Monetisation
There have been some great posts on the Econsultancy blog discussing the changing state of Facebook and the reach of organic and promoted content, as well as the options available to advertisers.
Edwyn Raine recently wrote ‘the combination of a variety of advert formats and a highly affordable media network make it gold dust to reach new customers.’ Essentially it’s a good way to educate potential customers as to your offering.
Pricing is a particular bonus of Facebook advertising as Facebook’s model is to promote good content that customers are interested in. That means, the better your ads perform, the higher click-through rate, and the lower the CPC.
Add to this increasing costs in the uber -competitive AdWords and Facebook is tempting lots of people in to play. First quarter results saw Facebook’s profits at $642m. As you can see from the chart below, ads are Facebook.
Edwyn went further in his piece:
On occasions I have witnessed Facebook CPCs as low as one pence, but regardless of specific figures, if you are able to reduce your click costs, you will reduce your CPA.
The background to increasing amounts of paid advertising on Facebook is that many feel their organic reach has declined and that community engagement isn’t rewarded by Facebook as it once was. Greg Randall writes very eloquently about this and you should check out his post for ways in which retailers can increase organic lift.
Facebook is following Google’s model with ad clicks increased by 70% year-on-year, and the revenue increasing by 60%. All the while, Pinterest, Twitter and Tumblr are suffering for lack of a compelling advertising product.
Despite organic reach concerns, Matt Owen points out that the top 1% of pages still reached 82% of their fans. Matt goes on to discuss how Econsultancy uses promoted posts to push content that is already interesting our audience. This seems to be the way to do it.
By embedding posts in Facebook using the network’s Power Editor to give more compelling formatting and CTAs, reach increases, cementing Facebook’s place as a bonafide publishing platform, where millions of users are interacting with content, either in the walled garden or moving without.
Targeting
Advertisers can target by:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Interests
- Lifestyle (e.g. parents)
- Connections (people who have liked your page)
One can also target existing audiences by uploading data from your CRM system, allowing companies to go after specific segments on social. For example, a retailer could target lapsed high value customers who perhaps aren’t responding to email.
Creating ‘Lookalike audiences’ lets Facebook find matching audiences in different locations. Perhaps your online store starts shipping in Europe and you want to find audiences there that resemble your UK customers.
The level of information Facebook has about its users is what makes its targeting effective, without the audience-fraud anxiety you may have on some programmatic display networks for example.
Uploading a custom audience
Ad formats
This isn’t terribly complicated but I thought some readers might not be aware of the various objectives and placings of Facebook ads.
Facebook has a useful one-sheeter for those getting to grips with formats and sizing. The ad creator allows you to create multiple versions of ads and then test them.
Page promotion
Ads to encourage people to like your Page.
Liking a Page means a person’s friends may see this interest in their feed or in that person’s interests. Those that like a Page are more likely to see content and ads from that company in their news feed.
Here’s an example ad below. These can appear on desktop (in the news feed or on the right panel) or on mobile.
Post promotion
You can promote your posts to everyone on Facebook or just your connections. Here’s an example from Econsultancy of a promoted post and an organic post. Note the difference in eyeballs.
Here the Facebook Power Editor has been used to format these posts a little snazzier than usual. The ‘learn more’ button houses a link to the Econsultancy blog and the article in question. Promoted posts can be used to drive traffic to your website but can also can simply be used to push content within the Facebook platform e.g. promoting a campaign video.
One can, of course, use text, photo or video.
Domain ads on the right panel
The type of ad most people associate Facebook with and perhaps the ones we are most likely to ignore?
Facebook offers
A simple ‘get offer’ button. People can share this ad with friends who can also take up the offer.
Here it is on mobile.
Driving app usage
The Facebook Ads Create tool can also be used for other calls-to-action and objectives. Driving app downloads and even app re-engagements (changing the CTA to ‘use now’) is a powerful tool in Facebook ads because of the ability to push the ads through mobile.
Ad for app download in Facebook mobile newsfeed
Event attendance
Like the domain ads, these are only available for the right hand panel of Facebook on desktop.
Other placements
Some premium placements are available, such as very prominent and large placement on the logout page.
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