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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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Run Ads to Promote Facebook and Instagram Reels

If you’ve been creating videos for Facebook and Instagram Reels, you can increase your reach with ads.

This is a format I’ve been experimenting with extensively of late. Why? Well, Meta has been very clear that Reels are getting priority for distribution. This is their answer to TikTok. They want users to watch them.

Because of that known priority, this can be an advantage for marketers — both organically and with ads. In theory, you should get better distribution with a well-done Reel than you would a link or image post. And if you get increased engagement, that often leads to lower CPM costs in ad spend.

Let’s dig into how you might take advantage of the Reels format with ads.

Quick Overview

First, it’s important to understand what we’re dealing with.

Reels are short-form videos (up to 60 seconds on Facebook and 90 seconds on Instagram) that are typically recorded from a phone. As a result, Reels utilize the 9:16 aspect ratio.

Here’s a visual example of a Reel I’ve published…

Instagram Reel Example

Objective

The objective isn’t particularly relevant here. You could theoretically use several different objectives, assuming your ad could lead to the desired outcome.

The only requirement for this tutorial is that we promote an existing post.

The Ad

We’re going to jump ahead to the ad for a minute.

Make sure that you select both your Facebook page and Instagram business account under “Identity.”

Facebook Ad Identity

Under Ad Setup, select “Use existing post.”

Facebook Ad Setup

Click “Select Post” under Ad Creative.

Select Post

If you are publishing your Reels on Instagram and cross-posting to your Facebook page (you probably should be!), toggle to Instagram at the top and select the Reel that you want to promote.

Promote an Instagram Reel

You should select a Reel that is under a minute long so that it stays within the requirements for both Facebook and Instagram (yes, it would make a lot of sense if the rules were the same for each platform).

Placements

Okay, now let’s go back to the ad set to choose placements (let’s manually select them instead of using all).

What you do here is up to you, but I’d recommend making the most of the 9:16 aspect ratio. First, you’ll probably want to keep all Stories and Reels placements selected since they are all 9:16.

Reels and Stories Placements

If you want to select the Overlay and Post-Loop Ads on Reels placements, you also have to select Facebook In-Stream.

Overlay and Post-Loop Ads Placements

This is unfortunate since In-Stream uses a 16:9 aspect ratio. So, you can either roll the dice here or keep Overlay and Post-Loop unchecked.

Finally, you have to check at least Facebook Feed. Both Facebook and Instagram Feeds use a 4:5 aspect ratio. I’d keep everything else in feeds unchecked.

Feed Placements

Adjust by Placement

Whether you do anything else here is up to you. But, if you want to make sure your ads look good, let’s adjust creative by placement. Go back to your ad. Click to edit by placement.

Facebook Ad Edit by Placement

Something that I like to do is edit the thumbnail.

Edit Thumbnail Facebook Ad

Potential Exclusion

If you really want to get detailed, you could exclude people who already watched your Reel. You’d do that by creating a custom audience based on video views.

Video Views Custom Audience

What you use for view length is up to you. If you use 3 seconds, that should immediately exclude anyone who saw the video due to auto-play. Or, you could go all the way to 95%. I won’t argue with either approach.

Video Views Custom Audience

When you choose the video, you can select multiple videos at once. So, if there are versions on both your Facebook page and Instagram profiles, I’d select them both.

My Experiment

Because I’m creating a lot of Reels right now, I’m actually trying something out with a very narrow audience. Honestly, I have fun with the super narrow audiences — it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go broad. But, this makes it easier for me to have a small, controlled experimented with a limited budget.

I’m using a Reach campaign with a 3:1 frequency cap.

Frequency Cap

The reason it’s so aggressive on the frequency cap is that people are likely to see my ads for up to seven days. The reason for that is I’m targeting my most engaged audience during the past seven days.

Facebook Custom Audience Targeting and Exclusions

Of course, I’m excluding those who already watched the video.

