How do you optimize on Facebook? How do you look at numbers? What do you do with ads? What does an ad set tell me when its cost per result is expensive, and what does it tell me when its cost per result is below my target cost? How does it happen that we run a campaign and after a few days it just fades away?
In this article, I will explain how to properly optimize on Facebook, provide an example of a real campaign, and show you how I optimized it.
Campaign Description
Here is a short brief on the campaign:
The goal: Increase awareness among people in Israel and acquire leads
Campaign type: Leads
Target cost: €2.10 per lead
Budget: 133,000 ILS
Number of ads (creatives): 10
Creative types: Different object, different call to action, different text
Did you notice that I have no target for cost per click (CPC)? No target for CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)? No target for landing page views? Why not? Because that’s not the metric I look at when optimizing. Focus on delivering results through measurable targets like cost per lead, click-through rate, and other metrics that really let me understand what’s happening with my campaign. These metrics help us get a broad picture of audience behavior in specific months, campaign price increases, market competition status, but they are data points that help me less with optimization.
Before we start with the optimization we did for the campaign, a few important tips from me:
- Start by advertising to all relevant placements (no right-column ads, no Audience Network), and only if you find a placement that works really well with a large volume of results, separate it into a separate campaign: a separate campaign for Stories, etc.
- Ad sets – I use ad sets to separate audiences. Each audience gets its own ad set. Many advertisers put multiple audiences in one ad set (for example, remarketing + lookalike together), and then we have no idea what actually worked.
- Ads – I number the ads and give them dedicated names, for example: AD01-AD10, along with a description of the ad, so I know what the ad is without previewing it, for example: AD01 – Image – Green Frame – Forest
- It’s very important to build audiences in advance: Visitors – 30/60/90/180. Submitted a lead – 30/60/90/180. Prepare 1-2% Lookalikes for “warm” audiences (for example, all buyers in the last 90 days).
- In the eCommerce world – create small audiences of Added to Cart 7/14/30. Initiated Checkout 2/4/7/14 days, and run dynamic remarketing on them.
- Organize campaign names. For example: FD – Conversions – Facebook – Facebook Workshop – 10000 USD – 20/9/20
FD = Company ID/Name
Conversions = Campaign Type
Facebook = Placement
Facebook Workshop = Campaign Name
10000USD = Budget
20/9/20 = End Date
* The purpose of naming conventions is so we can use filters to see how ad 2 performed against ad 3, how a Facebook campaign performed against Stories, and so on. It also makes it possible to export the data to Excel and run a PIVOT table on the data.
Sample Campaign
We ran a campaign for a full month, and here are the results
So as you can see, we met the cost per lead, 133,000 ILS was spent successfully.
What happened during the campaign?
Creative Optimization
I start my optimization from the ads – many people look at campaigns and ad sets, which isn’t bad, but ultimately what converts and brings the lead/purchase is the ad, so I give significant weight to creative when optimizing.
Each ad set received 3 ads, and only ads AD01-AD03 were activated.
We ran the campaign, and after 24-48 hours when we already had numbers we could work with – I started optimizing.
I started with the ads, filtered for active ads only, and sorted by cost per lead (from high to low).
I know my cost per lead should be no more than €2.10. I selected the ad with the most expensive cost (€48) and selected everything down to the ad that met my target cost (€2.10) – for those who don’t know how to select all: click on the ad, hold SHIFT, and go down to the ad meeting the target cost.
After selecting everything, click the button next to EDIT and turn off the ads. Then continue optimizing.
Of course, if you turned off ads, make sure to turn on new ads that were already uploaded when creating the campaign – ads 4-6 that were prepared in advance; I always make sure there are 2-3 active ads inside an ad set.
Ad optimization from the past week + search for ads that spent money and did not generate leads
Ad Set Optimization
It is important to separate audiences and give each audience its own ad set in order to optimize properly.
So what does logic say?
If I have an ad set meeting the target cost – let it continue; if not – stop it. Well, that’s the mistake: we don’t stop ad sets, we slow their pace down a bit or even significantly (sometimes down to 5 ILS per day for an ad set until it resets). Of course, we use sound judgment here and won’t wait for an ad set to spend 500 ILS to bring a lead.
If we have an ad set with a cost of 2.40 per lead but it managed to bring a respectable volume – we lower its daily budget to the minimum possible, change the ad, and let it run on a low budget until the cost resets, or we turn off the ad set. It’s very important to emphasize that if the ad set fails to meet the target cost after a period of time or is very far from it, we will stop it.
I look at ad sets across several time windows:
- A one-month time window
- A two-week time window
- A one-week time window
I recommend starting to optimize based on the past week upfront, as it is the freshest time window we have with sufficient data. Many people look at ad sets over a one-month time window and think the cost isn’t rising and everything is fine, but if you look back one week, you’ll see costs can change drastically (not in all cases).
So I look back one week:
I divided my ad sets into 2 groups:
- Group that met the target cost
- Group that did not meet the target cost
Group #1, which did meet my target cost, is performing great. I select the ad sets and give them all a uniform budget (the budget depends on your total budget). I’ll give them €40 per ad set. (If there is an ad set with exceptionally good results, I’ll give it a higher budget than the rest)
Group #2, which did not meet my target cost over the past week, I will significantly lower the budget for these ad sets to between €3-€7 in order for the cost to reset.
How do you reset a cost?
Suppose an ad set brought in 57 leads at a cost of €2.20 per lead with a daily budget of €30. This means that at some point it became more expensive and stopped bringing leads at the target cost.
If I reduce its budget to €3-€7, it will operate on a low budget of €5 and bring me 10 leads on that day – most likely the cost will be below my target cost.
Make sure to do this several times a week, and for those managing large budgets – it is recommended daily.
Using the Breakdown Tool
We’ve reached the end of the month, how do we improve for next month? We’ll use a great tool that Facebook provides – Breakdown.
We’ll select a successful campaign and want to learn about it:
Where did they convert the most?
Which age group fits me and which age group is expensive for me?
At what hours do they convert the most?
In which cities is it more worthwhile for me to advertise?
And more
For those unfamiliar: Select the campaign, focus only on it, filter it by selection (FILTER BY SELECTION):
Click on breakdown
We see that the 55-64 age group did not meet expectations and did not meet our target cost.
A few things can be done:
Duplicate the campaign, edit the ad sets, and enter ages 18-54 which did meet our target cost.
65+ also met the target, so you can duplicate the ad sets and even run a test only on this age group – the sky is the limit.
From month to month, you can draw many conclusions and increase the budget while maintaining performance. Of course, simultaneously narrow down audiences/ages/cities that don’t meet the target cost and waste unnecessary money that could go to converting audiences.
Summary
So that’s it for now. Of course, there is much more optimization, but the core optimization is as detailed in the guide. Start with creative optimization, move to audience and audience budget optimization, and dig deep into the data Facebook provides using the Breakdown tool.
A few highlights and tips from me:
- Order and organization – The key to success. The more orderly you work and the more you maintain a consistent optimization routine, the better the results will be.
- Create a lot of creative in advance so you have materials to work with. If a creative doesn’t work, you’ll have the option to swap it quickly.
- Look at your audiences constantly and create new ones. Try to think outside the box from time to time to reach audiences you hadn’t thought of.
- Remember that there is no single right formula for paid advertising on Facebook; you have to build your own method.
And most importantly, best of luck!
A Little About Me
Guy Margi, 26, specializes in digital campaign management across a variety of channels.
