Using Facebook ads can be a very inexpensive way to drive more sales or build your brand. Or, it can be a very expensive lesson on how to not run a PPC ad campaign! That’s because you can blow through your ad budget very quickly if you don’t have your campaign optimized. When you have your campaign finely tuned like a luxury car then it can be a very cost-effective system.
The trick is to not make certain costly mistakes. You can use the Facebook ads manager to your benefit and still bring the cost of clicks down to where you need them to be so you can actually profit. In this article, we will go over several tips to help you keep those costs down.
1 – Watch the relevance score
Your ads can get expensive when you have people clicking but not buying or taking the next step that you want them to take for a conversion. The reason is usually that the ad was not relevant to the audience that was seeing it. This is why Facebook will give you a relevance score. It will determine if the keywords and content are going to work for the audience that you have selected.
If you get a low score then it is a good idea to go back to the drawing board and either rework the keywords or refine your audience. Not only will this increase your ROI because you have the right people seeing the ad, but Facebook will also lower your CPC when you have a high score.
2 – Do split testing
Split testing can be a double-edged sword when you are trying to lower your CPC. This is because you will be running two versions of an ad and if one is not performing well, it can plow through your ad budget rather quickly. The benefit of testing like this is the fact that it will reduce your costs later on.
Refining your message, imagery, and the content will make your campaign more effective and keep costs low. This can only really be done when you have data that shows what is working and then focus there.
In another way, it can lower costs when you see one version with less than stellar results that can be paused.
3 – Optimize calls to action
Your calls to action need to be explicit in the sense that you are telling the audience exactly what to do next. Some examples are “Shop Now” “Learn More” or “Sign Up”. It is really important to match the call to action with the audience and what they are likely to want to do. If they are looking for information then they aren’t likely to click on a button that says “Shop Now” for instance.
The buttons should also be in the appropriate place in the content so it makes sense that they need to take another step. Lead the copy to a point where you will ask them to move to the next step and place the button there.
