Whats Working with Facebook Ads: January 2020
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.