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Should You Go Broad with Facebook Ads Targeting?

You’ve likely heard the advice, whether from a Facebook ads rep or your regular ads “guru.” Micro-targeting with Facebook ads is no longer viable. You should go broad instead.

As someone who embraced targeting the smallest, most relevant audiences for years, coming around to this approach hasn’t been easy. But it has some merit. It can be the best approach in the right situation. It shouldn’t, however, be used universally in all cases.

Should you go broad with Facebook ads targeting? It depends. Let’s break this down…

What Broad Targeting Looks Like

Let’s be clear, I’m not just talking about targeting a large audience. When I saw “Go Broad,” I’m referring to the practice of using an audience that includes everyone within a given country.

No adjustments made to narrow your audience. No custom audiences, no lookalike audiences, and no interests or behaviors.

Facebook Ads Broad Targeting

If you’ve been advertising for a long time like I have, the thought of this may make you twitch a little. It seems crazy. But, it may just be crazy enough to work.

How Optimization Works

To understand why going broad could work, you must first understand how optimization works.

You choose the optimization event within the ad set.

Facebook Ads Optimization Event

It could be a conversion, link click, app install, or something else. You provide a target audience. Facebook will then show your ad to people within your audience who are most likely to convert.

The audience is a guardrail. You will never reach everyone in that audience, and you should rarely want that. Facebook’s algorithm is smart and will avoid those least likely to convert while focusing on those with the greatest odds to perform that desired action. The goal is to get you the most optimization events at the lowest cost.

Of course, optimization has some weaknesses. But when it works well, it’s powerful. And it can learn and react much faster — and more intelligently — than we can make changes manually.

How Going Broad Works

The purpose of targeting is to give Facebook the pool of people who are most likely to act on your ad. The algorithm then finds the people within that group to perform that action.

But, when you pick the targeting yourself, the algorithm is limited by your selection. Maybe the people within your selected audience aren’t actually that likely to convert. You are hindering your own success (in theory).

The benefit of going broad is that you are giving Facebook the entire universe of people (not literally, I guess) as an option. The algorithm then goes to work from there.

Machine learning quickly figures out which people are making the action you want and makes real-time adjustments to who sees your ad, in what placement, and (in some cases) in what format.

For this to work, the key is that the algorithm has to learn quickly and effectively in order to find the actions you want. It may start out slowly, but your results should improve with time as the system learns.

This is also reliant on sufficient volume to learn. That may require more budget to get that volume. Ultimately, you will need to get at least 25-50 optimized actions per week per ad set to get optimal results (The Learning Phase).

It’s the Direction Facebook is Heading

If you’ve followed the changes that have rolled out to Ads Manager the past couple of years, you should understand that this is the direction we’re heading — whether we like it or not.

Facebook has rolled out the following “Advantage” features during the past year:

Advantage Detailed Targeting: Allows Facebook to expand your audience beyond the detailed targeting (interests and behaviors) you’ve selected.

Advantage Lookalikes: Allows Facebook to expand your lookalike audience beyond the percentage you used.

Advantage Custom Audiences: Allows Facebook to expand beyond the custom audience you entered for targeting.

In each case, your audience can be expanded beyond what you entered if Facebook believes that more or better results are possible.

In the cases of Advantage Detailed Targeting and Advantage Lookalikes, you can’t turn this off when running conversions campaigns. Your audience can be expanded and you can’t prevent it.

In other words, Facebook really wants you to go broad(er), and in some cases, we don’t have any choice.

Going Broad and Conversions Campaigns

As it is, we know that if you’re optimizing for a conversion, Facebook will have the ability to go broad with the Advantage audience expansion products. But the question is, should you want to go as broad as you can?

I contend that this specific situation — when you optimize for a conversion (especially a purchase) — is when you try it.

Facebook machine learning is currently best suited for conversions campaigns. The system’s only goal is to get you more conversions. You won’t get “low quallity conversions.” The problem with optimization comes about when you want something other than conversions. In that case, you can end up with low-quality (but cheap) actions.

But if you allow the algorithm to hunt for conversions, it can do amazing things. I encourage you to experiment with this as a user. Click on an ad for something like shoes. I use this example often because I’ve experienced it. I clicked an ad for a casual, nicer shoe. Not a tennis shoe. Not a dress shoe. I then started seeing ad after ad for similar STYLED shoes in my feed. Not from the same advertiser or same brand. The same style.

Super smart.

This is possible because Facebook has a crazy amount of data on their users based on their activity within the app, and even outside of it due to the pixel. Your actions help Facebook understand the things you like and don’t like. You also teach Facebook which placement and formats you prefer to consume content.

It’s this intelligence and set of algorithmic adjustments that make even considering going broad a possibility. You want conversions. Facebook is good at hunting for them. Allow Facebook to hunt.

The Potential Issues

If you’ve read closely, you’ll know where this is heading.

Going broad has merit when optimizing for a conversion because the ad delivery system is good at finding people who convert and there’s no such thing as a low-quality purchase. The problem is with other types of optimization.

