As one of the largest and most influential ad networks on the planet, Facebook ads can do a lot for your business. But like any serious Internet marketing campaign, advertising on Facebook is a continuous battle of tweaks and optimization. Fortunately, there are dozens of ways to squeeze every last bit of value out of your ad dollar on Facebook. Below we'll look at four simple performance tweaks anyone can use to improve their Facebook ad campaign in only a few minutes. 

Color Tweaks

The psychological associations between colors and consumer perceptions of product quality are some of the most important elements of any ad campaign. In selecting the perfect shade of blue for their sign-up button, Gmail tried over 50 shades before finding the color that converted best. The psychology of color is something insurance companies take seriously too, and often raise premiums for drivers who opt for "faster" colors like red.

It's not necessary to learn every psychological connection for every color, but it's a good idea to understand the kind of messages you're sending with the colors you use. For instance, darker blues are generally associated with luxurious and expensive products, while lighter blues generally represent freshness or novelty. Red is the most likely to prompt an action. Green is connected with our well-being, and consequently is well suited to healthy or ethical messages. Purple is elegant and feminine, and black is classy and corporate, suggesting an element of formality.

When you're choosing a color, you should try and reinforce whatever message your ad is trying to communicate. If you're selling premium products and emphasizing quality, purple and dark blue might be a good place to begin your color scheme. On the other hand, if you're focusing on raising attention and trying to draw eyes, you'll probably want to start with red. 

Brand-Reflective Language

Advertising on a social media site means you have to adapt to a very high demand for brevity. You need your language to remain pithy, but without losing any of its authenticity and value. Discard cliché sales phrases and make sure your message can be easily understood with only a glance of attention from the reader. Messages that sound like sales pitches generally fall flat on social media sites, where readers expect more authentic interactions between their friends and fan pages.

Images Tweaks 

There are three main things to tweak about your Facebook ad images: size, color, and relevance. When you're picking an image to use alongside your Facebook ad, the size of the ad you create largely dictates the image that you're able to use. Larger ads that appear in a reader's news feed offer substantially more image space than the much smaller ads that appear in the margins the Facebook page.

Anytime you have the choice, opt for larger images that are more visible than their smaller counterparts. But if you are forced to use a smaller image, remember that you want your image to be recognizable at a glance to overcome its small size. Furthermore, the same rules for the elements of color described above apply to the images you use.

Are the colors in your image consistent with the message you're trying to send? Does your image convey the right message? Irrelevant images will draw clicks, but only from low-value traffic that was more or less tricked into visiting your page. Several studies have found that ads using images of beer can produce phenomenally high click through rates, but come with virtually no conversion.

Hone Your Targeting

For those just starting out with Facebook advertising, the most common mistake is targeting too broad of an audience. Facebook's compelling power for conversions largely originates from the way that Facebook allows advertisers to target highly specific demographics. This targeting includes meticulous details, like the target's native language, workplace, and relationship status.

Depending on the size of the business doing Facebook demographic targeting, the sweet spot for targeting is somewhere between 1,000 and 50,000 people.  Fewer than 1,000 and your net may be too small to be worth casting. More than 50,000 people and your net may be too broad to really take advantage of the targeting. If you're having a hard time narrowing your campaign below 50,000 people, consider adding a local or regional element to your targeting.