If you’re curious, my “most engaged audience” is defined by people who performed a series of custom events on my website during the past seven days. That includes any of the following:

  • Shared a blog post
  • Started my podcast player
  • Clicked at least two internal links
  • Registered for something
  • Viewed a page for at least two minutes

The result is an audience that Facebook says is about 2,000 people. I’m using only a $5 per day budget, which Facebook says will result in reaching 153 to 443 people per day.

Your Turn

Have you experimented with Reels yet? Are you promoting them with ads?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Run Ads to Promote Facebook and Instagram Reels appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2814

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Facebook Advantage Custom Audiences: What You Need to Know

Facebook is rolling out Advantage Custom Audiences to advertisers, which will potentially expand your targeting when a custom audience is selected.

Wait… This isn’t new, right? Oh, it is?

You’d be forgiven if this sounds like something that’s already been around for a while. A couple of similar audience expansion features have been rolled out to the Advantage product line during the past year. But this, indeed, is new.

Let’s break down what this is, how it’s applied, when you’d use it, and when you absolutely should avoid it.

What Is This?

First, let me be clear that this is a rollout. I don’t have it in most of my accounts.

But, if you enter a custom audience into targeting and you see a checkbox for Advantage Custom Audience like the image below, congrats. You have it.

Facebook Advantage Custom Audience

When Advantage Custom Audience is turned on, your custom audience will be targeted, but targeting can be expanded to people outside of that custom audience if it can improve performance.

Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s a lot like Advantage Detailed Targeting (formerly Detailed Targeting Expansion)…

Advantage Detailed Targeting

and Advantage Lookalikes (formerly Lookalike Expansion).

Advantage Lookalikes

In both cases, the audience can be expanded beyond what you enter if it can improve performance. But, of course, those features were unique to Detailed Targeting and Lookalike Audiences.

When Is It On?

How and when Advantage Custom Audiences are turned on are a bit different than for Advantage Detailed Targeting and Advantage Lookalikes. You can turn Advantage Custom Audiences on, no matter the objective. The other two are objective-specific.

Another difference is that even if Advantage Custom Audience is turned on by default (it will be), you can turn it off. Originally, this was the case with Advantage Detailed Targeting and Advantage Lookalikes. But now, you are unable to turn those two options off (at least in most cases).

Once you enter a custom audience, you can turn this on (assuming you have the feature), regardless of the objective.

When Should You Use It?

Admittedly, I’ve been a bit skeptical of the other two audience expansion products. I’ll get to that more in a moment. But, there is actually a good reason to use Advantage Custom Audiences.

Far too many advertisers struggle with understanding how to set budgets when targeting custom audiences. In almost all cases (unless you’re a big brand), these audiences are going to be small. It doesn’t matter whether it’s website visitors, page engagement, or your email list. We’re usually talking about a few thousand people — or at least under 100,000.

If you treat these audiences the way you do broad targeting and throw a $100 per day budget on it, you’re going to torch that audience pretty quickly. The frequency and CPM will also jump.

Assuming that your messaging isn’t unique to the audience you’re targeting (more on that in a moment), expanding the audience would make a lot of sense.

It’s important to understand how this works. The audience doesn’t immediately jump from 5,000 to 5,000,000 (even if the “potential” audience may look that way). The audience will only expand if it will improve results. The custom audience will still be the core audience used for targeting.

So, expanding your audience could actually improve your average frequency and CPM. Your audience is used in a similar way to how it’s used to generate a lookalike audience. But in this case, that source audience is still used for targeting.

When You Definitely Shouldn’t Use This

When I first heard that this feature was being tested, I was concerned. Audience expansion makes very little sense to much of our remarketing.

Consider the abandoned cart scenario. In that case, you are targeting people who added a specific product to their cart and didn’t purchase. You may create an ad that says something like, “Hey, did you forget something?” and showcase that product. This ad, of course, would only make sense for those in a specific audience.

The same would apply for cross promotions and up-sells. In either case, the ad copy may refer to something specific that a customer did or bought that’s related to another product. This would make no sense to an expanded audience.

