How to Analyze Data for Constant Facebook Ads Optimization
on Feb 11, 2013
Before we go into details, here’s a quick introduction to how the ad process works on Facebook:
A “sponsored story” or an ad limited to 90 characters and an image with a max size of 100X72 pixels is submitted to Facebook with a bid i.e. the maximum you are willing to pay for a click or thousand impressions.
The suggested bid range, while starting an ad, is determined by the targeting of the ad and how many people are competing for that target market. Once it starts getting delivered, the suggested bid and the actual price of the ad can go down depending on how popular the ad is. The more popular the ad, the lesser its individual click price is. This is because if you (i.e. Facebook) are getting paid for each click, you would rather show the ads which get more clicks. Got it? OK.
So, while running an ad campaign, it is important to always ensure that you are getting a good click-through-rate (CTR, measured in percentage of clicks per impressions). The average CTR for ads on Facebook is less than 0.1%.
This is done by always being up to date on audience’s tastes, what they are interested in and what is relevant to them. In fact, before starting a campaign on Facebook, it is always advisable to test its expected popularity through an ad campaign… because money never lies.
Yes, there are other metrics of success of a Facebook ad campaign, including but not limited to, conversion ratio, reach, targeting and cost per fan.
For today, let us only consider the click-through-ratio leading to a lower cost per fan (CPF). There’s also the question of managing a specific budget and spending it in a particular time-frame to achieve certain marketing goals. Managing a situation like this is what leads to “optimization” tactics.
Now, consider the following chart that tracks the “spending” (blue line) and cost per fan (red line) of this particular ad campaign on Facebook. Assume that the only objective of this campaign is to gain as many “likes” on the page as possible with the lowest “CPF” possible. Assume, also that Rs. 40k are to be spent within 30 days to achieve the same.
[Note that this is not the CPC price that Facebook provides by default; this is the cost per fan i.e. money spent on a particular day divided by the likes received during that day. This also lets you know about the conversion rate of clicks-to-likes; which in some cases has also been seen to be more than 100%!]
Relation between amount spent and CPF
From 6th December to 10th December i.e. during the first five days of the campaign, the cost of acquisition came down when constantly and automatically without any changes made to any of the ad copies. A couple of changes were made to the bid and it kept coming down.
This is the time that the system takes to optimize a particular ad. On the 10th of December, we reached a point when the bid was brought down to the lowest level and after that the spending started coming down because the ad just wasn’t delivering at the bid we had set for it. Thus the set budget of Rs. 1000 wasn’t being spent and it reached a nadir 3 days later i.e. on 13th December.
No changes were made during these 3 days because we were still testing waters and could afford under-spending at this point because the campaign had just started.
The bid was raised and ad copies tweaked on 14th when you see a sharp rise in the price of the fan and also adjustment in the money spent. Full budget was once again consumed on 14th December.
The new ad copied really hit the mark and a day later, the CPF automatically came down and remained at a low level for the next week and a half i.e. till 24th December.
Ad fatigue set in after that and as a result CPF increased. Now, it was the end of the year and we faced two problems: 1. Rising CPF and 2. Budget left to be consumed. It was countered by writing fresh copies yet again with specific year-end messaging. This didn’t pick up as much as expected since much time wasn’t allowed for it to be optimized by the Facebook delivery system. Before it could be optimized, it started losing steam.
The final straw came after we entered 2013. Budget was left and CPF was higher than we were comfortable with. Since the month long campaign was nearing its end, not much time was left for experimentation. Thankfully, the new ad copies written during this period picked up really well and not only did we manage to consume the entire budget by the defined time, we were also able to do it at a low CPF.
So, the major takeaways from interpreting this one Facebook ad campaign are:
- Among other objectives, set the objectives of the price per click/fan that you are comfortable with.
- Start at a higher bid, lower it constantly till you reach the point where budget is being consumed as well as the click is coming in at a good price range.
- A risky strategy which you might want to use with uttermost caution: if the budget is not being spent at a bid you are comfortable with, increase the budget in the ratio in which it is being spent. E.g. I want a click @ Rs. 2 and to spend Rs. 1000 each day, but Rs. 1000 get spent only when the click comes at Rs. 3, I can increase the budget to Rs. 3000 per day because of which Rs. 1000 will get spent.
DO THIS ONLY IN EMERGENCIES AND WITH CONSTANT MONITORING! - Constantly review the performance of the ads and tweak the copies, images, targeting and bid as needed.
- The Facebook ads reports offer a wealth of data if you know where to look. I manage multiple accounts and haven’t yet felt the need of an automated optimization system to do this for me.
- I wish there was a feature in Facebook – and I have provided this feedback to them in a call – where I could get a notification if the entire money wasn’t being spent. This could help me adjust the bid and budget in a timely manner rather than having to visit each campaign every time.
- Much of what works and doesn’t work is calculated guess-work and you have to live with the hit-and-trial aspect of it. If you are a marketer, you will soon get the hang of what works best and this might be different for each kind of client. The important thing to remember is to answer WIIFY from the customer’s point of view.
Other important observations:
- “Like” sponsored stories work better than any other ad format but then you are missing out an opportunity to deliver an ad message. So, make the choice between getting cheaper “likes” and promoting a relevant message.
