Facebook Ads: What’s the Best Optimisation for Ad Delivery

What’s the Best Facebook Optimisation for Ad Delivery?

Why Not Fully Automate Facebook Ads?

Sometimes ads may not perform as we might hope, so taking back some control of some of the mechanisms can be useful to set campaigns back on track.  Here we look at Optimisation of Ad Delivery options and how they relate to your business goals.

When, as advertisers, you ‘optimise for ad delivery’, you are instructing Facebook to deliver results as efficiently as possible through their bid system.  For example, when you optimise for link clicks, those Facebook users who are most likely to click through will be targeted.  Once you optimise for a particular end, Facebook’s machine learning kicks in to continually improve your ad’s performance. 

Perhaps confusingly, it is possible for your ad set optimisation purpose to differ from your campaign’s objective.  So, your campaign objective may be to maximise ad conversions, but your ad set optimisation end game may be link clicks.

Optimisation choices vary according to campaign objectives.  Set up may vary too.  So, for instance, if setting up to optimise for value, then a Facebook pixel or app SDK is required, allowing you to send event data back to Facebook from your website or app.

Facebook Ad Optimisation Considerations

Optimisation options vary in cost.  So, given a conversion yields greater value, it makes sense that these ad types cost more than sending ad click-throughs to your landing page.  Bear the relative benefits of bid strategy choices available against your available budget before deployment.

Check that your budget can cover the cost of your optimisation outcome; so for instance, if your profit margin for widget 1 sales is $2.00, your bid cost should offer a tolerable hit on that profit.  You may decide that all things considered a 50% profit hit is acceptable, i.e. ad conversion cost = $1.00. This may be fine for clearing end-of-line stocks, or to launch a new line and get ahead of competitors.  You may be looking for a much lower conversion cost for a sustainable campaign, however.

Facebook’s rule of thumb is that for a daily budget, you will be looking for returns of “at least ten times the average cost of your optimisation event…”  Another example of profitable ad delivery optimisation for link clicks is where a click costs $1.00, you should have $10.00 available to cover daily costs.

Another consideration involves setting your bid (cost) cap “…high enough to achieve your chosen optimisation event.”  So, think about what you are prepared to bid in your Facebook ad auction against your risk tolerance level. Ask yourself what the possible value of winning with your bid is to your company, against possible basket abandonment, for instance, or even reputational risk of not being in the game.

Best Facebook Ad Optimisation For Ad Delivery

Awareness Building Campaigns

Awareness Campaigns that Optimise for ‘Reach’ tends to be the best choice when it comes to campaigns to build awareness of your brand, products or services, as this option gets your message in front of as many new people as possible, so you maximise your the amount of those you reach and hence maximise awareness.

As Facebook explains: “Reach is the total number of people who see your content. Impressions are the number of times your content is displayed. Think of reach as the number of unique people who see your content”

Selecting ‘Reach’, then, allows you to optimise for the number of users who will see your ad displayed. ‘Reach’ contrasts with ‘Impressions’, which is about how many times your ad gets displayed and building familiarity and trust with warmer leads.  This option will be counted as ‘CPM’, or cost per thousand (not per million, as many assume!)  To ensure the same person does not see an ad too often, you may select a ‘frequency cap’ of e.g. every third day.

Both of these strategies work well for building awareness of your brand or particular product or service, but Reach gets you in front of more new viewers, with less conversion likelihood than Impressions, where you are keeping prospects reminded you are there when they are ready. 

Choosing optimisation for Reach in ad deployment, then, is also about understanding the difference between the number of times your ad shows up, (i.e. impressions) and how it can just show up for new people (reach).  When your objective is finding new audiences, you do not necessarily want your ad showing up several times to the same person, as selecting ‘impressions’ will give you. While both options have value, your choice depends upon your business requirements at any point in time, or upon needs for different products and services.

Facebook Ads Reach Campaign Ad Delivery Optimization ADSRUNNER

Landing Page Views in Facebook's Traffic Campaigns

When it comes to traffic generation, your best bet is optimising for landing page views. Avoid the default ‘link clicks’, which will get you many clicks, but not all clicks are intentional; many are accidental and have no value.  You want to ensure that clickers land on your destination page and that page gets loaded, without bounce away by someone with big thumbs, or for scrollers who land on your ad through fluke.

Clicks are not created equal. You want someone who has genuine interest who is intentionally clicking through to your product or service, because they have a higher likelihood of conversion.

Facebook Ads Traffic Campaign Ad Delivery Optimization ADSRUNNER

Engagement Campaigns via Video Views

Whenever it comes to optimising a video campaign for awareness or engagement, we recommend selecting optimisation for ‘Thruplay’. This ensures that you have a higher chance of having views counted of those people genuinely displaying interest enough to watch your video through to the end.

The alternative’2-second continuous video views’ is far from ideal, because if you choose this, then you will be counting as relevant, the many people just see your video for 2 seconds by accident, because they land on your ad through scrolling randomly, but may see your video and realise that you have nothing to offer them before moving on. That will be a wasted view that you have paid for. Remember, you are looking for intentional viewing when seeking conversions.

Facebook Ads Video Campaign Ad Delivery Optimization ADSRUNNER

Sales Campaigns and Lead Campaigns -Formerly known as Conversions

If your focus is on the conversion goal, then in E-commerce, chances are you’re seeking Purchase events.  However, in a lead generation campaign, you may want visitors to be sharing their details via your contact, or sign up form; subscribing to a newsletter is also a form of conversion.  The key factor in optimising for conversions is that you want ad viewers to take action, so you are telling Facebook to target those with the highest likelihood of converting, based on their available data.

 

Facebook Ads Sales Conversion Campaign Ad Delivery Optimization ADSRUNNER

App Promotions

With app promotion optimisations, everything depends on the nature of the app and your business needs. If you’re only after installs as a part of your campaign, then just stick with the ‘App installs’ optimisation goal here.

If, however, you want someone to purchase a product on your app, then you need to select ‘App events’.  You also have the option of selecting a mix of both goal, as demonstrated in the illustration here below.

Facebook Ads App Campaign Ad Delivery Optimization ADSRUNNER

The range of strategies open to you is aimed at delivery for the range of business goals you may have.  We will revisit these themes again in other blogs, but as an overview, here are some of the key Facebook ad bid strategies:

  • Brand awareness-raising (‘reach’, or ‘impressions’)
  • Driving website traffic (‘link clicks’, ‘landing page views’, ‘instant experience’)
  • Driving engagement and video views (‘ThruPlay’, ‘2-second continuous video views’)’
  • Conversions to sales
  • App installations and app events

So there we have it, you brief overview of optimisation strategies.  For more on this, Facebook does offer some advice here. Alternatively, read more about our Facebook advertising services or schedule a free consultation for more helpful strategies and hints from the AdsRunner team.

Sam Nouri
Sam Nouri
Hi! I'm Sam Nouri, the founder of AdsRunner. I've been working as a full-funnel digital marketer for nearly a decade, and have managed millions in ad spend for my clients. My aim is to help businesses scale and hit their growth milestones one at a time using innovative advertising methods and proven digital marketing strategies across all digital channels.
Sam Nouri
Sam Nouri
Hi! I'm Sam Nouri, the founder of AdsRunner. I've been working as a full-funnel digital marketer for nearly a decade, and have managed millions in ad spend for my clients. My aim is to help businesses scale and hit their growth milestones one at a time using innovative advertising methods and proven digital marketing strategies across all digital channels.