I’ve long complained about Facebook’s inability to optimize for quality traffic or engagement. All traffic, for example, is equal to the algorithm — it doesn’t matter whether it’s an accidental click or a 10-minute visit. We know differently, of course.

Because of that, going broad doesn’t feel smart when optimizing for anything other than a conversion. It just makes it more likely that the system will find low-quality actions for you. This is where ad delivery could use a guardrail with targeting (and that itself often isn’t enough).

About Narrow Targeting

So, does this mean that you should no longer use narrow targeting for conversion optimization? Not necessarily.

First, I’m not suggesting that going broad is a must when your optimization event is a conversion. Like everything else with ads, there are very few universal rules. Consider it as an option.

But there are also times when narrow targeting is still important. I still recommend it for powerfully relevant messaging when remarketing. This can’t be replaced.

There may be times when interests are such a strong signal that they’re more effective than going broad. But this will differ from industry to industry and product to product.

Watch Video

I created a quick video on this, too.

@jonloomer Should you go completely broad with your Facebook ads targeting? #facebookads ♬ Hip-Hop Instrumental – Tonkyel

And if you haven’t yet followed me on TikTok, make sure to change that.

Your Turn

Do you go broad with your Facebook ads targeting? What do you think of this approach?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Should You Go Broad with Facebook Ads Targeting? appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3876

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Two Ways to Monitor Facebook Ads CPM

CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions) has a significant role in the performance of your ads. A dropping CPM can make a borderline campaign profitable while a rising CPM can turn a profitable campaign into a failure.

While CPM is an important factor, it’s not something you should try to control. There are simply far too many reasons for the fluctuation of this cost for you to obsess over it.

That said, what happens with global CPMs during the holidays is a popular topic. We expect CPMs to go up as competition increases. While that increase has shown to be far from guaranteed this year, it’s an important metric to track.

You’ll want to watch CPM because of its impact on your results, even if there is little control over it. Here are a couple of ways that you can monitor your Facebook ads CPM in relationship to your CPA (Cost Per Action)…

Breakdown by Time

One easy way to monitor your CPM is by using the Breakdown feature. You can breakdown by day, week, 2 weeks, or month.

Breakdown by Time Facebook Ads

When you do this, you can then get a sense of whether your CPM is increasing over time. If it is, you can then evaluate whether it’s leading to an increased CPA.

Here’s an example, using Breakdown by Week…

Breakdown by Time Facebook Ads

In this case, the average CPA and CPM are represented in the initial Totals row. Here, you can see that CPM has been up slightly over the past two weeks, which may have at least contributed to a slightly elevated CPA.

Charts

Charts is a feature that very few advertisers know about, but it can be helpful in this case. After selecting an ad set, click the “Charts” icon at the far right of Ads Manager.

Facebook Ads Manager See Charts

Click “Customize Metrics” at the top right.

Facebook Ads Manager See Charts

You can only select three metrics at a time, so you’ll need to uncheck a metric to include CPM. Once you do, select it to view its chart over time.

Facebook Ads Manager See Charts

As you can see, CPM may be on the higher side when compared to the full six weeks this ad set has run, but you probably wouldn’t classify it as a “spike.”

You can also then view the CPA to get a sense of whether that’s trending up as well.

Facebook Ads Manager See Charts

Well, that’s certainly a spike! But is it a trend? We’ll need more time to be sure.

Watch Video

Here’s a quick 60-second video that helps walk through these features…

@jonloomer Two ways to check whether your Facebook ads CPMs are going up over time, leading to bad results. #facebookads ♬ Old School Boom Bap Hip-hop – Friends_House

If you haven’t yet followed me on TikTok, make sure that you do (@jonloomer)!

Your Turn

As mentioned at the top, CPM is important because it can have a significant impact on the performance of your ads. That said, do not obsess over what you need to do to get it down. Often there are factors outside of your control (like seasonal competition) that drive up the cost.

How do you monitor your Facebook ads CPM?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Two Ways to Monitor Facebook Ads CPM appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3745

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The Proper Setup to Manage Facebook Ads for Clients

If you manage clients, the way that you work with them to manage their ads is critical. Not only is the right way good for organizational purposes, but it could protect you from getting your accounts shut down.

Doing this properly is often a big ask for non-technical clients, particularly those with small budgets who were never guided properly to begin with. But you must.

One day, you’ll be grateful that you did. And your clients will be, too.

1. Your Client Must Have Their Own Business Manager

A Business Manager allows your clients to organize all of their assets in one place. Once they do this, they can grant the access that is needed to each individual asset.

If they don’t have one yet, do not run everything through your own Business Manager. Make sure that your client has one, too.

2. You Must Have Your Own Business Manager

While your client needs a Business Manager to manage their assets, you need one, too. This will be necessary so that you can be granted access to your client’s assets.

This is also how you organize all of the clients and assets that you have access to.

3. Your Client Should Add You as a Partner

Once you and your client have your own Business Managers, your client can add you as a partner.

Wait, please make sure you read that right. We don’t want to add you as an admin. You’d only be added as a person if you are an employee.

By adding you as a partner, you are given some separation from the client. You do not own their assets. This is good. If they did anything wrong in the past, you are not tied to that.