In other words, be extra careful with your remarketing. If the ad copy and creative will only make sense to your targeted audience, make sure to turn off Advantage Custom Audience.

Transparency, blah, blah, blah…

If you’ve listened to my podcasts or are in the PHC community, you’re probably tired of hearing me talk about this by now. But I’m not going to stop until this is fixed.

Audience Expansion is a fine little feature if it’s effective. The problem is that we have very little evidence to prove this. It’s not that it’s not working. We just don’t know because it’s all left behind the curtain.

First, we don’t even know if the audience is expanded when this is turned on. Yes, in theory, it can be expanded when any of these features is turned on. We never know when the audience is expanded, how much it’s expanded, or how many of your results came due to expansion.

And that would be helpful, right? Give me a breakdown showing performance of my targeted audience compared to the expanded audience. This could then sell the feature, underscoring the benefit.

This doesn’t exist. You can split test two ad sets when expansion is on and when it’s off. But that’s the closest we get to fully understanding whether this feature is worthwhile. Beyond that, it’s all a guess.

Your Turn

Do you have Advantage Custom Audiences? What do you think, will you use it?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Advantage Custom Audiences: What You Need to Know appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

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How Lead Filtering Can Improve the Quality of Meta Lead Ads

Meta announced several new features to improve Lead Ads back in May. One of those features is Lead Filtering, which can improve the quality of your leads.

Not everyone has the feature yet, but I do. So, let’s walk through what Lead Filtering is and how you might use it.

What is Lead Filtering?

One of the biggest issues advertisers have with Meta Lead Ads is the quality of leads. It’s incredibly easy to complete a lead form, which can be great for volume but not so great for quality.

Lead Filtering allows you to ask a qualifying multiple-choice question at the top of your lead form. If a favorable answer is provided, the user will be able to complete the form. Otherwise, the user will not be able to submit it.

This is particularly useful for leads that go to a sales team. If you find that your team is wasting time attempting to contact potential leads that aren’t your target customer, Lead Filtering can help.

How to Set Up a Lead Filtering Question

First, you’ll need to collect leads using Instant Forms (selected within the ad set).

Meta Lead Ads Instant Form

At the ad level, click to create a new form.

Meta Lead Ads Instant Form

Complete the Form Type and Intro sections as you normally would. Then expand the Questions section. You might see a message about saving time on follow-ups (this is Lead Filtering).

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

Add a multiple-choice question.

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

On the right, you’ll see a toggle for Lead Filtering. Toggle that on.

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

Now, enter a custom question with at least two potential answers.

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

There’s a column for “Lead Filter” so that you can designate an answer as “Lead” or “Not a Lead.”

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

Completion Screens

You will now see separate sections within your form for “Message for Leads” and “Message for Non-Leads.”

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

Here’s an example of a message for leads…

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

And here’s an example of a message for non-leads…

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

How it Looks

The lead form itself will look something like this…

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

Notice that this qualifying question is asked before a user can submit their contact information. If I select “Within the next three months,” I am taken to the questions to collect my contact info. If I select “Beyond the next three months,” I’m taken to this screen…

Meta Lead Ads Lead Filtering

I am not able to complete the form. If I clicked this answer by mistake, of course, I can go back and change my answer.

Your Turn

Is Lead Filtering a feature that you find useful? How might you apply it?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How Lead Filtering Can Improve the Quality of Meta Lead Ads appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2567

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Example: How to Use Custom Metrics in Facebook Ads Manager

If you’re a Facebook advertiser, one of the most underutilized features that you may not even know about is the Custom Metric. I wrote about it two years ago, and it’s an option that largely escapes advertisers.

I want to take a second look at custom metrics today and provide two specific examples of how I use them.

What Are Custom Metrics?

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel by writing another tutorial on custom metrics here. But, it’s important that you understand what we’re talking about.

Custom metrics allow you to combine metrics in a formula to uncover information that Facebook won’t provide natively. You can create custom metrics in either your custom ad reports or within Ads Manager itself. Where you create the custom metric doesn’t matter. The actual process is the same and those metrics can be used across both locations.

