Did you know that the attention of a goldfish is nine seconds? Ours is shorter — we only have an attention span of eight seconds.

So, when it comes to catching the eye of a potential customer, you got to be quick, engaging and to the point. This is where Facebook ads come in. The channel is ideal for companies looking to quickly influence the right demographic for your business.

As the author of the Amazon bestseller How To Turn Your Digital Footprint Into Leads, I have worked with hundreds of business owners. What I have learned is they all have one common struggle: the lack of consistency in generating quality leads.

For those also facing that challenge, here are the steps to quickly make Facebook ads work for your business:

Do your research.

You need to figure out pain points of your ideal customer. What do they need? What are their wants? A lot of business owners just assume pain points but don’t search for actual data to prove their assumptions. Don’t do that. Rather, by researching your customers’ market desires, along with their fears and concerns, you can craft copy in a way that will generate responses from each ad you run.

To find out pain points, look at competitors’ reviews on Google, Amazon and Yelp, study forums for your niche and of course, simply ask people.

This is the most important step when you are building your customer avatar.

Get creative.

People are going to miss your ad if the creative is boring. It needs to stand out and make Facebook visitors stop and take action.When setting up an ad and choosing the style, I found single images work better than carousel. I like to place some color around the border, such as red, orange or yellow to catch the attention of a user. For video ads, it is important to have some sort of action (no one likes someone just talking on screen).

Keep in mind, whatever type of ad you create, the creative style needs to be uniform – from marketing copy to the website to your emails.

It is all about the headline.

You basically have less than three seconds to engage someone and make them decide to read the rest of your copy. To do so, you need a powerful headline. It should be addressing your ideal customer and calling out their largest pain point. Use the law of polarity to repel everyone who isn’t part of your target market and attract those who will resonate with the message and want to know more about what you are offering. One of my favorite ways to make an impact in a headline is to pose a question the majority of your target customer will answer the same way.

Have enticing ad copy.

While there are plenty of great ad copy books out there — Hypnotic Writing, Tested Advertising Methods, Breakthrough Copywriting – my favorite is the PSO System by Gallant Dill. He breaks ad copy down to these three points: pain, solution and offer. Understand what the pain point is, entice with a solution and include an offer.

Also, it is important to keep in mind that in today’s age, mobile traffic has eclipsed desktop traffic. So, you need to keep your ad copy concise (and images, too!). To make sure your ad looks just as good on mobile as it does on desktop, use the ad preview tool in Facebook.

The irresistible offer needs to be there.

As mentioned above, your ad should have an offer, one that is so enticing the customer can’t pass it up. Here are a few examples:

• Offer a discount
• Give a bonus or premium
• Bundle goods together
• Reverse the risk (e.g. 100 percent money-back guarantee)
• Add a sense of urgency

Keep it simple.

When we are looking at our Facebook feed, we don’t want jargon, complicated words or long-winded explanations. The best ads are written at a fourth-grade level – meaning people don’t have to think when reading it.

One of the best ways to test how easy it is to read your copy is to put it in theHemingway Editor app, which tells you the grade level the content is at.

By utilizing these steps, you can craft an amazing ad that will convert, generate leads and create sales.