marketingplaybook

[marketingplaybook]

How to Use the Facebook Pixel Event Setup Tool

Any business serious about conversion tracking and optimization needs the Facebook pixel installed on their website. But getting the pixel and events installed correctly has been a chore, particularly for those who are less technical or lack the staff and resources to handle some basic code.

That changes with the Facebook pixel Event Setup Tool. While you will still need to add the base pixel code to your website, the Event Setup Tool is a codeless, seamless method to integrate pixel events.

It’s really quite easy, no matter your technical expertise. Before we get to the juicy stuff of using this tool, we’ll need to take a couple of steps back.

In this post, you’ll learn:

How to install the base pixel code (if you haven’t already)

A refresher on pixel events

How to use the Event Setup Tool

[Learn more about how to master the Facebook pixel for 2019 in my upcoming training. SIGN UP HERE.]

Install the Pixel First

First, there’s no way around getting the base pixel code installed on your website. If you haven’t done that yet, you’ll need to before dealing with events.

The Facebook pixel is a unique piece of code that connects activity on your website to Facebook. It is the pixel that gives you access to all of the following, and more:

Retargeting with Website Custom Audiences

Attribute conversions to your advertising

Optimize advertising for Landing Page Views

Optimize advertising for conversions

Track marketing performance with Facebook Attribution

Track customer funnel with Facebook Analytics

If you haven’t yet installed the pixel, go here. Once you click to set up the pixel, you’ll see three options: 1. Connect a partner platform, 2. Manually install pixel code yourself, and 3. Email instructions to a developer.

If you utilize a Facebook partner (Google Tag Manager, Shopify, Squarespace, WooCommerce, WordPress, and more), Facebook has specific instructions for you to get the pixel installed.

You can otherwise install the code manually or have an email with instructions sent to your developer. If you’re curious, I use Pixel Caffeine (not an affiliate link), a free plugin by AdEspresso.

Here’s a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago that steps through some of the options to get the pixel installed:

6 Ways to Add the Facebook Pixel to Your Website

What Are Pixel Events?

Adding the base pixel code connects your website to Facebook. With your unique pixel on every page of your website, Facebook will be notified when a page of your site is loaded.

If you do nothing else, you’re limited in terms of how much you can get from the pixel. You can create Website Custom Audiences to retarget those who visit your website, which is amazing. But, you’ll need to add pixel events for better tracking and optimization.

A pixel event is a modifier that adds details to the information sent to Facebook. Events allow Facebook to be notified that not only was a page visited, but a purchase (or registration, lead, search, etc.) was completed.

Standard pixel events (expanded since first announced) include:

View Content

Search

Add to Wishlist

Add to Cart

Initiate Checkout

Add Payment Info

Purchase

Subscribe

Start Trial

Complete Registration

Contact

Find Location

Schedule

Events become particularly useful for conversion tracking and optimization. They allow you to connect your advertising efforts to a specific number of resulting conversions and, if applicable, the related revenue. Once Facebook collects this info, it also allows the advertiser to better optimize for a particular event.

Earlier, I described some of the tools that become available to you once you install the pixel. But, once you start using events, each of those tools becomes more powerful.

What is the Event Setup Tool?

Prior to the Event Setup Tool, advertisers needed to modify their pixel code on specific pages of their websites to collect anonymous event information. This was done manually, with the assistance of a plugin, or through partner integration.

First announced last June, a streamlined method is rolling out to advertisers (not all have it yet). The Event Setup Tool allows advertisers to add events based on page views or button clicks. Most importantly, no coding is required.

When in your Events Manager, click to Set Up New Events.

You will now see the option to use Facebook’s Event Setup Tool.

Before we move forward, determine on what page the pixel event will occur, whether by viewing a URL or clicking a button. Enter the URL for that page here…

After entering the URL for this page in the step above, click “Open Website.” That will open a new window for that particular page that includes a Facebook dialog at the top left.

If any events have already been created for this page, you’ll see them here.