To add you as a partner, the client can go to Partners under “Users.”

Meta Business Manager

Then click the Add button and select “Give a partner access to your assets.”

Meta Business Manager

They will need your Business ID.

Meta Business Manager

Of course, you could also start this process from your Business Manager by selecting “Ask a partner to share their assets.” You’ll probably get this message…

Meta Business Manager

When you move forward, you’ll see this…

Meta Business Manager

Here, you’d indicate who is the brand and who is the agency.

In either case, you or the client will need to know the Business ID. This is found in the Business Manager within Business Info at the bottom left.

Meta Business Manager

There, you’ll see the Business ID.

Meta Business Manager

4. Your Client Should Give You Access to Assets

Once you are added as a partner, your client can give you access to the necessary assets.

After selecting a partner, you’ll see a button to share assets.

Meta Business Manager

Here, they’ll be able to share whatever assets are connected to their Business Manager.

Meta Business Manager

5. Use a Different Ad Account for Each Client

It’s also important that you use a different ad account for each client. You’ll have two options.

Ideally, this means that your client grants you access to their ad account. This is preferred since you’ll hopefully also get a history of prior advertising for that client. Of course, if it is set up incorrectly, you won’t get that.

The second option is if you set up a new ad account in your Business Manager for each client. Assuming you have the ability to create many ad accounts and don’t run into a limit, this is fine.

Now, I want to stress that it’s best to get access to your client’s ad account without having to create a new one. Creating new ad accounts seems to be one of those actions that can create flags within Facebook’s systems. We want to avoid that as much as we can.

Do Not Set This Up For Them

I totally get it. If your client has never done this before, it’s going to be challenging to not only convince them to do it but to get them to do it properly.

Make this a part of your initial agreement. Be sure it’s clear that they understand. If their account is not set up properly, they will take the necessary steps to correct it. Do not let them off the hook. Even charge them for the extra work.

Also, get ahead of this. Put together a video and step-by-step guide (maybe start with this post!) on what they need to do.

Worst-case scenario (and truly worst-case), perform a screen share session. Your client can give you access to the mouse, if necessary.

But, please… Do not get direct access to their account via login credentials or by adding you as an admin.

The Extra Work Will Be Worth It

Eventually, this will get easier. You will be ready for the typical hangups and push-back, and you’ll be prepared with the best ways to deal with them.

Ultimately, this will make your life easier as an advertiser. It will also make your client’s life easier, even if they don’t see it at the time. One day, you won’t advertise for them anymore. By doing this, you’re making it easier for the client and their future advertisers.

That may seem like a small thing, but it’s not. It’s good to be appreciated by previous clients, even when you don’t work for them anymore.

Ad Account Violations

If you think that the expectations regarding separate ad accounts for each client are new, they aren’t. Of course, it certainly seems like advertisers got away with this for a long time, but this isn’t a new rule.

Beginning about a year ago, Facebook put an emphasis on cracking down on violators. This resulted in ad accounts getting shut down because they were “in violation of Item 5 of the ‘Things You Should Know’ section in the Facebook advertising policies.”

The specific rule from item 5 of “Things You Should Know” in Facebook’s Advertising Policies reads as follows:

5. If you are managing ads on behalf of other advertisers, each advertiser or client must be managed through separate ad accounts. You must not change the advertiser or client associated with an established ad account; set up a new account. You are responsible for ensuring that each advertiser complies with these Advertising Policies.

Don’t wait until you get this warning. Set things up the right way.

Video

I recorded a quick video on this, too.

@jonloomer If you manage Facebook ads for clients, set it up this way. #facebookads #facebookadstips ♬ Zodiac | Seamless Looping Trap Hip Hop Instrumental – xklbeats

If you haven’t yet started following me on TikTok, make sure that you do (@jonloomer)!

Your Turn

Are you managing clients in this way?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post The Proper Setup to Manage Facebook Ads for Clients appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3642

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Will Facebook Ads CPM Costs Increase This Holiday Season?

As advertisers prepare for the holidays, there’s a bit of anxiety about what to expect. The past few years have been anything but normal, so it’s not easy to predict what advertisers should expect this year. In particular, will Facebook ads CPM costs increase?

There is good reason to hope, based on current trends, that any seasonal cost increases may be subtle. And that could be critical for advertisers who have struggled to generate consistent, profitable results since the iOS-related changes of early 2021.

Let’s discuss how CPM impacts Facebook advertising results and the trends that we are seeing so far…

Why CPM Matters

CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions) is essentially the cost to show your ads. While it isn’t a primary metric to obsess over, it certainly can impact the success of your campaigns.

For example, you could have two ad sets, both getting the same number of clicks and conversion rate. But, if it costs twice as much to reach people in one ad set, it may be the difference between a profitable and failing campaign.

There are many reasons for high and low CPMs, but one is competition. The more advertising dollars in the system, the higher the auction goes. It’s more difficult to reach your ideal audience since there are more advertisers trying to reach them.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t overcome high CPMs to find success. While the holidays tend to result in higher CPMs, this is also the period of time consumers are eager to spend money. Combined with brands willing to offer special deals and you can absolutely find success this time of the year.

