Following on from my article on how much Facebook ads cost, I wanted to talk about the different factors that affect the cost of your ads. The pricing of Facebook ads is based on an auction system where ads compete for impressions based on bid and performance.
But we typically look at cost per action in the reporting: whether that’s cost per click, cost per conversion or cost per like.
It’s a constant process of trying to drive these costs down. In this article, I cover 7 different things that affect the cost.
Firstly…
1. Product
You’ve all heard the classic quote: you can’t polish a turd.
No amount of advertising can sell a bad product. If your product sucks, you could create the perfect Facebook campaign and it still wouldn’t sell. This might be a tough thing to accept, but it’s true.
2. Audience
Not every person on Facebook is interested in what it is you’re trying to sell. We need to treat certain groups of people differently. That means we have to be clever in choosing the right message for the right audience.
I like to break people into three different groups:
Cold Traffic – This is the majority of people on Facebook. They’re unaware of the problem you provide a solution too. Even if they are aware, they’re not bothered about finding a solution to the problem.
Warm Traffic – These guys are aware of the problem they have. They’re maybe doing a bit of searching around the problem, consuming various bits of content. Perhaps they’re in one of your custom audiences.
Hot Traffic – These are the people that are aware of the problem. They want a solution and they want it now. They’re ready to buy.
By trying to hard sell to a cold audience, your costs are typically going to be much higher because it’s not relevant to them and they don’t know who you are.
3. Targeting
This is directly linked to the audiences I discussed above. If you don’t get your targeting right, your audience will be wrong and thus your campaign will suffer.
Most people will try and sell directly to a cold audience. They’ll use Facebook’s interest targeting and as a result, their costs will increase. Just think about it from a users point of view. How likely are you to get your credit card out and buy something from an ad you’ve literally just seen?
Very unlikely.
4. Ad Copy
A common misconception on Facebook is that short copy is best. The truth is, both short and long copy works. Different audiences will react to different lengths of copy.
The tone of your copy will also make a difference. Are you trying to reach a professional audience compared to reaching an audience of younger people?
Grammar, misspelling, capitalisation, how salesy you’re being… all these things will influence the performance of the ad. You’re probably seeing a theme here: test and see what works best for your audience.
5. Ad Creative
Advert creative is arguably the biggest factor to the cost of your ads. When you’re running a Facebook campaign, it’s vital to split test different images. It’s impossible for me to say which ad format is the best – this is something you need to test yourself.
Try and create something that stands out. As someone is scrolling through their newsfeed, its your creative that’s going to draw them in to read the ad.
Some people make claims such as: subtle tones of red, brunette women, green eyes etc. work best, that’s not necessarily true. You may have your own preference, but you need to split test and see what your audience reacts to best.
6. Landing Page
Ahh, the almighty landing page.
If only I got paid for the number of times I saw Facebook ads directing people to poor landing pages.
You could have the best Facebook ad campaign set up, but if you’re sending people to a poor landing page, your campaign is going nowhere. Your cost per conversion will suffer as nobody will sign up!
The landing page should have a clear title, subtitle and call to action. It needs to present the product/lead magnet in less than 7 seconds. The user needs to see the outcome of what they’ll get quickly.
If possible, include social proof and tell the person exactly what they’re getting.
I cover landing page creation heavily in my Amplify training programme.
7. Ad Placement
When you create your Facebook ad campaign, you have different options on where you want to run your ads. For example, you can run ads on the mobile newsfeed, Instagram, audience network or Messenger.
There’s no right answer to what which placement is best and what is going to be the cheapest option for you. It’s about testing. Find out what works best for your specific campaign.
Lots of people ask for an estimate on how much their campaign will cost them, but it’s almost impossible to tell until you’ve spent some money and have real data.
As this article shows, there are so many different factors that can influence how much a campaign might cost you. Spend some money and find out what sort of costs you’re looking at.
Gavin
