Are you spending more on your Facebook ads budget than you should be?
It’s no secret that managing Facebook ad accounts is an exhausting task. You’re chasing daily outcomes, building new audiences, adjusting settings, constantly switching ads on and off and that budget never seems to be enough. On top of that, the release of Apple iOS 14 earlier this year has also impacted Facebook advertising in a huge way - including rising CPMs.
With limited resources for your Facebook ads strategy, the last thing you need is to be going over your budget and not seeing a good ROI. So, if you’re wondering how to reduce your cost per thousand impressions (CPM), read on.
The key metric here is CPM. In this blog we are going to take a look at how CPM dictates the budget spend, deep dive into Facebook algorithms and identify some simple ways to lower the spend on these ads.
What is CPM and how does Facebook calculate CPM?
One of the most important aspects of running Facebook ads is CPM. CPM stands for cost per thousand impressions (or cost per mille - the Latin word for thousand). This metric measures the number of times people look at your ad, otherwise known as an impression.
Using CPM to measure your ad impressions is a great way to make sure you're getting value for your money. It also means you only pay when people actually see your ad, so you're not wasting money on ads that no-one pays attention to.
Facebook charges for the space for ad display. That is the amount of money that you pay for every thousand times your ad is seen by a Facebook user. You are bidding against other advertisers for the same space to show up in front of a similar audience. The more trying to reach the same audience, the higher the price goes. The lower your CPM, the higher the probability of conversion.
For example, if you're targeting a group in the food and hospitality industry, you can expect to pay more because so many advertisers are trying to reach that same group. And if you're advertising on Facebook during a busy time like the holiday season, be prepared to pay even more.
How to add CPM in your reporting?
1. Open up your facebook ads manager.
3.From here you can simply select CPM and you’ll now be able to track it in your ads manager dashboard.
Choosing your audience carefully is essential to run a successful Facebook ad campaign - both in terms of ads served and overall cost. Your audience is the group of people who fit the criteria you choose in ad targeting and who you hope to engage with your ad.
If you choose an audience that is not receptive to your ad, you will have a low CTR (click through rate), high CPC (cost per click), and high CPM.
The timing of running your ads is crucial when it comes to your CPM. Seasonal factors like the time of year, can have a big impact on prices. For example, most brands run ads during the summer holidays such as Black Friday, Christmas and New year so competition (and prices) go up in November and December.
Your target audience is constantly being bombarded with ads so if your ad is not relatable or the quality of your creatives is not good enough, it won’t stand out. This will cause your CPM to increase.
The objective of your campaign also affects the CPM. If you're running a brand awareness campaign you’ll see that the CPM is much lower than a campaign optimised for conversion or sales.
Ad fatigue is usually caused when the frequency of the ad is high, put simply: your target audience has seen the ad more times than they want to. This could affect the customer feedback score that Facebook calculates by taking feedback from randomly selected users from your audience. This also means chances of conversions are going down. So how do we combat this?
The frequency of the ads will be at an all time high if the audience is going to be narrow, ultimately leading to a higher budget spend and less conversions.
The key here is to target broader audiences that are relevant to your market. Facebook’s algorithm works better with a larger audience.
You could also exclude current customers from the campaigns, reducing the chance of your ads being seen by those who are already being communicated with or targeted by your email campaigns.
Advertising on automatic placements or selecting more placements can get your ad in front of more people. Keeping in mind that there could be lots of other advertisers bidding for the same placement as you, if you're willing to accept other placements, you can usually get them at a lower CPM.
You can run multiple tests to determine what works for your brand. Testing things like audience, ad format, placements, creatives or ad copy. This will definitely help in determining the best combination and in turn you’ll be able to lower your CPM’s.
This works by reaching out to the people who have already shown interest in your product or service and engaged on your website or social media. This will help you create custom audiences via ads manager.
Yes, the update to Apple iOS 14 means Facebook ads are getting more and more complex and can quickly turn into one of those “too hard basket” tasks. However we believe once you find that sweet spot, it can become a really great opportunity to stay ahead of the competition.
To run a successful Facebook ad campaign, it’s critical to understand its high-level costs and monitor performance on a daily basis. Your metrics can change quickly, so it’s really vital to react promptly to avoid overspend and make sure your campaigns are efficient to manage your CPM.
With a little bit of patience and a clear overall marketing objective - the hard work really does pay off and you’ll soon see the fruits of your labour!
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