That said, the seasonality of CPM can be difficult for brands, especially those who aren’t in the e-commerce and gift spaces. Prior to 2020, seasonal CPMs often doubled, tripled, and even more. That could make advertising costs unreasonable, and you may consider lowering budget or shutting off advertising entirely in those cases.

But, we shouldn’t assume that CPMs will have that potentially crippling effect this year. As noted, the past few “weird” years haven’t led to spiking CPMs the way we’ve expected them in the past.

So, what will happen this year?

Average Price Per Ad

You probably know that Meta’s Q3 Earnings Report came out recently, and it wasn’t particularly in the company’s favor. Growth has slowed, resulting in layoffs.

But, one of the more curious revelations was a continued drop in Average Price Per Ad.

Facebook Average Price Per Ad

Meta doesn’t call this CPM, but I think we can draw at least loose connections to that metric. The cost of advertising is clearly falling, and that drop is increasing with each quarter. The third quarter Average Price Per Ad was 18% lower than the same quarter in 2021.

This could certainly be a sign, barring a startling reversal, that advertising costs during the holidays won’t be overwhelming in 2022.

Within Marketing Pulse

Another resource that I use to monitor CPM costs is the Within Marketing Pulse. The website provides a dashboard to show how their clients (some $500 Million in advertising) are spending their advertising dollars.

First, it’s interesting that they are showing Facebook advertising spend up 37% year over year, as of November 13.

Within Marketing Pulse

You might assume that would result in increased CPM, but that’s not what they are reporting.

Within Marketing Pulse

Facebook CPM is down a staggering 49% compared to the same date last year, and it’s been down for at least the entire last month.

If you’re curious, the red line is Instagram CPM, which has followed much more closely to the 0-line compared to last year. But, it’s still been mostly down lately.

This is Good News… Right??

So, sure. These are good signs that CPM costs may not get out of hand this holiday season.

The problem, of course, is that many advertisers have struggled the past year or so, regardless of CPM costs. In fact, I’d bet that if you polled advertisers right now, they’d believe that CPM costs are higher now than they’ve ever been before.

There’s a clear disconnect there. Maybe advertisers haven’t always paid attention to CPM. They need a reason for why ads aren’t performing like they once did. Rising CPM could be an easy target.

That said, this could be a very good holiday season for brands that are set up for holiday success. If you are in retail and offer big sales, this could be a profitable season for you if CPM costs stay down.

Don’t Forget: 28-Day Click

This may seem somewhat random, but it’s relevant.

As you are monitoring your results this holiday season, make certain that you are making use of the new 28-day click attribution window. You can only view this when comparing attribution settings.

Compare Attribution 28-day Click

Why does this matter? Well, because you are bound to see more conversions this way. It could significantly impact your view (and the view of clients) regarding the impact of your advertising.

Not everyone has this yet, but hopefully you do!

Your Turn

What are you seeing in terms of CPM costs? Do you have big advertising plans this holiday season?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Will Facebook Ads CPM Costs Increase This Holiday Season? appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3541

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Facebook Ads and Audience Saturation

If you’ve noticed a drop in performance for a Facebook ad set, it may be due to audience saturation. But, how can you know for sure?

Luckily, there’s a way. And it’s clear that most advertisers don’t realize that it exists.

Let’s take a closer look at what audience saturation is, how you can detect it, and what you can do about it.

What is Audience Saturation?

You’ve saturated your audience when you’ve reached most of the people within a potential audience — or at least those who are most likely to convert. The audience has grown stale and those who see your ads every day have already seen them multiple times.

The potential impact of audience saturation is a drop in performance. Those who were most likely to act already did, and you aren’t reaching new people anymore.

The negative performance is directly measured by an increasing Cost Per Optimized Action (purchase, lead, etc.). But, how is Audience Saturation measured?

The Inspect Tool

If you aren’t yet using the Inspect Tool, it’s about time you start.

This tool is available for active ad sets using link clicks, conversions, leads, or app installs. Of course, that comes from old documentation prior to objectives changing, but know that it’s not always available.

When you select a single ad set, click the Inspect icon (which looks like a magnifying glass) on the far right in Ads Manager.

Facebook Inspect Tool

Make sure you’re vieweing at least seven days of active data. There are several categories of helpful charts and graphs here (you may not get info for all of them):

  • Bid Strategy
  • Auction Competition
  • Audience Saturation
  • Auction Overlap
  • Significant Edit History

This is all great stuff that you should dig into. But, of course, we’re here to focus on Audience Saturation.

The Charts

Here’s what you’ll see…

Facebook Ad Audience Saturation

There are four charts. The first is Frequency. This is the number of times you’ve reached each person in the audience, on average, measured over time.

Facebook Ad Audience Saturation

Next is First Time Impression Ratio. This tells you the percentage of daily impressions are the first time you’ve reached someone.

Facebook Ad Audience Saturation

Next is Reach. Note that this is a unique number that only increases as you reach more people. For example, if you reached 10,000 people yesterday and those same 10,000 people today, your Reach does not increase.

