I tried Facebook ads for a week but felt like I was throwing money away. What am I doing wrong?

This is extremely common, and sadly, in most cases, you probably were throwing money away — but not because Facebook ads don’t work. The issue is almost always that you’re not set up correctly. Most people jump into ads without understanding how art actually sells online or having the necessary infrastructure in place. You likely showed ads with ‘buy now’ messaging to cold traffic (people who don’t know you), without any way to follow up with them afterwards. You probably don’t have a pixel installed to retarget visitors, no email capture system, no automated follow-up sequences. Without these foundational elements, you’re trying to make immediate sales to strangers, which rarely works with art. The solution is to step back, set up the proper infrastructure first, understand the different types of traffic and how to speak to each, and approach it as relationship-building rather than immediate selling.

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Asked by an artist who tried Facebook ads unsuccessfully · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2017-02-25