Within custom ad reports, you’ll see the option within “Metrics” on the right…

Custom Metrics

And within Ads Manager, you can see the option to create a custom metric when you customize columns…

Custom Metrics

Here’s a really simple example. You may want to monitor the quality of traffic you’re sending by calculating the ratio of Landing Page Views over Link Clicks.

Custom Metrics

You can then select these custom metrics when adding columns to your report.

Why Would You Use Custom Metrics?

Before we get to a couple of examples, let’s dig a little deeper into why custom metrics are important.

There are times when the metrics available don’t provide the necessary insight that you need. This can be critical to properly evaluate the performance of a campaign.

The metrics that you use and care about most should be simple in many cases. For example, if you are optimizing for a purchase, you should care most about the number of purchases, the cost to get those purchases, and maybe the ROAS. These metrics are all built-in.

But, what about if that campaign isn’t effective? Is it due to the conversion rate? Facebook offers some metrics like Result Rate and Conversion Rate Ranking, but they don’t provide a rate for the number of Conversions compared to View Content, for example. This would show the number of people who converted over those who hit the landing page.

Custom Metrics

The most glaring need for custom metrics, though, is related to efforts to drive engagement and traffic.

Engagement Score

If you run an engagement campaign, you’ll likely optimize for something like Video Views or Post Engagement. Post Engagement as a metric, though, includes multiple metrics that are treated equally.

Post Engagement

We don’t want that. We know that some metrics are more important than others. A Share, for example, can lead to many more people seeing your post. A 3-second video view could be due to auto-play, which may have no impact on the user.

So, we can create a formula that weights each type of engagement differently. Of course, how we weight each type of engagement is somewhat arbitrary, and it will be different from advertiser to advertiser. Here’s an example of what you might use for a Post Engagement Score:

Post Engagement Score

In this example, I combine several prioritized engagement metrics and apply different weights based on what I think is most important. I then divide that sum by the total spent.

Here’s a summary of weights:

  • Page Likes or Followers (5)
  • Messaging Conversations Started (4)
  • Post Shares (3)
  • Post Saves (2)
  • Post Comments (1)
  • Post Reactions (1)
  • Video Plays at 95% (1)

I used amount spent because the cost to get all of these things is more important to me than the actual rate. But, how you build these custom metrics is completely up to you.

Traffic Score

One of my biggest peaves with Facebook is that there is so little focus on driving and measuring quality website traffic. If you rely on Facebook’s metrics alone, the “Result” which determines success will be link clicks or landing page views. But, what if we created a custom metric that better reflects the quality of that traffic?

From a basic level, you could build a custom metric based only on the information that Facebook provides (landing page views and standard events). I’m not going to include bottom-of-the-funnel metrics like purchases in this case because the primary focus here is on traffic actions (but do what you want).

But, a custom metric can get really interesting if you use custom events like I do. Here’s an example of a custom metric that I built to measure the quality of traffic…

Custom Metrics

Here’s a breakdown of the metrics I’ve used and their weights:

  • Registrations Completed (10)
  • Post Shares (3)
  • *Any Shared Post (3)
  • Post Comments
  • Post Reactions
  • *Podcast Play
  • *Time on Page – 60 Seconds
  • Searches
  • *Internal Link Clicks
  • *Scroll Depth Event
  • *Watched a YouTube Video

Notice I’ve included some on-post engagement that I find important like shares, comments, and reactions. Everything else occurs on the website itself.

The metrics marked with an asterisk (*) are all custom events that I’ve set up. So, I measure when someone clicks to share directly from my website to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or email. I also measure media plays (podcast player or embedded YouTube video), internal link clicks, time spent, and scroll depth. I include the Searches standard event, as well.

All of these things, in my mind, reflect a quality website visitor. I can certainly add columns to my Ads Manager reporting to include each metric (and I do). But, it’s incredibly helpful to include a column for one score that accounts for all of them.