Facebook Ad Audience Saturation

And finally, Audience Reached Ratio. This shows you the percentage of your total potential audience that you’ve reached.

Facebook Ads Inspect Tool

The potential audience size is displayed in the ad set while you’re creating it.

Facebook Ads Estimated Audience Size

All four of these charts help you determine whether Audience Saturation is leading to poor performance. See if Frequency or Audience Reached Ratio are increasing, Reach is flatting out, or First Time Impression Ratio is dropping and if those changes coincide with an increase in Cost Per Optimized Action.

Now What?

If you’ve determined that your audience is saturated, what do you do next? Well, first you should ask whether that Cost Per Optimized Action is still acceptable. If not, it’s time to do something about it.

Duplicate and create a new ad set. You’ll need to increase the audience size or target a different audience entirely. There are always many options for increasing the audience size (countries, ages, Expansion, Lookalike percentage), or you could simply try new audiences entirely

Your Turn

Have you run into issues with Audience Saturation? How do you manage it?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Ads and Audience Saturation appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3498

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Introduction to TikTok Ads: Campaign Creation

If you hadn’t noticed, I jumped into TikTok and short-form video creation recently. It’s only natural that this jump includes TikTok ads.

The hope is to catch some magic on a growing platform before the competition increases and prices go up. That’s what made Facebook advertising so insanely profitable in the early days.

Well, the first thing you’ll notice if you dive into TikTok advertising is that the TikTok Ads Manager is obviously inspired by Facebook Ads Manager.

@jonloomer

TikTok Ads Manager vs Facebook Ads Manager

♬ Puff – Hany Beats

My understanding is that the team that built TikTok Ads Manager includes developers who were part of the team that contributed to the very similar product from Meta. That would be a good explanation because you can’t ignore the similarities.

Because it’s so similar, I have good news for you: If you’re comfortable creating Facebook ads, you’ll be comfortable creating TikTok ads. The learning curve is incredibly short.

I want to share my experiences and journey through TikTok ads with you. I’m not going to claim to be a TikTok advertising expert. As similar as it may be to Facebook ads, I’m sure there are unique quirks and features that I will need to master. And I don’t want to make any assumptions about how something will work on TikTok based on how it did or didn’t work on Facebook.

A beginner’s mind can be powerful. I don’t want to be guided too strongly by experience with a different product.

So, let’s jump into TikTok advertising together. We’re obviously not going to get into anything all that advanced yet. Instead, I want to go through the basics. Maybe it will increase your confidence in getting started.

Campaign Creation

When you first create a TikTok campaign, you’ll have the option of Simplified or Custom Mode.

TikTok Ads Simplified and Custom Mode

I compare Simplified Mode to Advantage Plus campaign creation. It limits the steps and uses preset defaults. Essentially, it protects inexperienced advertisers from themselves. You can certainly try this (and even should), but we’re going to use Custom Mode here.

You are unlikely to be surprised that the first step requires you to select a Campaign Objective.

TikTok Campaign Objective

Many of these options likely look familiar. When walking through this, we’re going to create the most basic TikTok campaign. So, we’ll use the Community Interaction objective to increase our followers (I know! Just hang with me here).

After selecting your Objective, you’ll have the option of making some other changes in Campaign Settings.

TikTok Ad Campaign

Once again, this stuff isn’t new to any experiencedFacebook advertiser.

  1. Select a Special Ad Category if one applies
  2. Create a Split Test if you want
  3. Turn on Campaign Budget Optimization if you don’t want a firm budget per ad set
  4. Set a Campaign Budget if you want that limit to determine overall spend

None of this stuff is new to us. Kinda crazy.

We’re going to leave all of this off.

Placements

Placements are first in the ad set.

TikTok Placements

Well, the only placement is TikTok, so that’s kinda weird. I assume they plan on including more in the future.

There are some items you can customize by clicking “Advanced Settings.”

TikTok Placements

By default, you allow users to comment on, download, and share your videos. But you can turn any of these off individually if you want. We won’t.

Targeting

Next is targeting. Depending on the objective, you may have the option of Custom Targeting or Automatic Targeting.

TikTok Ads Targeting

Facebook actually has something similar to Automatic Targeting these days, but I’ve only seen it when boosting posts. This is actually an intriguing option if you don’t know where to start with your targeting. But you’re putting a ton of trust in that TikTok algorithm!

If you go with Custom Targeting, you can modify several items under Demographics.

TikTok Demographic Targeting

Country targeting is actually pretty sparse. A nice tweak to Age targeting is that you can individually select any of the age ranges. For example, you can select 18-24 AND 35-54, skipping 25-34 in between.

Household Income targeting? Yep, you can do this on TikTok.

TikTok Household Income Targeting

The Interests and Behaviors section includes four groups.

TikTok Interests and Behaviors Targeting

Video Interactions allow you to reach people who have engaged with types of videos on TikTok in a specific way recently.

TikTok Interests and Behaviors Targeting

Creator Interactions are similar, but these allow you to reach people who have followed or viewed profiles in a specific category.