Set Up an Event by URL

One option is to set up a pixel event by URL. In other words, if someone loads a particular URL, this is a sign that a conversion is complete. An example would be a thank-you page following registration for a webinar or purchasing a product. This should be a page that users will only visit once.

Click the “Track a URL” button. You’ll now see this…

You’ll want to choose an event that has occurred once a person visits this URL. Facebook provides several standard options…

I am going to choose “Complete Registration.”

You also have the option of tracking the entire URL or portion of the URL.

“URL Equals” would limit qualified URLs to a single URL whereas “URL Contains” could result in multiple qualified URLs.

Once you’re done, click “Confirm.”

You will now see that event listed.

Set Up an Event by Button Click

This is possibly the most valuable application of the Event Setup Tool. Updating button code to track conversions on click is very technical. I can tell you that I rarely got it to work properly on my website.

Click “Track New Button.”

Suddenly, the page grays out and highlights appear for links and buttons that would qualify.

By selecting a link or button here, Facebook will begin reporting on events whenever a visitor clicks it. Once you select your button or link, Facebook will ask you to connect that click to an event.

I am going to choose “Lead.” Then click “Confirm.” Once again, you’ll see that event listed under “Events on this Page.”

Since I previously created an event based on URL, I have two listed (you may have only one).

Test Your Event

From the image above, note that you can edit or delete an event before finishing. Once you’re finished, click “Finish Setup” at the top right.

Facebook now asks to review your events.

If it looks good, click “Finish.”

Back on your Events Manager screen in Facebook, you’ll get a notification that your event setup is complete.

Click the blue button to test your events. You’ll get a page that looks like this…

Note that while in test mode, Facebook will only track the events on that page that you trigger, not the events triggered by other website visitors. Assuming the link to that page you were just working on is in the text box (it should have prefilled), click “Open Website.”

If you created an event by URL, you have already triggered an event. Otherwise, click the link or button on that page that triggers your button event. Then go back to the testing page in Events Manager.

Here is what that page looks like now for me…

There are five events listed in all. Two “Page View” events and one “AdvancedEvents” event were created via partner integration (the WordPress plugin I use, in this case). Ignore these since they aren’t related to what we’re discussing today. But the two events I just created (Lead and Complete Registration) are also listed.

In the middle column, you’ll see those two events were created via Event Setup Tool. In the far right column, you’ll see the last time that event was triggered. In other words, these were set up properly!

What About Parameters?

This is all terrific. The Event Setup Tool is a very good option for non-technical advertisers and for anyone wanting a quicker and easier way to set up pixel events.

There is one thing missing, however, that makes pixel events so valuable: Parameters.

Parameters are additional details about the event that occurred. For example, the setup process above can allow you to create a “Purchase” event. This allows you to track purchases when someone views a specific page or clicks a button going forward.

But what exactly did they purchase? What is the value of what was purchased?

When setting up your pixel manually, you can include parameters that provide additional details to reporting.

It’s unfortunate that the ability to add parameters isn’t currently included in the Event Setup Tool. However, my educated guess is that this is just an early version. There is really no reason why the tool wouldn’t be able to include anything that you can do manually.

Hopefully, parameters are coming!

Your Turn

Have you tried out the Event Setup Tool? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Use the Facebook Pixel Event Setup Tool appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

How to Duplicate a Saved Audience in Facebook Ads Manager

When it comes to Saved Audiences, a question commonly repeats: How do I duplicate a saved audience in Ads Manager?

While there’s currently no direct way to duplicate a saved audience, there is manual process that allows you to do this. We’ll cover that here.

What Are Saved Audiences?

Facebook’s Saved Audiences feature allows advertisers to create audiences that can be re-used in multiple campaigns. This can be a serious time saver. The feature can also enable more detailed analysis, such as understanding audience overlaps.

To access Saved Audiences, you’ll first need to access Facebook Business Manager, or, if you’re not using Business Manager, go directly to the desired ad account. At the time of this writing, both paths have a standard URL convention, which I’ll share in case it helps.

