my site NeilPatel.com to rank for, maybe hard for your site.

And what may be easy for Wikipedia to rank for, maybe hard for my site.

“Easy” is very relative to the site. Depending on your domain authority and the age of your site, a keyword could be easy or hard to rank for.

So, with Ubersuggest, we took that into account when it came to giving you a list of keywords that are “easy” to rank for.

The list is based on your site and what would be easy for you. We base that on a wide variety of factors such as domain authority, age of the site, what you currently rank for, and your current organic traffic level.

How to find easy keywords that are still valuable

Now let’s go find you some keywords that you can start ranking for.

I want you to head over to Ubersuggest and type in a keyword related to your space and click on “Search”.

If you are unsure what keyword to type in, it can be any related to your website and it can be generic. For example, if you have a site that sells “dog food” you can type in the keyword “dog food” or even something like “dog”.

For this example, I used the term “digital marketing” as the NeilPatel.com site isn’t just about SEO I cover all aspects of online marketing.

You should see a report that looks something like this.

It’s an overview of the keyword. It tells you how many people search for the keyword each month. It even breaks down how many people search for that keyword on mobile and desktop devices.

In the left-hand navigation click on “keyword ideas”.

You’ll see a report that looks something like this:

This report is showing you all the similar keywords of the phrase you typed in. In this case, these are all the words and phrases related to digital marketing. There are also tabs on that report, such as related, questions, prepositions, and comparisons. These tabs show even more keyword ideas for you.

Now click on the button that says “Page 1 Ranking Potential”:

Once you enter your domain you’ll see all the keywords you can rank for.

When I put Npdigital.com, my ad agency, it filters the results and shows me keywords that are easier to rank for.

When I put in NeilPatel.com it doesn’t really filter much because the site has so much authority I have the ability to rank for most keywords.

When I put in brand new sites it filters much more. Like when I put in my holding company site it shows me keywords that aren’t competitive at all, but of course, I have even a smaller list as I barely have any authority with that site.

Once you have a list, I want you to look for keywords that contain the following traits:

  • Traffic greater than 100 – even if a keyword is searched 100 times it doesn’t mean you will get 100 visits if you rank number 1. You will only get a fraction of that. So you don’t want to aim too small.
  • High CPC – CPC stands for cost per click. That is what someone pays per click if they advertised on Google Ads. The higher the number the better as it typically means the keyword converts from a visitor to a customer standpoint.
  • Low SEO difficulty – the lower the “SD” or “SEO difficulty” number the easier the keyword is to rank for. So, target keywords with the lowest number first assuming they meet the above 2 points as well.
  • Relevancy – even if a keyword meets the above 3 points, you have to make sure the keyword is relevant to your business. If it isn’t related to what you do then you wouldn’t want to waste your time targeting it. Traffic for the sake of traffic is just a waste of money because you are putting in time and energy optimizing your site for keywords.

Conclusion

SEO is great, but it does take time.

It’s the reason why some people think SEO is dead when it really isn’t. It is just more so competitive and takes longer to rank for popular terms.

So, give this new feature a try. Head over to Ubersuggest and put in a keyword and see what is easy for you to rank for today.

What do you think about the new feature?

Should You Get a Personal Loan? Here’s What You Need To Know

Did you recently have an unexpected expense pop up? Are you unsure about how you’re going to pay for it? No matter how well we plan our lives out, sometimes we find ourselves in financial pickles that leave us strapped for cash. Don’t sweat it too much, though. You definitely have a few options available…

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