Facebook advertising is one of the most effective ways to grow brand awareness. But before you fire up your ad campaigns, here are five misleading myths you should avoid.

1 - Facebook ads are all you need to grow your brand.

Facebook, like cereal, is only one part of a healthy, balanced marketing plan. While Facebook advertising can certainly drive growth alone, you’ll find much more success combining it with other marketing strategies.

Create symbiosis by pairing your interruptive, interactive Facebook ads with campaigns across Google’s suite of ads that address high-intent users, introducing affinity groups to your brand.

Have a sound email strategy (email capture mechanism and automated series) prepared for all the traffic your Facebook ads will be driving back to your website.

These are just a few examples of how Facebook ads are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your digital marketing.

2 - You can’t track behavior outside of Facebook.

It may seem as though Facebook’s analytics don’t provide visibility into web traffic outside the Facebook ecosystem, but that’s not true at all. By installing a pixel on your website, you can track your visitors through the entire sales funnel.

Facebook's analytics even work better than Google Analytics in some areas, since Facebook can identify users across devices natively, while Google requires additional setup to have that capability.

3 - Facebook ads only run on Facebook.

When we refer to Facebook ads, we’re talking about ads across every platform that Facebook owns. This includes the social networks Facebook and Instagram, the messaging app WeChat and Audience Network (Facebook’s version of Google’s Display Network).

This connectivity means that through one portal (Facebook Ads Manager) you can easily place a wide variety of ad types all over the web, including in-app interstitials or banner ads. So if your audience somehow isn’t part of the 68% of Americans on Facebook (or the 31.8% on Instagram), you’ll still want to use Facebook for its display marketing services.

4 - If my ads aren’t getting likes, comments, and shares, they’re performing badly.

Facebook has put a lot of time and effort into training us to crave likes (and they’ve done a good job). It’s totally understandable to think that standard engagement metrics are good indicators of success for your ads.

But, as many aspiring influencers will tell you, likes don’t keep the lights on. In fact, if people are liking or commenting on your ad, it’s possible that their engagement ends there - i.e. they’re not clicking through to your website.

Vanity metrics may seem important, but when it comes to true success, you should be looking at click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate.

5 - It’s easy to run Facebook ads.

The biggest myth of them all! Facebook really wants you to think that it’s easy to run Facebook ads, even with Facebook ad automation. They make it super simple for anyone with a credit card to launch a campaign. These low barriers to entry tempt many an unsuspecting (and inexperienced) user to try to run campaigns themselves.

Sometimes it works, but, more often than not, it goes nowhere - or worse. Without fully understanding Facebook’s rules, guidelines and general best practices, you run the risk of having your ads disapproved, your account suspended and wasting your time and money.

Anyone can run a successful short-term campaign. Don’t be fooled - long-term success on Facebook requires experience and big budgets. If you’re not putting enough money behind your campaigns, you won’t truly reach your audience in a way that will generate meaningful insights for scale.

Unless you’re knowledgeable in the platform and ready to put a serious budget behind your campaigns, it’s probably best to get some assistance.