Whats Working with Facebook Ads: January 2020

#Fbookads #adstrategies

Between all the algorithm and platform updates, Facebook sure likes to keep digital marketers on their toes! This year we have seen major updates with GDPR, Special Interests, and Campaign Optimization. Check out what is working from top industry professionals, backed by our own ad dollars, to bring you this month's In Real Life:

Whats Working with Facebook Ads - January 2020

1. CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) - As of September 2019, ad spend and budget optimization is available at the campaign level only. This limits our testing abilities to ad sets and ads within the same campaign. A work-around would be to lessen the ad sets within the same budget and test duplicated ads from there. This helps Facebook's "Learning Phase" to accept each ad set level as one experience, optimizing the budget within each.

Be sure to check even the small conversions as Facebook will automatically switch its focus (and money) to test all the ad sets, not necessarily just focusing on the "winners". Because Facebook is not optimizing each ad set, some may have ran at a lower budget and show lower conversions. Proceed with caution and always monitor your testing!

2. Ad Set Pockets - Tests with larger sets of data are finding success with duplicating interests. Yes, the same audience. If the audience size is large enough, Facebook will find new pockets of people- and will not advertise to the same audience, optimizing your budget like a boss. It will be a new group with the same targets. Here are suggested examples for ad set testing to utilize Facebook’s learning phase for a specific target audience (same interests):

• Ad Set Interest - Expanded

• Ad Set Interest - Not expanded

• Ad Set Interest - Geo-located

• Ad Set Interest - Target Country

3. Social Proof - Especially during the holidays when you can expect a rise in CPM and CPC across the board, social proof will help your ad stay relevant in such a saturated market.

Take posts that have gained great organic engagement or simply boost a post for engagement straight from the page. Then, run an ad with the exact same ad ID in Ads Manager. Make sure all your data and copy is reviewed at the post level (pre-boost) obviously as it will remain the same during your ad. This built in social proof will increase your quality and relevance scores with Facebook, but will also encourage further engagement from the ad set.

*Tip: Add a call to action button to the post to leverage even more engagement!

Between all the algorithm and platform updates, Facebook sure likes to keep digital marketers on their toes! This year we have seen major updates with GDPR, Special Interests, and Campaign Optimization. Check out what is working from top industry professionals, backed by our own ad dollars, to bring you this month's In Real Life:

Whats Working with Facebook Ads - December 2019

1. CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) - As of September 2019, ad spend and budget optimization is available at the campaign level only. This limits our testing abilities to ad sets and ads within the same campaign. A work-around would be to lessen the ad sets within the same budget and test duplicated ads from there. This helps Facebook's "Learning Phase" to accept each ad set level as one experience, optimizing the budget within each.

Be sure to check even the small conversions as Facebook will automatically switch its focus (and money) to test all the ad sets, not necessarily just focusing on the "winners". Because Facebook is not optimizing each ad set, some may have ran at a lower budget and show lower conversions. Proceed with caution and always monitor your testing!

2. Ad Set Pockets - Tests with larger sets of data are finding success with duplicating interests. Yes, the same audience. If the audience size is large enough, Facebook will find new pockets of people- and will not advertise to the same audience, optimizing your budget like a boss. It will be a new group with the same targets. Here are suggested examples for ad set testing to utilize Facebook’s learning phase for a specific target audience (same interests):

• Ad Set Interest - Expanded

• Ad Set Interest - Not expanded

• Ad Set Interest - Geo-located

• Ad Set Interest - Target Country

3. Social Proof - Especially during the holidays when you can expect a rise in CPM and CPC across the board, social proof will help your ad stay relevant in such a saturated market.

Take posts that have gained great organic engagement or simply boost a post for engagement straight from the page. Then, run an ad with the exact same ad ID in Ads Manager. Make sure all your data and copy is reviewed at the post level (pre-boost) obviously as it will remain the same during your ad. This built in social proof will increase your quality and relevance scores with Facebook, but will also encourage further engagement from the ad set.

*Tip: Add a call to action button to the post to leverage even more engagement!

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Please comment, like, and share this post if you found any of these strategies useful. Happy testing Facebook crew!