TikTok Interests and Behaviors Targeting

You can also target by hashtag engagement.

TikTok Interests and Behaviors Targeting

And finally, you can target users by device.

TikTok Ad Targeting by Device

Some unique options here related to carrier, connectivity, and device price.

Content Exclusions

In this section, you can edit an Inventory Filter to control what types of videos your ads will or won’t appear on.

Content Exclusions TikTok Ads

Sheesh, this is just like Facebook…

TikTok Ads Inventory Filter

Budget & Schedule

Nothing new here for Facebook advertisers…

TikTok Ads Budget & Schedule

You can use Daily and Lifetime budgets. One difference here is that you can use Dayparting, but even when using a Daily budget.

TikTok Ads Dayparting

Facebook requires you to use Lifetime budget in order to get access to dayparting.

TikTok does enforce a minimum daily budget of $10 or $20 USD, depending on the objective. This is something that Facebook does not do.

Bidding & Optimization

I mean come on…

TikTok Ads Bidding & Optimization

So similar.

Your optimization goal options will depend upon your objective. Lowest Cost bidding is on by default, but you can set a Bid Cap.

TikTok Ads Bid Cap

And just like with Facebook ads, you have a buried option to use Accelerated Delivery.

Accelerated Delivery

Ad Creation

Spark Ads allow you to promote existing videos.

TikTok Spark Ads

You can otherwise create a TikTok ad from scratch with a new video.

TikTok Ad

Something new here is the ability to add Interactive Add-Ons like stickers. This is something I don’t know much about…

TikTok Ad Interactive Add-On

Depending on the ad, you can provide a destination URL, even when promoting existing videos. But for the objective I’ve selected, this option isn’t available (because all we want is to increase followers).

Your CTA can either be dynamic or manual. That dynamic option is something new. The algorithm will decide for you.

TikTok Ads CTA

And finally, there are some tracking options at the bottom.

TikTok Ad Tracking

That’s it!

You Can Do This

If you were like me, you went through this mostly unimpressed because so little of it is new. But, that’s a good thing. You know how to create TikTok ads because you know how to create Facebook ads.

Of course, there are some little quirks and differences here and there. Getting your ad account and everything set up is a process. But, you can bet that everything from the Business Manager to ad account to audiences and pixels will ring familiar.

Is This Interesting To You?

I was a little worried about writing this post or discussing this adventure because I realize it’s a bit off topic from Facebook ads. That said, as you’ve seen here it’s all very relevant and similar!

Still, I want to make sure I’m giving you the content that you want. If you want me to continue providing content on TikTok advertising in addition to Facebook advertising, please let me know.

Your Turn

Have you started experimenting with TikTok ads yet? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Introduction to TikTok Ads: Campaign Creation appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3366

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Compare Attribution Settings Returns to Facebook Ads Manager

Oh my goodness. Finally. After about a year-and-a-half on hiatus, the “Compare Attribution” feature has returned to Facebook Ads Manager.

Let’s provide a little bit of history on the feature, why you should care, and how to use it…

Understanding Attribution

“Attribution” is how Facebook gives credit to an ad for conversions. By default, an ad gets credit for a conversion if a targeted user clicks your ad and converts within 7 days or views your ad without clicking and converts within a day.

You determine how attribution is defined when you create your ad set. Options exist to change attribution to 7-day click, 1-day click and 1-day view, or 1-day click.

Facebook Ads Attribution

This setting impacts two things:

  1. How Facebook optimizes ad distribution
  2. How Facebook reports conversions

In other words, if you choose 1-day click, Facebook will focus (in theory) on people most likely to convert within a day after clicking. The reporting in Ads Manager will also be based on this attribution setting. This created confusion because you would only see 7-day click attribution if you determined this in the ad set.

Of course, it hasn’t always been this way. This was one of many changes post-iOS 14.

The Former “Compare Attribution Windows”

So, prior to iOS 14 changes, it didn’t matter what conversion window you optimized for within the ad set. Reporting would be the same in Ads Manager. By default, that was 28-day click and 1-day view back in the day.

Not only that, you could “Compare Attribution Windows” to view how many conversions happened within each window.

Facebook Ads Compare Attributions

This was very valuable for so many reasons. First, it helped detrmine how to optimize. Second, it could help you get a clearer picture of the click-and-view-through breakdown (you may consider the numbers inflated if most are 1-day view).

The iOS 14 Changes

And then iOS 14 happened.

One of the biggest adjustments was the removal of 28-day click attribution. Advertisers went from having to defend “inflated” reporting to now needing to find “lost” conversions.

But, the other big change was losing the ability to compare attribution windows. This loss was one more item on the list which caused a decrease in confidence related to reporting.

What’s funny is that Facebook would eventually sneak in a “Standardize Attribution Setting” feature, buried in the custom ad reports.

Standardize Attribution Setting

Most advertisers didn’t know that it existed, and it was a weird work-around since you were required to select multiple ad accounts in order to access it.

Compare Attribution Settings Returns

And today, I was happy to see this little message within Ads Manager by the Columns menu…

Compare Attribution

Like the old feature, it’s found at the bottom of the Columns menu.