I manage different websites that utilize different custom events. Because of this, I create unique Website Engagement Score metrics for each one.

Your Turn

Do you create custom metrics? What are some examples?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Example: How to Use Custom Metrics in Facebook Ads Manager appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2395

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2 Ways to Create A/B Split Tests of Organic Content on Facebook

A/B split tests are helpful for uncovering the most effective posts or ads in a scientific way. Did you know that you can do this with organic content?

You’re probably familiar with A/B split tests for Facebook ads. This process allows you to test variables like targeting, optimization, and creative in a scientific way, showing variations to random groups without overlap.

What’s great is a similar process is available for organic posts that you publish to your page. Actually, there are two different available ways to do this, one through Meta Business Suite and one through Creator Studio.

It’s entirely possible that this isn’t fully rolled out yet. In fact, I’ve seen some bugs in one version, and it also seems that what you see may be different from person to person.

With all of that said, I want to walk through the two ways that I can create A/B split tests of organic content…

Meta Business Suite

From the “Posts & Stories” section of Meta Business Suite, create a post.

A/B Test

Click the “A/B Test” icon to start a test. It will look like this…

A/B Test

You can include up to four versions of a post. All you do is create each version by providing the copy and either an image or video. For links, either provide the URL in the copy or paste it into the link preview section.

When you’re done, you can preview all versions of your post before publishing…

A/B Test

You can even schedule the post if you’d like.

A/B Test

The test will run for 30 minutes. A different segment of your page followers will see each version. Once the test is complete, the winning version will be published to your Facebook page. The other version(s) may still exist in news feeds as people engage, comment, and share.

Creator Studio

The approach using Meta Business Suite is extremely simple. But, maybe you want to add a little bit of complexity? You can do that with Creator Studio.

For whatever reason, some people have easy access to Creator Studio while others don’t. From my page and Business Suite, I no longer get links to the tool.

You should be able to access Creator Studio by clicking this link.

From there, go to Post Testing under “Tools.”

A/B Test

Click “Start a Test” and it will look like this…

A/B Test

This is a lot different from the Business Suite version, right?

The first step will be to select a Content Type.

A/B Test

Just know that video posts can only be compared against other video posts. You can mix and match between image, link, and text posts.

If you do choose to test video posts, you’ll need to click the “Edit” button at the far right after uploading the file.

A/B Test

This will give you access to all of the various customizations that are unique to videos.

A/B Test

When you’re done, it will look something like this…

A/B Test

As you can see, you can publish or schedule the test. Once you click to schedule or publish, you’ll get some more settings…

A/B Test

This is one of the big differences between A/B tests from Meta Business Suite and Creator Studio (at least for me — see the upcoming section about bugs). You can select from various “key metrics.”

A/B Test

This way, you determine the metric Meta uses to determine the winner. Choose from Comments, Shares, Reactions, People Reached, and Link Clicks.

You can also customize how long you want the test to run.

A/B Test

Choose from 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours, and 24 hours. Once the test is complete, the winning post will be published to your page.

A Note on Bugs

It’s entirely possible there’s something I’m not seeing when creating a test from Meta Business Suite. When I choose to publish or schedule a test, I get the following…

A/B Test

That “moment” takes many moments. Actually, I’ve never found an end to it. Originally, I thought it just took a while to publish each individual version. Then I thought maybe it wouldn’t “complete” until the test was over. But I waited that out, and this message kept showing.

I’m not sure if another important screen is supposed to appear next. It’s possible that additional customizations that happen in Creator Studio are intended to appear here. No idea. I do know that the test still ran even though this page didn’t finish loading.

It still does appear that there are significant differences between Business Suite and Creator Studio A/B split tests. But, I can’t say with 100% certainty that all differences that I’m seeing are intentional.

Viewing Results

Once again, I believe there’s a situation of what I see and what others see as being different.

If I create an A/B test in Meta Business Suite, there is nothing (in that section, at least) that shows me the test results. I can view the individual post versions and metrics associated with them, but that’s not unique. It’s the same as any other post.

