Facebook™ is still the leading and most effective social media platform for marketing. This means that there are many competitors bidding for the same prize: their ads showing on the newsfeeds of various audiences. In turn, this means that ad spending for social media campaigns is increasing from year to year.
Some companies have already reached the highest level of spending they can afford. And they know that if they do not invest more, their reach will decline, their sales funnel will dry up and they will lose many sales. It is a vicious cycle: spend more to earn more. However, there are ways to break this cycle. And today we will tackle this subject: how to lower Facebook™ ad spending without losing traction or the sales funnel you’ve worked so hard (and paid so much) to create.
While we cannot promise miracles, we know ways to help your business pay less for ads and retain a satisfactory ROI for each campaign. Here they are:
- Improve Your Targeting Strategies
Targeting remains the core issue with ad spending on Facebook™. And now, ad targeting is more important than ever. You have to be very selective about the people you want to show your ads to. There are so many competitors who want to show their ads to the same people. If they are not precisely the audience you want, you are losing money.
Your targeting must be as specific as possible. However, this can be done only if you have a very good knowledge of your target customers. This is why the analytical data on your website is worth more than gold.
- Apply Bid Caps to Your Ad Campaigns
Facebook™ has a very user friendly and intuitive platform for building ads and setting bid costs. It makes lots of suggestions and to follow them is tempting. After all, Facebook™ knows best what type of ads work on its platform. It is true that the suggestions are pertinent and efficient–but they are not the most cost-efficient ones for the bidder.
After all, Facebook™ makes money from ads, so it has a strong interest in encouraging you to spend more. This is why you should opt for bid caps. A bid cap represents the maximum amount you are willing to spend per day, per campaign, or per action. This prevents you from entering into expensive bids which will not yield a satisfactory return on investment.
- Replicate the Strategy of Your Posts with the Highest Engagement Rate
It is not only about the audience and the bid amount–the ad itself must be well tailored to achieve a high ROI and, thus, to help you reduce spending. One of the strategies few businesses take into consideration is hidden in plain sight in the analytics of their Facebook™ page. We are talking about the top performing posts.
You should look at these posts, dissect them, and understand what made them so popular. Did you use a catchy phrase? A superb illustration? Was it a thought provoking post? Whatever it was, it must go into your next ad. After all, if people responded well to a post, they will respond well to an ad that replicates the formula of the post.
- It Is all About Placement
The problem with high ad spending for some companies is that they move quickly through the ad creation pages and do not pay attention to the checkboxes that are selected by default. One of the categories of checkboxes is for devices and ad placement.
If you move on without paying attention, your ad will be distributed both to desktop and mobile users, and will show up in all possible ad locations. However, practice has taught us that mobile ads perform best for app installs and mobile shopping only. Also, the newsfeed is usually the best location for an ad, because the image shown is larger and the description is longer.
- Keep your Eyes on the Relevance Score
We learn from mistakes–this is an universal truth applicable to Facebook™ ad, as well. For each ad campaign, Facebook™ calculates a relevance score. This score is reached by taking into account the number of clicks as well the number of times your ad is hidden by users.
While the complete algorithm is not clear, it is worthwhile looking at the relevance score and A/B testing in order to improve it. This will teach you how to create better ads, improve your ROI, and minimise your ad spending.