If our delivery system predicts that your ad set is going to get zero conversions that you optimised for, we warn you about this so that you can make adjustments before it starts running. This guide helps you figure out what the right adjustments are.

Is the conversion that you're optimising for happening frequently enough?

When optimising for conversions, we recommend choosing one that happens about 50 times per week at a minimum. Our system needs that many to learn from. Our system needs to learn so that it can deliver your ad to the right people at the right time to get you the best results.

Important: In order for a conversion to count towards your 50, it has to happen within your chosen conversion window. For example, if you have a 1-day post-click conversion window for purchase conversions and someone clicks your ad and completes a purchase three days later, that doesn't count towards the 50.

If your ad set is predicted to get zero conversions, you may not have chosen to optimise for one that happens frequently enough. To figure out the right one, check your pixel data. See how many times each event happens per week. If you're not seeing enough of any single pixel event, you may want to first focus on building up website traffic and a customer base. Learn how to do that with our guide on building up to conversion optimisation.

Here are some ad set creation options that we recommend trying if we predict that your ad set will get zero conversions:

• Optimise for a more common conversion: It may be tempting to jump straight to optimising for purchases, assuming that's what you ultimately care about. However, purchases are the rarest type of conversion. If we predict that you're going to get zero of your chosen conversion, try optimising for a more common one instead. For example, instead of optimising for purchases, optimise for adds-to-basket or Page views. Both events are more likely to lead to a purchase than, say, someone engaging with a post on your Page, but may occur frequently enough that we can consistently get you that result. Purchases may not.
• Optimise for landing page views: This conversion event drives higher quality traffic than link clicks do, since a landing page view only occurs when the Page you want to send people to loads. (If someone clicks a link, but then closes down your Page before it loads, that counts as a link click, but not a landing page view.) However, it's still more common than most other conversion events. It's a good choice if you do need to build up more website traffic and a customer base.

If you're trying all of these but you're still predicted to get zero conversions, the problem may lie elsewhere.

Could your targeting, creative, bid strategy and/or budget be holding you back?

If you've tried changing the conversion that you're optimising for and are still predicted to get zero conversions, it's likely that a combination of factors are causing the issue. Because of this, you may have to experiment with different combinations of adjustments. We'll explain each area that you should look into and what you can try.

Targeting

If your targeting is not relevant enough or too narrow, it could be part of the reason that your ad set is predicted to get zero conversions.

Targeting that's not relevant enough

To improve the relevance of your targeting, ask your self questions such as:

• Where are my customers? If you're a local business or can only deliver items to certain places, don't target, say, an entire country. Target your local area or the areas you can deliver to.
• Who are my customers? Think about what basic traits your customers have in common. Are they likely to be older or younger? Are they likely to be a particular gender? Where are they likely to live?
• What language do my customers speak? Facebook doesn't translate your ad copy into other languages, so make sure that the audience you're targeting can read your ad using appropriate language targeting choices.
• Do I have better insight into a given type of targeting than Facebook would?This can be difficult to know in every situation, but when you think you have information that we don't have, you should provide that information through targeting to help us find the best people to show your ads to. If you don't think you'd know better than Facebook, then you shouldn't add that to your targeting criteria. Bear in mind that Facebook's delivery system is trying to show your ads to the people most likely to get your chosen conversion no matter how broad your targeting is. Because of this, ill-informed targeting choices that restrict our delivery system could end up hurting performance rather than helping it.
• Am I excluding strategically too? Including additional targeting criteria is helpful, but don't ignore your ability to exclude too. Doing so can help us find the right people faster.
• Am I using Audience Insights to guide me? If you're really unsure who to target, but also don't want to leave optimisation up to Facebook's delivery system alone, use Audience Insights. It can show you relevant information about your target audience that can help you refine your targeting as well as your creative.

And use products such as:

• Website Custom Audiences. Targeting people who've visited and taken specific actions on your website can help find people likely to convert. This is a great tool because you don't have to keep uploading new files – we'll keep your audience updated for you based on who visits your website.
• Lookalike Audiences. If you're already using a Custom Audience on your ad set, you may have saturated it (meaning that people in it are no longer responding to your ads). To extend the success of that audience, consider using it as a source for a Lookalike Audience, which finds people similar to those in your source audience.
• Detailed targeting. Targeting people based on their interests – not just their demographic information – is generally more effective for conversion optimisation. You may also want to think about what traits your competitors may be targeting and either use them too (to compete) or avoid them (to differentiate yourself). We recommend using this in conjunction with targeting expansion (see below).