Creator Studio, though, shows clear test results. These are found within the same Post Testing section under Tools.

A/B Test

And guess what? These results include all A/B tests of organic posts, including those that originated from Meta Business Suite.

Click through to see a side-by-side comparison.

A/B Test

First, I can’t ignore that the “Reached” stats are clearly wrong for any image post. There’s no way that a post that reached one person has seven reactions.

Second, this is part of the potential problem of these short tests. This shows the results for a very short period of time when the test ran. Is that enough time to choose a winner? It’s one reason to consider going with the 3-hour or 24-hour options in Creator Studio.

You can also choose to track the results of each variant after the test is complete. Of course, the winning post will see the biggest benefit of viewing results this way.

A/B Test

If you don’t like the post that Facebook chose, you can override the selection and publish a different one to your page. That is done at the top.

A/B Test

Is This Useful?

I have to admit that I avoided experimenting with A/B split tests of organic posts for quite some time. It sounded great in theory, but I was also negatively influenced by how A/B tests work for ads and assumed this would be pretty much the same.

A/B tests for ads take anywhere from a few days to four weeks. I have no patience for doing this with every organic post. There’s also a matter of the overall usefulness of A/B tests for ads since they are best suited for learning something over a few weeks that you can then apply in the future.

But, this is way different in the best ways. The test is super easy. The test will be completed in anywhere from 10 minutes to 24 hours. The winning post is published to your page.

Also, this is really the only way you can have Facebook optimize for an action when publishing an organic post. If your goal is link clicks, you can have Facebook choose the version that results in the most link clicks. That’s great!

I’ve only started using this feature so far, but early returns are solid. I’ve run two tests, and one resulted in a winning post that has reached over 17,000 people with close to 2,000 engagements.

Of course, don’t expect this to be miraculous either. If you submit four post versions that all stink, expect to get bad results. This at least allows you more opportunities to find something that hits — and also learn from what works and what doesn’t.

An Ads Tie-In

While this is for organic posts, A/B testing can absolutely benefit our advertising.

One of the negatives of A/B testing of ad creative is that you can spend a lot of money simply running a test to see which ad is most effective. But, you could move that effort to organic testing. Find the post that gets the most link clicks (or whatever you want), then put money behind that winning post.

It would seem that this could make some of the guessing, experimentation, and budget a bit more efficient, at least in theory.

Your Turn

Have you experimented with A/B tests of organic posts? What results are you seeing?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post 2 Ways to Create A/B Split Tests of Organic Content on Facebook appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

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Meta Needs an Impressions Shown Custom Audience

Previously, we talked about the glaring need for some sort of frequency control. The specific solution we focused on was frequency capping, like what is available when using Reach optimization. But, there’s actually another option that could be considered: An Impressions Shown Custom Audience.

It’s less sophisticated and it’s imperfect, but it could solve some of our problems while also providing some interesting options for campaign planning.

I think it could be great. Let’s discuss…

How the Audience Would Work

In its simplest form, it could work like this…

1. Create a custom audience of people who were shown an impression of a specific post or ad. This could work like Video View Custom Audiences, but the focus would be whether a user was shown a full impression of a specific post or ad.

2. Establish a retention window. This is the number of days that someone will remain in a custom audience after qualifying for it. We generally see anything from 90 to 365 days as a maximum, depending on the audience. For this purpose, let’s say the retention can be anywhere from 1 to 90 days.

How it Would Be Used

Once you’ve created the audience, how might you use it? Well, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

If you’re using this for frequency control, you could then automatically exclude anyone who was shown a specific ad during the past 7 days, for example. This is something I recommend for video ads right now. You can exclude those who watched at least three seconds, so that would pick up autoplay.

But, this could get a little more advanced…

Yes, you could exclude anyone who was shown a single impression during the past 7 days. Maybe Meta could add a frequency element. Then you could create a custom audience of anyone who was shown at least three impressions of an ad or post in 14 days. You could then, obviously, exclude them.

