Facebook is one of the largest and most accessed networks on the internet. The number of users on Facebook have increased to 1.32 billion daily active users on average in June 2017, against all predictions. Facebook is into messaging and social with Messenger, Instagram and Whatsapp, into Virtual Reality with Oculus, targeting corporates with a collaboration tool called Workplace, into the news with Facebook Paper (a competitor of Flipboard), and we are just getting started.
You can order food with Facebook and you can look for jobs on Facebook. You can buy and sell on Facebook. With Facebook Marketing offering solutions to reach your market with remarkable accuracy (90% for the US market), and a customer outreach that is unparalleled, you cannot ignore the access that Facebook provides, whether in the B2B or in the B2C market.
How do you improve the chances of an ad being served, or better still, to be shown at the top? What options do you have when placing ads on the networks? Is budget the only criteria while placing advertisements on Facebook, and how can you be sure that your ads are getting delivered to the right audience on the Facebook network (Facebook, messenger, Instagram etc.). These are some of the questions we delve upon in this article.
How does an Ad get shown to the User:
The process called Ad auction is relatively simple at least on the consumer side. Three factors that determine whether an Ad is shown to a user:
- It is a bid. Higher bid gets you higher on the list of ads served to the user.
- How interesting and relevant it is to the user.
- How likely is it for the user to click on the ad.
Based on these three factors, your ads may or may not be shown to the user.
A couple of pointers here:
- The more relevant and interesting an ad is for the user, the less it will cost you as an advertiser to publish the ad for the user.
- Facebook utilizes ‘User Value’ (as one of the factors) in its calculation of ‘total value’ (the final rank of the ad is determined by its ‘total value’ which is between 1 – 10). User value takes in the ad’s pre and post-click experience into account. The ad must be relevant and interesting, and post-click engagement on the audience networks is also factored in to find the ‘user value’.
- Most of the users on Facebook are mobile device users. If your website does not load within 3 seconds, users are likely to abandon the site. Facebook matches your website loading performance and the users’ connection speeds to optimize user performance. Long story short, higher website speeds will have a higher probability of their ads shown.
- Content on the pages resulting after a click on the ad should ideally not have too many popups, ads, etc. which count as negative experiences for the user.
How does an Ad get delivered to the user:
An advertiser can choose between two kinds of delivery mechanism for its ads:
- Standard Delivery – Standard Delivery spends your ads evenly for the timeframe of your ad. The bid level is reduced.
- Accelerated Delivery – Accelerated Delivery accelerates campaign to maximize distribution of ads, even at higher bid levels. Time-sensitive campaigns or campaigns that expire their use or importance beyond a certain date or time could use this method to reach the market.
How to Analyze your Ad Performance
- Delivery Insights: Detailed Ad set performance including cost, reach, schedule. Auction overlap section offers insight on which ad sets overlap and to what extent. A large overlap may lead to performance issues. Audience saturation section gives the percentage of daily impressions from people seeing the ad set for the first time.
- Estimated Daily Results: When you make any changes to budget, audience, bid amount or placements, you are able to estimate your outcomes which may be the reach, video views, app installs, etc.
- Conversion Optimization: For the desired outcome, Facebook aggressively bids for users more likely to convert.
- Conversion Window: A conversion does not often happen right after a user clicks the ad. Facebook allows you to define a conversion window, a time-window essentially for the conversion (such as app install) to be credited to the ad impression or ad click. This helps Facebook understand who ‘you’ regard to have converted through ads, and find more users similar to this audience.
Note:
- After your ad is served 500 times, Facebook gives you relevance score based on positive and negative feedback. Check and optimize ad sets with this feedback.
- Attribution Window: A conversion is ‘attributed’ to an impression (view) or a click depending on whether he only viewed it or he (also) clicked it. Facebook tracks it for up to 28 days.
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Chandan works with companies on marketing challenges. He can be reached at [email protected].
