A couple of years ago, Facebook ads were the way to go. Then the general perception was that Facebook ads were expensive and generated little in terms of profit, so Facebook ads got the good old it’s only good for branding stamp and many businesses started focusing on other online advertising platforms. During that time, Facebook continuously improved and Facebook ads are now hotter than ever. Many businesses picked up on this trend and are starting to revive Facebook campaigns with bigger and better targeting than ever before.
There are currently so many exciting things you can do with Facebook and when I spoke to them last week, we had some exciting data to discuss, some of which I will share below. There are countless ways to really growth hack your ROI but if you could do just five things, do this:
#1 Instagram Ads
What does Instagram have to do with Facebook? Well, everything. Instagram ads are set up with the Facebook ad manager and benefit immensely from Facebook’s in-depth targeting. If you get a profit from Facebook, start Instagram today. Even if you never really saw the point of having an Instagram account for your business and personal brand or have an account without getting much out of it, start Instagram ads now.
Why start Instagram ads?
Because nobody is doing it. It’s new. New means cheap. Cheap means huge opportunity.
Facebook recently launched Instagram ads and made the following campaign goals available to advertisers:
- using auction buying and clicks to website
- mobile app installs
- video views objectives
Instagram ads have a ridiculously cost-per-click right now and a huge reach. This won’t last forever because competition is going to increase as soon as more people get the hang of it. Also, Facebook seems to boost reach for anything that is new for the first couple of weeks.
Some of us advertisers don’t need a significant reach, we need the opposite. The more targeted the better. While Instagram ads do provide visibility, Facebook provides targeting methods to narrow it down to just what each campaign needs.
Note: Keep in mind that Instagram ads generate mobile clicks to site and therefore it is essential to have an mobile optimized conversion funnel to maximize results.
#2 Optimize Mobile Conversion Funnels
Some people prefer dedicated mobile sites and some people prefer responsive websites – neither of which will perform well on mobile if the conversion funnel isn’t optimized for mobile devices with full browsers. During my last conversation with Facebook, we were discussing mobile trends and came to the conclusion that the 44.6% of online traffic that were generated by mobile during the 2014 holiday season will be exceeded by this year’s holiday traffic that comes from mobile.
Why mobile conversion funnels matter:
Besides the fact that mobile traffic can significantly increase sales, be it via cross-device sales or direct sales, mobile traffic is usually cheaper than desktop traffic. Cheap traffic is music to any advertiser’s ears because if you can only maintain conversion rates or get slightly less, your margins are usually still bigger that with more expensive traffic.
Here are some optimization ideas for mobile conversion funnels:
- Reduce header images to get more information above the fold (the part you see before scrolling down)
- Make things visual. Change dates such as credit card expiration to calendars where people can choose the date
- One-click checkouts. Use Amazon Payments if you need a fast solution that works great on mobile, so people can pay with the payment method that is connected to their Amazon account with just one click.
- Less is more. The shorter the sales funnel, the better. Three step checkouts are popular, anything more than that is typically harming mobile conversions.
- Same page checkout. Avoid having to load pages because unfortunately, not all phones have lightning fast internet. High drop-off rates can be caused by pages that are loading too slowly. The fewer pages the better.
#3 Focus on Website Conversion Ads
If you have a limited budget, stop using Facebook for branding and start selling. Set up a campaign that focuses on website conversion ads. Facebook has a strong algorithm and you can either rely on it or play with it to get more out of your campaigns. While the latter works like a charm if you get it right, it requires time and more often than not an experienced advertiser to set things up. If you don’t feel like investing a lot of time and getting another person on board, trust the algorithm. There are some minor hiccups every now and then but Facebook usually knows them and is already working on resolving them, so relying on Facebook’s automatic functions is usually a good choice for many small business owners.
Set up your campaigns with the objective “Website Conversions”:
This allows you to then choose the option to optimize for conversions automatically:
Don’t forget to implement a conversion pixel on your thank you page to track results. You can run website conversion ads with automatic or manual bidding and there is no way around testing what works best. Try them and pick a winning strategy after generating enough data. The data is key here, so be sure to wait long enough before deciding what works best.
One of the most common mistakes with Facebook ads I have found is that people don’t wait until a couple hundred clicks have been generated. There is a rumor in the online advertising industry that Facebook doesn’t equally serve ads from the same ad set and favors one ad over the other depending on what generates the most engagement first. So then basically the algorithm decided what ad worked even though other ads might have generated more engagement after a while but they don’t get the chance because Facebook already decided what works best. I have found that nothing could be further from the truth. The algorithm is reliable and all ads get their fair share of impressions eventually, you just need to have the patience to let the algorithm do its job. The same is valid for bidding strategies. The algorithm will do a fair test and eventually, you will have an accurate split test result.
#4 Carousel Ads
Standard posts are good but carousel ads are worth trying because there is a high chance that they deliver better results meaning a lower cost-per-acquisition and cost-per-click. Carousel ads show several images rotating within the post with a brief description linking to different pages of the site. That’s what makes them more interactive and we all know, both users and Facebook love interaction and reward it. Users click more and Facebook let’s you pay less. A large portion of advertisers seem to benefit from it, too, since Facebook is currently seeing a 30-50% decrease in CPA and CPC when choosing carousel ads over standard posts.
Note: Carousel ads are also available to Instagram advertisers!
#5 Segment Large Audiences Into Sub-Groups
You don’t want to have campaigns that have a life of their own and get carried away with costs. Ideally, you want to have a campaign that is reasonably controlled to the point where you can impact profit and significantly scale the campaigns when they are ready. Sometimes targeting audiences on Facebook can become quite large because in the end, you need to reach people and when there are millions of people that fit the bill, why not target them? Instead of targeting several large audiences, it is recommendable to divide them into sub-groups. This way you maintain a healthy level of control while the algorithm does it’s job.
You can set separate budgets and bids for sub-groups based on performance. Additionally, you will be able to create custom ads. Customizing ads per sub-group increases the overall effectiveness of the campaigns and potential clients can identify better with the ads. Consequently, engagement typically increases and the cost-per-click increases.
This article was originally published at International-ppc.com, by author Rocco Baldasarre.
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