Did you know that more than 90% of first-time visitors to a website leave without making a purchase? Retargeting is your chance to turn those lost opportunities into loyal customers—but only if you avoid common pitfalls. Too often, marketers make avoidable mistakes, wasting ad budgets and frustrating potential buyers.
If you’re tired of watching your ad dollars disappear without results, this guide will help you fix the top 8 Facebook retargeting mistakes and create campaigns that drive real conversions. Let’s dive in and get your retargeting strategy back on track!
- Mistake #1: Relying on Facebook Advantage+ Campaigns for Retargeting
- Mistake #2: Ignoring the Power of Static Ads for Retargeting
- Mistake #3: Poor Retargeting Audience Segmentation
- Mistake #4: Overlooking the Potential of Retargeting Past Purchasers
- Mistake #5: Not Using UTM Tracking for Facebook Ad Performance Insights
- Mistake #6: Scaling Too Aggressively & Hurting Your Retargeting ROI
- Mistake #7: Neglecting Creative Testing and Diagnostics
- Final Thoughts
Mistake #1: Relying on Facebook Advantage+ Campaigns for Retargeting
Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) offer automation that combines both prospecting and retargeting within a single campaign. While this might sound efficient, ASC falls short when it comes to the level of control necessary for effective retargeting.
In fact, ASC campaigns remove the ability to target or exclude specific audience segments. Instead of fine-tuning your campaign to reach high-value retargeting audiences like cart abandoners or past purchasers, ASC forces advertisers to rely on Meta's algorithm to decide who sees the ads. The lack of transparency and precision can lead to inefficient budget allocation and missed opportunities.
Here’s how ASC complicates retargeting efforts:
- No Audience Control: In ASC campaigns, you can’t define specific audience segments or exclude certain groups. For example, if you want to target only past purchasers or exclude recent customers, ASC doesn’t allow for such granular customization.
- Ambiguous Budget Allocation: Budget allocation in ASC is managed using percentage limits, but these limits don’t work intuitively.
- Setting the budget to 0% for existing customers doesn’t target only new prospects; instead, it may still reach engaged users who haven’t purchased.
- Conversely, setting the budget to 99% for existing customers doesn’t guarantee all of it will be spent on that segment—it merely gives Meta the freedom to allocate up to 99% toward them. This vagueness often leads to inefficient spending.
- Frequency Issues: Without proper audience segmentation, you may notice your ads being repeatedly shown to the same users, including retargeting audiences. By checking your frequency report in Ads Manager, you can see how often your ads are displayed. A frequency above 1 suggests overlap between audiences, even when ASC claims to prioritize new ones.
The Solution
- Use Manual Sales Campaigns (formerly Conversion Campaigns): These allow you to specify audience segments like cart abandoners or product page viewers. You can also exclude audiences like recent purchasers to focus on high-intent users.
- Adjust budget allocation at the ad set level (ABO) for greater control over how much is spent on each segment.
- Monitor Performance Closely: Regularly check your audience breakdown and frequency reports to ensure your budget isn’t wasted on overlapping or irrelevant audiences.
For a full guide on setting up retargeting audiences and manual sales campaigns, check out our Step-by-Step Guide to Facebook Retargeting.
Key Takeaway: Use manual sales campaigns to regain full retargeting audience control, and avoid inefficiencies of Facebook ASC+ campaigns.
Mistake #2: Ignoring the Power of Static Ads for Retargeting
While videos excel at grabbing attention and driving awareness at the top of the funnel, they often fall short when engaging audiences further down the funnel in retargeting campaigns.
As you know, videos can provide too much information or demand too much attention from users who have already interacted with your brand. However, retargeting audiences, such as cart abandoners or past product page viewers, are already familiar with your offerings.
The Solution
For our clients, we’ve seen that static ads often outperform videos in retargeting campaigns. Static ads tend to resonate with audiences further down the funnel because they align with the intent and attention span of users in this phase. Unlike videos, which require active viewing, static ads quickly communicate value and next steps—ideal for driving conversions.
People who have already seen the product are more attracted to static images, especially when paired with discounts or compelling offers. Here’s how to implement this strategy effectively:
- Focus on Simplicity: Use static images with clear messaging, like “20% Off Today Only!” or “Free Shipping on Your Next Order.”
- Combine Formats: You can mix static and dynamic ads in the same ad group. For example:
- Start with an intro card that features a static image announcing the offer.