Compare Attribution Settings

Click that, and you can select the attribution settings that you want to view as a column in your report.

Compare Attribution Settings

How to Use This

This is a really big deal. The main reason: Context.

Imagine, if you will, a situation where you are remarketing to your website visitors and email list. Facebook reports some really big conversion numbers. You’re curious how many of these conversions resulted from a 1-day view. Such conversions can happen a lot with remarketing — some of the people you targeted were already visiting your website.

Now, you can get clarity on that question.

Compare Attribution Settings

In this example, 8 of the 18 reported purchases were 1-day view. That doesn’t mean those 8 don’t count, but you may value them less than click-through conversions.

The other big reason to use this is for deciding how to optimize. It’s a running debate whether you should optimize for 1-day click in some situations or not because, technically, you’d “lose” all of the 7-day click conversions. But, maybe you’d get more 1-day click conversions as a result (or the argument goes).

When you have this data available, there is no longer a risk to using 1-day click attribution. You don’t lose the 7-day click conversions because you can still see them with this feature. And it’s possible that this will tell you that there isn’t a benefit to using a certain attribution setting.

Old Data Unavailable

I haven’t seen an official announcement from Facebook on this, but it looks like I onlly have this data for newer campaigns. I’m not sure how far it goes back, but I certainly don’t currently have these breakdowns for any of the 28-day click ad sets, prior to the big changes of iOS 14.

Why Not Create a Default View?

Honestly, I don’t understand why a full reporting of conversions based on all attribution settings isn’t available. You used the 1-day click attribution setting in the ad set. So what? Show how many conversions happened within each setting. Don’t force the advertiser to dig for it.

By making it default, this helps Facebook. Advertisers aren’t misled by under-reporting. They may have a more positive impression of their ad performance as a result. The context this ads can also lead to smarter decisions.

Your Turn

Needless to say, I’m pretty pumped about this. While I used the Standardize Attribution workaround, it’s nice to have a piece of pre-iOS 14 back.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Compare Attribution Settings Returns to Facebook Ads Manager appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3116

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How to Determine Your Facebook Ads Budget

I’m often asked what a minimum Facebook ads budget should be in order to get results. This is a complex question, and the answer is based on several contributing factors.

But, let’s break this down and focus on running a single campaign with a single ad set.

There’s some math involved (don’t be scared!).

Determine Your Optimization Goal

Before you set a budget you have to figure out what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Why? Because it takes far less budget to make an impact with top-of-the-funnel actions than with the bottom-of-the-funnel.

Do you want to drive purchases? Leads? Website traffic?

Figure this out first.

How Much Will One Action Cost?

If you’ve never advertised before, this could be more difficult. But, instead of thinking about what something will cost, think about what it needs to cost for your advertising to remain profitable.

Actually, not even profitable. Just break even. We want to leave room so that you can cut budget if necessary.

Just as a rule of thumb, let’s consider purchases. A $100 product may cost you $50 per purchase in ads. This is purely hypothetical, but it’s possible. So many factors contribute to that cost.

Leads are often somewhere between $3 and $10, but it really depends on what the offer is and how much information you’re asking for.

Traffic is all over the map, depending on how engaging your link is and how expensive it is to reach people. A single link click might be under 10 cents or it may be over $2.

Do Some Math

In order to properly optimize, you need to get your ad set through the learning phase. This is the period of time once your ad set is published (or you make a significant change) when Facebook is learning from the actions that happen.

This period generally lasts three to seven days and ends once you can get between 25 and 50 optimized actions (not a strict number these days). If you are unable to get enough optimized actions to exit the learning phase, your ad set will move to “learning limited.”

Let’s assume you need 50 actions within a week. So, multiply your projected cost per action by 50 to get your weekly budget. Divide that by seven to get your daily budget.

There’s Wiggle Room

Look, if you’re looking to sell a product, this math could get intimidating fast. If you project a $50 per purchase cost, you’re looking at $2,500 per week ($10,000+ per month). That’s not realistic for many small businesses.

But also remember that we don’t know what that purchase will cost you. It could be less. We also don’t know if you’ll exit the learning phase at 50 actions or fewer.

The budget could end up being half as much. But you should prepare for the high end, just in case.

Do You Need to Exit the Learning Phase?

Of course, even after the wiggle room, you may not even be close. In that case, spend what you can without breaking the bank and see how it goes.

Just know that the learning phase is a real thing. My best results come after I give Facebook enough data to properly learn. Your costs may be higher if you aren’t able to exit the learning phase.

You Have Options

Keep in mind that optimizing for a purchase isn’t required if you want sales. There are other ways to get your client some revenue.

Start with the low-hanging fruit. Run Reach campaigns to target abandoned cart — or people who hit the product landing page, initiate checkout, or add to cart without completing the purchase.

Target just those who did this during the past 14 days. Use a frequency cap of 3 impressions per day. Gave these people a special offer to complete the purchase.

This is a great way to generate sales without spending a bunch of money.