Targeting that's too narrow

To broaden your audience:

• Ensure that you're targeting every location that your product or service can be shipped to or used in. Take advantage of our targeting system's ability to help you find the populous areas near your business or to deliver your ads worldwide or regionally. Doing so can greatly expand the reach of your campaigns, opening them up to a range of new (and potentially better) results.
• Consolidate ad sets so that you have larger audiences for each one. Having too many similar ad sets in your campaign could lead to auction overlap (meaning that your ad sets are ending up in the same auction, so we have to remove one) or too little data for each ad set (less than the recommended 50 optimisation events each week). If your ad set that's predicted to get zero conversions is targeted to an audience that's similar to your other ad sets or is optimised for the same result as them, consider combining those ad sets and their budgets. This can help increase delivery, which can lead to more conversions.

  Make sure that you check Delivery Insights to find out if auction overlap is causing performance issues, or check how much your audiences overlap ahead of time using the audience overlap tool.
• Remove unnecessary targeting restrictions. If you've used the Narrow audienceor Narrow further option in the "Detailed targeting" section of ad set creation, consider moving those interests to the regular "Include" section. This means that people will only have to meet one of your criteria to be included in your audience, not all of them. If you're excluding anyone unnecessarily, remove that restriction too. If you're using a Custom Audience or Lookalike Audience, we recommend not using any additional targeting on top of them. If it makes sense to at least try expanding your other demographic targeting, do so.

And use products such as:

• Targeting expansion: This feature gives us the option to expand your interest-based detailed targeting if we think doing so will get you better results.
• Automatic placement: This allows us to find conversions across the Facebook family of apps and services. It can help increase the number of people you reach and also control costs.

• Cross-border targeting: If your products can be used or shipped globally, Facebook offers worldwide and regional targeting options. This can greatly expand the reach of your campaigns, opening them up to a range of new (and potentially better) results. You can tell us to deliver your ads all over the world, or tell us to deliver them in specific regions (e.g. Europe, Asia) or free trade areas (e.g. NAFTA).

Bid strategy

An uncompetitive bid strategy can prevent you from winning auctions, which prevents your ad from being shown, meaning that you can't get any conversions. If you're using the lowest cost bid strategy without a bid cap, it's unlikely that your bid strategy is the reason for zero conversions, because our system will bid higher as needed to spend your budget. If you're using either a bid cap or a target cost as your bid strategy, you may need to increase these amounts to win more auctions.

Setting a bid cap or cost target is still a good strategy if you have a cost per conversion requirement or a good sense of what a conversion is worth to you. Here are some tips on how to set an amount that will enable you to get conversions:

• A good starting point is what a conversion within your conversion window is worth to you – whether on average (cost target) or at most (bid cap). Try starting with this and raising it if you're predicted to get zero conversions.
• When figuring out how much a conversion is worth to you, consider the typical purchase cycle and lifetime value too. For example, if you get a new customer to buy something, that could lead to future purchases too. Sometimes more expensive conversions lead to more long-term value if that customer makes future purchases or spends more on their purchases.
• Bear in mind how each bid strategy and ad auctions work: A cost target tells our system to bid for results that, over the lifetime of your campaign, will have an average cost as close to your target as possible. If you use a cost target, set the average amount that you actually want to (or can afford to) pay. A bid cap sets a maximum amount that we'll bid for you in any given auction, and bids are not the same as what a result costs. In fact, you may end up paying less than your bid in many cases. Given this, consider setting your bid cap at the maximum amount that you'd be willing to pay for any given conversion.

Creative

Because we consider user value in addition to advertiser value when deciding which ads to show, having creative that resonates with your target audience is an important aspect of ad performance. We offer two products to help optimise your creative:

• Dynamic creative. This enables you to give us creative components that we'll test and configure for the best results from each impression
• Placement asset customisation. This enables you to use one ad set with assets customised for each placement, reducing the number of ad sets needed

• Creative hub
• Ads Guide
• Creative best practices

Budget

Budget is not likely to be a major factor in your ad set being predicted to get zero conversions, except in one case: If you're using a cost target or bid cap and your budget isn't at least five times as high as your target or cap, you're unlikely to get conversions.

Other resources

For more information, visit:

• Our guide on troubleshooting poor ad performance
• Our conversion optimisation guides

* Nguồn: Facebook