But, you could also use this for targeting purposes. Maybe once someone has seen a given post or ad — it could be once or maybe you’d want some additional frequency with it — you then target this group of people to show them another ad. So, you could create a series of ads to keep moving them through different ads, even if they don’t engage with them (but were shown them).

The hope would be that, eventually, you show them that magical ad that they click. Would it work? Maybe! Part of the fun of this is that it’s all hypothetical.

Maybe the feature wouldn’t work exactly like this. But these are some ideas, and I’d love to see something similar to experiment with.

Your Turn

What would you do with an Impressions Shown Custom Audience?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Meta Needs an Impressions Shown Custom Audience appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2127

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A Rant About Building Your House on Rented Land

I’ve gotta tell you, I’m really kinda fed up with the misuse and overuse of the “Don’t build your house on rented land!” rallying cry. Every time a platform changes or a feature gets taken away or Facebook goes down for eight hours, “gurus” flock to Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook to shout: “SEE! This is why you don’t build your house on rented land!”

And it seems that absolutely everyone eats it up. “YES! You’re so right!” How do you argue with that, right? And they share and everyone else eats it up, too. It just keeps going and going…

All the while, using that rallying cry for that moment didn’t make any sense. But this is a phrase that strikes a chord for whatever reason, and people just can’t resist the attraction. It’s like marketing moths to a flame.

Let me explain…

A Thread of Truth

The “rented land” phrase is all about not relying entirely on a platform that you don’t own. You don’t own Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or YouTube, so you shouldn’t “build” your business there.

Sure, there’s some thread of truth to this. The idea is that it’s so much more important to own something — that “something” being your website or email list, in particular. While this is certainly true, the phrase is overused to apply to situations that don’t make any sense.

Facebook is shutting down Facebook Podcasts? THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON RENTED LAND! This absolutely happened, by the way. And it makes no sense because no podcaster relied entirely on Facebook.

Facebook goes down for eight hours? THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON RENTED LAND! You know, because your own website would never go down for eight hours (mine certainly has).

All the while, of course, screaming these statements from Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn — you know, from rented land! These people are building their expertise and audiences from platforms they don’t own.

The Reality

The reality is this: Having something you “own” certainly gives you more control and is more reliable. But, you need to leverage rented land to get people there.

And actually, do you know what leveraging rented land is? It’s the definition of “marketing.” You rent space where your potential audience may be with the hope of sending them to the thing that you own.

But ultimately, how much do we actually own? You own your domain. You own your content. But again, it’s about control and reliability. You rely on so many things that you don’t own to make that website work. You rely on plugins and features that are hosted elsewhere to function properly.

When Meta pulled the plug on Facebook Podcasts, I actually read a comment that said you should just host the podcast on your own website. Come on! Should you be able to find and even consume your podcast on your website? Sure! (I do this.)

But, how in the world do you expect to build your audience? No one wants to hang out on your website! They want to hang out on the rented land. That’s why we send our podcast episodes to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and Google Podcasts and Amazon Music and everywhere else. We don’t own any of these.

Ownership, Control, and Adaptability

I wouldn’t advise that you build a business entirely within a platform that you don’t own, with no rights to the customer list. That is the one, very narrow, use of the “rented land” phrase that I’ll allow (because I’m the gatekeeper, dammit!).

But, here’s a point that we all need to understand: While “ownership” may mean more control and reliability, this is really about adaptability. If Facebook shuts something down, what are you going to do next?

Hell, just because you “own” your website, it doesn’t mean it’s not at risk. What if the entire way that we consume the internet changes and your website becomes obsolete?

The same with your email list. The rules on emailing customers and subscribers are constantly changing. What if, suddenly, your email list has no value?

In the end, it matters less and less about whether you own or rent everything. What’s most important is that you’re able to adapt to whatever disruption occurs.

Your Turn

What are your thoughts?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post A Rant About Building Your House on Rented Land appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2106

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