- Follow it with product images pulled from your catalog to highlight a variety of options.
- Test for Effectiveness: Experiment with both static ads and videos to see what resonates most with your retargeting audience. Every business is different, so results may vary.
- Experiment with different ad formats for your retargeting campaigns, but monitor performance metrics closely. If static ads consistently show higher CTRs or CVRs compared to videos, prioritize them for lower-funnel audiences.
Key Takeaway: Static ads usually outperform videos in retargeting by delivering clear, concise messages that drive conversions for already-engaged audiences.
Mistake #3: Poor Retargeting Audience Segmentation
Proper audience segmentation is critical for retargeting success. When your audiences overlap or lack precision, it can lead to ad fatigue, and irrelevant messaging, leading to ROI drop.
Here’s the problem:
- Poor Segmentation: Casting a wide net—such as targeting “180-Day Site Visitors”—makes it difficult to identify which segments drive the highest conversions. For example, you won’t know if users are more likely to convert within the first 7 days of visiting your site, or after 30, 60, or 90 days. This lack of granularity prevents you from optimizing your budget by focusing on the most profitable audience, like “7-Day Site Visitors.”
- Overlapping Audiences: Without exclusions, you risk targeting the same people with multiple ads, inflating frequency, and wasting ad spend.
The Solution
- Define clear audience segments. Avoid broad categories like "all website visitors" unless your site traffic is very low. Focus on high-value groups like:
- Cart abandoners
- Past purchasers
- Product page visitors
- Implement strategic exclusions. Prevent overlap by excluding certain groups from each ad set:
- Exclude Purchasers: Ensure ads don’t target users who’ve already bought.
- Exclude Shorter Timeframes: For example, exclude 7-day visitors from your 30-day audience to prevent overlap.
- Adapt to Business Needs. Smaller businesses may not have large enough audiences to segment narrowly, so shorter windows (like 7 days) might be too small to yield meaningful results. For them, it’s better to combine audiences, expanding your time frames (e.g., 7-day and 30-day visitors) while still excluding purchasers to optimize scale without sacrificing relevance.
Download the full Facebook retargeting audiences campaign structure cheat sheet here.
Testing different time frames and audience sizes is critical to finding what works best for your business.
Key Takeaway: Effective retargeting requires precise audience segmentation. Focus on high-value groups like cart abandoners and past purchasers while avoiding overlap by using exclusions. Test different time frames to find what drives the highest conversions for your business.
Mistake #4: Overlooking the Potential of Retargeting Past Purchasers
While excluding recent purchasers from general retargeting campaigns is a sound strategy to avoid ad fatigue and wasted budget, it doesn't mean you should ignore this audience altogether.
Basically, Past purchasers can be retargeted in a separate ad set with tailored ads, offering an opportunity to deepen engagement and drive incremental revenue.
The Solution
Tailoring messaging for recent purchasers not only enhances their experience but also boosts their lifetime value. Here’s how to target this audience effectively:
- Cross-Sell or Upsell Opportunities: Promote complementary products or upgrades. For example, if someone bought a smoothie kit, advertise accessories like reusable straws or tumblers.
- Loyalty Incentives: Encourage repeat purchases with exclusive discounts or loyalty rewards.
- Reorder Reminders: Offer practical reminders to restock, such as “Running low? Order now and save 15%!”
- Promotional Campaigns: Include past purchasers in regular promotions like sitewide sales or holiday discounts. For example, “Thank you for being a loyal customer—enjoy early access to our 20% off sale!”
By including past purchasers in your retargeting strategy, you can unlock an additional revenue stream without diluting your ad budget for other audiences. This targeted approach helps stay top-of-mind for past customers and generate more sales.
*Pro Tip: Considering that most businesses today are focused on acquiring new customers, a retargeting strategy should be planned out and presented to the company’s decision-makers.
Key Takeaway: Always exclude recent purchasers from regular retargeting ad sets. Instead, engage them with tailored cross-sells, loyalty incentives, reorder reminders or promotional campaigns to enhance their experience and maximize their lifetime value.
