Facebook Ad Consultant
I have plenty of great things to say about Facebook and their advertising platform, but this post is NOT about them.
I just went in to set up a simple ad promoting a new blog post and I saw it: a GREAT way to lose a boatload of money by letting Facebook tell you what’s “best” for you.
Hence this hastily written but IMPORTANT post!
Yesterday in the Facebook group for Absolute FB Ads, Mary asked a great question:
Back when Facebook introduced objectives, suddenly something became very clear to me. “There’s a reason why boosting posts gets you lots of engagement but not very much traffic to your site!”
It’s because when you boost a post, they show that ad to a very specific group of people. They’re people who will gladly click “Like” on those status updates, photos, and other posts but who aren’t so interested in actually clicking through and reading an article or watching a video on your site.
To answer Mary’s question, YES, those different objectives trigger different algorithms. Or something like that. (I won’t pretend to be a tech wizard like this guy.)
What you need to know is that different people interact with Facebook in different ways, and Facebook knows ALL about it. So if you set your objective as Clicks to Website, Facebook will show your ads to people who, based on their regular behavior, are more likely to click on your link. If you set it to Website Conversions, they’ll show them to people most likely to go and take a specific action over on your site.
And if you set the objective to Page Post Engagement, which is the default objective for boosted posts, Facebook will show your ads to all those passive post likers, not to people who just might click over to your site and check you out.
In other words? Facebook is watching your every move. They know what you do on Facebook, as well as what you do if you click on one of my ads and sign up for something or buy one of my products.
The good news is that this helps you get better results for your ads since your audience is optimized for more of the “right” people. [Read more…]
Last month I got a great question from Jen, one of the advertisers in the Absolute FB Ads Support Group. She was putting together a campaign for the launch of a program her client runs a few times a year. Based on previous results, she knew which image performed best, but she was frustrated because none of the other images had really been given a chance to shine because of the whole “survival of the fittest Facebook ad” thing.
Jen is smart, and knows that other images might do better, but she didn’t know the proper way to A/B test given this whole “survival of the fittest ad” thing.
Here’s my answer on how to A/B test Facebook ads the smart way:
Every ad set should start with just two ads in it (but you can run as many ad sets as you want to different audiences). Take your winning image from the last campaign and test it against a new one. Make sure everything else about the ad is exactly the same.
You and your opt-in landing page have come so far already!
Amazingly helpful offering? Check.
Beautifully optimized design? Check?
Headline that stops people in their browsing tracks? Check.
“Now what should the copy on my landing page actually say, Claire???”
Take a breath and relax. It doesn’t have to be a 1000 word essay on why the visitor should hand over her email address. Chances are your headline has already done a lot of the work for you (go you!), but you may need to go a little further to close the deal and get people to convert.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most people who visit your landing page aren’t going to read every word carefully. They’re busy, distracted, and are trying to be (at least a little bit) productive! They want to check out what you have to offer, make a quick decision, and move on.
I run Facebook ads for my business quite regularly. My motives are list building, mostly, but brand recognition (“SAY MY NAME!”) is important as well.
However, I get the sense that a lot of people who come to me for Facebook ad help are mostly interested in spending money right before (or while) they have the possibility to make a lot of money. Yes, I’m talking about launches.
Maybe you’re trying to fill a group coaching program or sell your product or open the doors to a membership site. You’re spending SO much time and energy on all the pre-launch content, the sales page, social media posts, promo emails – you name it. It makes sense to try to leverage all that work by getting more people onto your list right before and during your launch.
That’s part of the reason why you host a webinar or run a challenge or have a free video series, right? For list building purposes. And it makes a TON of sense to use Facebook ads to let more people know about the awesome free content you’re putting out there.
Sorry, friend. When you wait to run ads until launch time, you run the risk of discovering too late that Facebook ads can be fucking expensive. And sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it.