- Holly Smith-Williams
Facebook PPC? WTF?
Beware! I recently did a bit of research on some of the agencies that are on the first page of Google for "Facebook Ad Agency UK" and was quite shocked by the results.
Not wanting to 'bad mouth' anyone, but it was obvious after doing a small amount of research, that a lot of these agencies would not produce any substantial results for their clients - which shocked me to be honest.
I hear a lot of stories of businesses that have been burnt by other Facebook marketers.
One business I spoke to was told that they would get 1000 sign-ups for their service for just £300 in ad spend. They achieved 62 sign-ups.
Another client was told that they would be able to achieve monthly sales of £100,000 with an investment of £500. I'm not holding my breath for that one. I could talk all day about the advanced strategies for a successful eCommerce campaign, but I'll save that for geeking out on another post.
But the thing that struck me most were the agencies promoting "Facebook PPC Services". I had to look at what they were talking about. PPC? On Facebook? What for?
These are clearly Google PPC experts as PPC doesn't really have a place on Facebook. If you want to generate more sales or more leads - paying per click is a waste of time. Your business needs sales not clicks, so trying to get a cheaper cost per click is absolutely useless if those clicks aren't going to turn into sales.
You see, on Facebook, if you are running a campaign to get clicks - Facebook is going to look for users that will click. If you want someone to sign-up for your service, or buy your product - Facebook needs to be optimised for this action. Once we teach Facebook that we want more of these people who are going to buy - Facebook will find those people.
Yes, this may not be as cheap as paying per click - but in terms of Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) - optimising for Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (oCPM) is much more effective, and you will see better results using Conversion Campaign Objectives (eCPM).
If you are only paying per click, that doesn't mean you will only pay when someone clicks through to your landing page. You will be paying for ALL clicks. That means when someone clicks on your ad, when someone clicks on the video, when someone clicks on the button...
Cost Per Click (CPC) on it's own is an irrelevant metric. You need to be tracking your conversions, your revenue - all of which are trackable with the correct implementation of standard or custom events.
I personally track the CPC metric to make sure our targeting is spot on and our creative is hitting it out of the park. This is a soft metric to help us optimise the campaign.
So please, I implore you - cheaper isn't always better, in fact there is a high cost of cheap! And I know - I'm from Yorkshire!
Make sure you are speaking to a Facebook expert - if you are unsure, drop me an email at hello@blondebearsocial.com and ask for a second opinion.