Mistake #5: Not Using UTM Tracking for Facebook Ad Performance Insights
If a user clicks on your Google ad, visits your site, but doesn't make a purchase, UTM data allows you to retarget them seamlessly with a Meta ad tailored to their journey. For retargeting campaigns, this precision is crucial. Without UTM tracking, you lose visibility into how users move between platforms, making it nearly impossible to measure your campaign’s effectiveness or refine your strategies. Accurate UTM tracking ensures you can attribute actions to the right touchpoints, optimize ad spend, and scale campaigns confidently.
The Solution
- Implement UTM tracking consistently: Add UTM parameters to all URLs in your ads to track clicks, conversions, and revenue by audience segment.
- Use tools like Google Analytics 4 to analyze campaign performance and identify top-performing ads.
- Create a standardized UTM structure to ensure consistency across all campaigns.
- Connect third-party data providers to Meta. Use dynamic UTMs to make it easier to set them up on each ad.
For a step-by-step guide, read our article on the Complete Link Tracking Guide for Digital Marketers.
Mistake #6: Scaling Too Aggressively & Hurting Your Retargeting ROI
Scaling campaigns too quickly can disrupt performance and reset Meta’s learning phase, leading to inefficiencies.
The Solution
- Expand Lookalike Audiences: Leverage high-performing segments (e.g., recent purchasers) to reach new prospects with similar behaviors.
- Broaden Retargeting Windows: If you don’t have a large enough audience, then increase the window from 7 to 14 or 30 days to capture users who take longer to convert. Adjust your messaging for colder audiences.
- Increase Budgets Gradually: Raise budgets by no more than 20% at a time to avoid destabilizing performance. Whenever the budget is changed by more than 20% your campaigns will enter the learning phase.
Key Takeaway: Scaling too fast can hurt your ROI and reset your campaign performance. Gradually increase budgets, expand retargeting windows strategically, and use lookalike audiences to scale efficiently without disrupting results.
Mistake #7: Neglecting Creative Testing and Diagnostics
Ad creatives are the foundation of any Facebook retargeting campaign, but neglecting to test and refresh them leads to ad fatigue and declining engagement. Understanding and tracking key metrics is essential to optimize Facebook retargeting campaigns. Without monitoring them closely, you’re essentially flying blind, risking inefficiency and poor results.
The Solution
- A/B Test Strategically: Focus on testing one element at a time—such as colors, copy, or visuals—to pinpoint what drives better performance. Analyze results within the first 3–5 days and pause underperforming ads early.
- Formats: Compare carousel ads, single images, and videos.
- Assets: Test static images, dynamic product ads, and user-generated content (UGC).
- Messaging: Experiment with different headlines, primary text, and calls-to-action (CTAs).
- Use Creative Diagnostics to Optimize: Analyze key performance metrics to identify strengths and weaknesses:
- CTR (Click-Through Rate): Low CTR? Your visuals or copy might not be engaging.
- CVR (Conversion Rate): High CTR but low CVR indicates an issue with the landing page or ad relevance.
- Frequency: High frequency (above 4–5) paired with a declining CTR suggests ad fatigue—time to refresh creatives.
- Align Creatives with Your Audience: Retargeting creatives should align with the audience’s position in the funnel:
- For cart abandoners, emphasize urgency with static ads featuring discounts.
- For product page visitors, highlight product benefits with dynamic ads or carousel formats.
- For social media engagers, use engaging UGC or testimonials to build trust.
Key Takeaway: Regularly testing and optimizing your ad creatives, while closely monitoring performance metrics, ensures your retargeting campaigns stay fresh, engaging, and effective at driving conversions.
Final Thoughts
Retargeting on Facebook is more than just a marketing tactic—it’s a strategic lifeline that connects potential customers with your brand at critical moments. From crafting tailored messaging to segmenting audiences effectively and optimizing creatives, every detail plays a role in turning missed opportunities into loyal customers.
By avoiding common pitfalls like relying too heavily on Advantage+ campaigns, neglecting metrics, or missing out on tailored approaches for past purchasers, you can maximize your ROI and elevate your marketing game. Remember, retargeting isn’t just about driving sales—it’s about building meaningful connections with your audience.
Now it’s your turn. Implement these insights, refine your strategies, and watch your Facebook retargeting campaigns drive the results your business deserves.
What challenges have you been facing in your retargeting campaigns? Share how you’ve dealt with them, and let’s keep the conversation going!
Before you go, put your retargeting knowledge to the test! Take this quick quiz to see if you’re avoiding the most common Facebook retargeting mistakes.