Your Turn

This is a starting point. Your minimum budget is a math equation. Just know that your ultimate costs are reliant on several things that are going to be different from advertiser to advertiser and brand to brand.

What exercises do you use to determine your Facebook ads budget?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Determine Your Facebook Ads Budget appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2983

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Facebook Ads Tutorials on TikTok

I’m being serious. I’m on TikTok. And I’m creating a ton of content for you to help with Facebook ads.

I know, this just doesn’t add up. The “old guy” who made every excuse not to create videos. Too uncomfortable to get in front of the camera. Probably a month ago, I’d tell you this was ridiculous.

But, it’s happened. And I’m in deep.

Why I’m there and what my plans are could be an entire blog post in itself. Here, I just want to share some of the tutorials I’ve been sharing there. Maybe it will draw you in. If not, feel free to make use of them here.

Follow me already. Here are a few reasons why…

Breakdowns for Video Views Quality

These are a couple of newer breakdowns that are specific to videos that most advertisers do not know about. They are incredibly useful!

@jonloomer How to break down video views quality in Ads Manager. #facebookads #facebookadstips ♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim

Customize and Save Your Columns

Are you customizing your columns in Ads Manager, saving them, and setting your favorite combination as the default view? Here’s how to do it…

@jonloomer How to customize and save your columns in Facebook Ads Manager. #facebookads #facebookadstips ♬ Hip Hop Background(814204) – Pavel

Run Ads to Promote Facebook and Instagram Reels

If you’re creating Reels, why don’t you promote them?

@jonloomer How to promote Facebook and Instagram Reels. #facebookads #facebookadstips ♬ Hip Hop Background(814204) – Pavel

Do Not Fall for These Scams

Ugh. If you’re a page manager, you’ve undoubtedly seen these scams. It’s insane that Facebook can’t eliminate and prevent them. Please, do not fall for them…

@jonloomer

Do not fall for this Facebook phishing scams!

♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim

Stay Up to Date on Ads Manager Changes

How do you stay on top of Facebook Ads Manager changes? Like this…

@jonloomer How to view Facebook Ads Manager changes. #facebookads #facebookadstips ♬ Tutorials – FASSounds

Facebook Ads for Quality Website Traffic

I’ve written before about how I use custom events for monitoring and optimizing for quality traffic. Here’s a quick explanation…

@jonloomer Do you use custom events to track quality website traffic? #facebookads #facebookadstips ♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim

TikTok vs. Facebook Ads Manager

Once I first started experimenting with TikTok Ads Manager a month ago, I was blown away. If you know how to use Facebook Ads Manager, you’ll have no problem adjusting to this…

@jonloomer

TikTok Ads Manager vs Facebook Ads Manager

♬ Puff – Hany Beats

Plenty More!

I’ve created a ton of content so far, and so much more will be coming. I hope you’ll follow me there.

The post Facebook Ads Tutorials on TikTok appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2946

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Facebook Ads Restriction Period for Politics and Social Issues in the US

As you likely know, there are special rules that Facebook advertisers must follow to run ads related to politics and social issues. But, if you run ads in the US, you should be aware of a restriction period that is approaching for the midterm elections.

Here’s what you need to know…

The Restriction Period

If you are running ads related to politics and social issues in the US, there will be a special restriction period running from 12:01 AM PT on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, through 11:59 PM PT on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.

No new ads will be approved during this period.

This is important. If you’re running ads for a client, you cannot wait until the last minute to submit them. If they aren’t running prior to November 1, they will not get approved until after November 8.

In other words, this isn’t just about submitting ads prior to November 1. According to Meta, “the ads must be created with a valid disclaimer and have delivered an impression” prior to that time.

Do not wait.

What You Can and Can’t Do

If your ads received an impression in time, you’ll be able to take the following actions during the restriction period:

  • Edit the budget, bid, and scheduled end date
  • Pause and unpause the ads that were already running

That’s not much. Presumably, you won’t be able to do anything else. But, Facebook specifically lists the following actions that won’t be allowed. You can’t…

  • Edit ad copy and creative
  • Edit targeting, placement, optimization, or objective
  • Remove or add a disclaimer

Get Going Now

Because of the likely increased volume of ad submissions as well as added scrutiny that political and social issues ads will require, you should expect approval time to take longer. As a result, you absolutely need to get going soon to make sure that your ads get approved and get that necessary impression prior to the restriction period.

If you haven’t submitted ads within these categories before, you’ll need to first get authorization to run them. You’ll also need to get a disclaimer approved. Facebook recommends getting this done by October 18.

You should expect delays and possible rejections of your ads. So, build in a week for approval prior to the restriction period. Submit your ad by October 25, if you can.

Additional Resources

If you have questions related to the process of running political and social issues ads, check the following resources:

  • Ad Restrictions Best Practices
  • Elections Hub
  • Elections FAQ

Your Turn

The restriction period makes sense. Facebook doesn’t want to accidentally allow ads that violate rules, potentially impacting elections. This gives Meta time to make sure that what runs during the final week is within the rules.

Have you started the process on submitting your political and social issues ads?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Ads Restriction Period for Politics and Social Issues in the US appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

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