5 Facebook Ad Bidding Tips To Implement

According to a study by Salesforce, 70 per cent of marketers will increase their advertising budget this year to allow more room for social media ads. That’s because these ads have a positive effect on company sales and revenue.

For example, fans of Starbucks Corp. exposed to the company’s message on Facebook were 38 per cent more likely to make a purchase than the typical Facebook user in the month that followed, according to a study.

The first step to actually succeeding with Facebook ads starts with the bidding process with four bidding options available: CPC (cost per click), CPM (cost per mille), Optimized-CPM (optimized cost per mille), and CPA (cost per action). You can bid as high as your budget allows per click or per 1,000 impressions. However, remember that you may not actually pay the price you’re bidding as your final cost is determined by the number of impressions or clicks your ad receives based on the bidding method you choose.

With CPC bidding, you’ll be charged when your ads are clicked, while CPM charges for the cost of impressions. Optimized-CPM bidding is often preferred as it allows advertisers to more widely define and prioritize their marketing goals by automatically delivering ad impressions to a targeted demographic. CPA bidding is ideal if you want more control over the price you’re willing to pay as it extends beyond impressions to include page likes, clicks, and offers.

You want your money to work in your favour, so bid the maximum allowable cost per action. Monitor your sales funnel and conversion rates to make bidding adjustments where needed.

2. Establish a Custom Audience with oCPM

Using the information you’ve compiled pertaining to your audiences’ demographics such as lifestyle, and other important factors, develop a custom audience to target. Often, oCPM is the preferred method as it allows you to create a more direct targeting approach.

If conversions are important to your ad campaign, oCPM is the best option as you’re able to optimize for Reach, Clicks, and Social Impressions with a specific objective.

MGM Resorts International is a prime example of a Facebook ad success story using an optimized approach. The global hospitality company was able to create five times the return on their ad spending using Custom Audiences while tripling their return on Facebook Offers.

3. Understand Your Ad Objectives

Defining your underlying goals allows you to highlight the effect your ads will have in terms of linking results and costs pertaining to achieving your objective. With the correct objective, your ads will be displayed to the most relevant users who are more likely to take action to click on your website, increase page post engagement, or accept offered claims.

Your campaign will also drive more efficiency, just as Renault UK accomplished with their ad campaign. Not only were they able to boost their lead generation, but spent nearly three times less on the cost per acquisition.

Facebook ads provide you with the opportunity to boost page likes, build engagement, and produce video views. However, competition is tough as there are many advertisers who are competing with the same objective as you. Therefore, it’s best to choose CPM or CPC to bid, unless you have a larger audience, in which case oCPM is appropriate.

4. Monitor Your Suggested Bid

Suggested bid prices will let you monitor the competition for the demographic you’re targeting. A rise in suggested bid prices means competition is high and vice versa.

For example, during the holiday season, suggested bid prices are likely to be high for retailers as a large number of them are running holiday campaigns and therefore competing with each other for demographics such as individuals with an interest in electronics.

5. Trial and Experiment

Facebook Ad Bidding takes a bit of trial and error to find the perfect recipe for an excellent campaign. There are a lot of different ingredients that must be implemented to find the perfect combination. Apart from a budget to apply, you need the ideal placement, target audience, and ad objectives.

AdEspresso recommends using bidding experiments to find the ideal method to generate the best ad. AdEspresso created four different campaigns but used the same budget, design, and targeting options. The only difference was the bidding strategies. As you can see, each campaign held pretty significant results.

Content Creator- Isabel (Social media consultant)