- You have to make a trade-off between cheap “likes” and relevant “likes”. Our recommended strategy is to go for relevancy over inexpensiveness any day.
- Landing page optimization is as important as ads optimization. Constantly measure the clicks-to-action ratio that the ads dashboard provides just beneath every ad; this will give you an idea of the conversion of the ad instantly to make decisions. Matching the message of the ad to the landing page is of utmost importance. There are many other tactics in this which we can cover some other time.
It’s amazing how much you can make out from a CSV file!
Have you also been optimizing Facebook campaigns? Does your learning match with ours? Please write below and tell us. You could also share information with us at info@omlogic.com.
PS:
Other recommended readings (from Quora):
On brand positioning and why “coolness” for brand may not be the coolest value.
How to master your time like a Jedi master.
UI/UX reading resources for a web-marketer.
Social Media is About Listening, Not Just Talking.
Why Apple will die soon and why Google might not. Or why humility is important for disruption.
Nimit Kathuria
Team OMLogic
Post a comment
117 comments
Recent Post
.png)
.png)
More Stories
Copyright © 2025 - OMLogic Blog. All rights reserved.
ndt flaw specimen
Тhey ɑlways focus on R&D аnd Manufacturing: NDT-KITS һas excellent R&D ɑnd manufacturing departments. Ꭲhis demonstrates thｅir commitment to continuous improvement ɑnd innovation in tһe manufacturing of defective specimens.
ultrasonic gauge thickness
The feature that I was moѕt imprwssed Ьy was its ability t᧐ measure the mοst thin values, where I could esily find the thinnest pߋint օn a material testing surface. Alarm functions ɑrе also very helpful, giving thе user a notification iff tһе amount exceeds а preset minimum ᧐r maximum thickness.
calibration blocks for calipers
This tool alloѡs tһe usеr tߋ calibrate wіth high precision. In аccordance witһ the specifications ⲟf this tool guarantees accurate calibration гesults аnd in aсcordance ԝith industry standards.
casino en ligne France
I am curious to find out what blog platform you're utilizing? I'm experiencing some minor security problems with my latest site and I would like to find something more risk-free. Do you have any solutions? casino en ligne France Hey there just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren't loading properly. I'm not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I've tried it in two different browsers and both show the same outcome. casino en ligne France Hi there i am kavin, its my first time to commenting anywhere, when i read this post i thought i could also create comment due to this brilliant post. casino en ligne fiable Heya i'm for the primary time here. I came across this board and I to find It really helpful & it helped me out much. I hope to provide one thing back and aid others such as you helped me. meilleur casino en ligne What's up everyone, it's my first go to see at this site, and paragraph is actually fruitful in support of me, keep up posting such articles. casino en ligne France What's up, everything is going perfectly here and ofcourse every one is sharing facts, that's really fine, keep up writing. meilleur casino en ligne It's the best time to make some plans for the future and it's time to be happy. I've read this post and if I could I want to suggest you few interesting things or tips. Perhaps you could write next articles referring to this article. I wish to read more things about it! casino en ligne Good way of telling, and good article to take facts concerning my presentation subject, which i am going to present in academy. casino en ligne francais May I simply just say what a comfort to uncover a person that really knows what they are talking about on the web. You certainly realize how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people should read this and understand this side of the story. I was surprised that you aren't more popular since you surely have the gift. casino en ligne It's a pity you don't have a donate button! I'd most certainly donate to this brilliant blog! I suppose for now i'll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to brand new updates and will share this blog with my Facebook group. Chat soon! casino en ligne
casino en ligne France
I was wondering if you ever thought of changing the structure of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or two pictures. Maybe you could space it out better? casino en ligne France Greetings! I know this is kinda off topic however , I'd figured I'd ask. Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe guest authoring a blog article or vice-versa? My site addresses a lot of the same subjects as yours and I believe we could greatly benefit from each other. If you might be interested feel free to shoot me an e-mail. I look forward to hearing from you! Superb blog by the way! meilleur casino en ligne My brother suggested I might like this blog. He was entirely right. This post truly made my day. You can not imagine simply how much time I had spent for this information! Thanks! casino en ligne Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You definitely know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something enlightening to read? casino en ligne fiable Hi, yes this paragraph is truly nice and I have learned lot of things from it regarding blogging. thanks. casino en ligne When I initially commented I clicked the "Notify me when new comments are added" checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get several e-mails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove people from that service? Thank you! casino en ligne If some one wants to be updated with most up-to-date technologies therefore he must be pay a quick visit this web site and be up to date all the time. casino en ligne obviously like your website however you need to take a look at the spelling on several of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling issues and I find it very troublesome to inform the truth on the other hand I will definitely come back again. casino en ligne I'm amazed, I have to admit. Rarely do I encounter a blog that's both equally educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you've hit the nail on the head. The issue is something which not enough people are speaking intelligently about. I'm very happy I found this during my search for something concerning this. casino en ligne fiable I'd like to thank you for the efforts you've put in writing this blog. I am hoping to see the same high-grade blog posts by you later on as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my own blog now ;) casino en ligne France