As an initial step, be sure you are logged into your personal Facebook account. To access Business Manager, you can go to business.facebook.com. To access ad accounts that are not in Business Manager, you can go to www.facebook.com/manage. In either case, you should be sure to select the Ad Account for which you want to create the saved audience.

Once you’re viewing either Business Manager or Ads Manager, click on the drop-down from the top left of the page. Then, select “Audiences” from under the “Assets” section:

Duplicate a Saved Audience

Since there is not an automatic feature to duplicate an audience, here is how we can do it manually, with an easy, straightforward workaround.

First, confirm again that you are in the correct ad account by looking at the ad account name on the top left.

Now, select the saved audience you would like to duplicate by checking the box to the left of that audience’s name. Then, select the “Edit” button:

From here, the audience will open. To duplicate that audience, we can simply edit the name (I’ll add a “Copy1” tag to the current name). From here, we can make any changes we’d like to the existing audience.

For this example, I’ll add an interest of “Cars”. Since I want to tell by the name some of the information about the audience, I’ll go ahead and include a reference to Cars in the name as well.

Once you’ve made any changes you’d like, click the “Save as New” button. Be sure *not* to click the “Update” button, as that will simply rename the previous, existing audience vs. duplicating it as a newly-named option.

**If you accidentally click Update, you can re-open and change back to the original audience name, remove any changes you made (such as the adding of interests), and then click Update again to essentially undo the change you just made.

Once we click “Save As New,” a confirmation screen appears letting us know the audience is about to be copied. Notice here that Facebook automatically adds a ” – copy” tag at the end of the audience name. Since I already added “Copy1” in the name of my newly duplicated audience, I’m going to delete the additional tag before I click “Save”:

Once the change is saved, you should see the new, duplicated audience appear in the saved audience list:

**If the duplicated audience doesn’t appear, click to reload the page. Doing so normally causes it to populate the newest version.

There you have it! You’ve successfully duplicated one of your existing saved audiences.

This trick works especially well for audiences that have a large number of interests, or when there are other targeting components that you want to avoid rebuilding manually.

Your Turn

I love handy tricks to save time in Ads Manager. How have you used any workarounds?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Duplicate a Saved Audience in Facebook Ads Manager appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

How I Promoted My SMMW Speaking Session

Last Thursday, I spoke at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego for the sixth straight year. While it’s a big event, there are 10 competing sessions happening at any given time. To help drive people to my session, I ran Facebook ads.

In this post, I’ll outline:

What I Did

How I Did It

The Results I Saw

Let’s dive in!

My Ad

I created a campaign that began the Monday prior to my session, giving me a little more than three days of promotion (I spoke on Thursday morning). I focused my targeting on people in the area (more on that in a minute), and since the event didn’t technically start until Wednesday, I couldn’t really start the campaign any sooner.

Here’s the ad that I created (go ahead and click it to play)…

If you’re familiar with my advertising, this is rather standard for me. Not that I’ve created ads that look just like this, but it’s very simple and doesn’t require a design team. I like to be able to act on inspiration and immediately hit publish.

The goal here was to…

Get the attention of those attending SMMW

Create some mystery around my presentation

Show the value they can expend to get

How I Did It: Objective and Optimization

My goal was to reach the most people attending Social Media Marketing World as possible. To do this, I would want to combine geotargeting (inclusion and exclusion) and interests to focus as much on my potential audience as possible.

Since the audience would be small, I didn’t want Facebook to optimize for an action. As a result, I used the Reach objective…

…and I optimized for Reach. This means that Facebook will show my ad to as many people within the targeted audience (more on that in a second) as possible.

Since Reach optimization also includes a handy Frequency Capping feature, I capped frequency at three times per day.

Note that I would consider this to be a pretty high frequency normally. But in this case, I’m reaching people for a very limited amount of time and making sure that I get their attention.

I also chose to set a manual bid cap of $200 per 1,000 impressions.

Once again, this is not normal, and I would not recommend this under normal conditions. However, I’m willing, in this case, to spend more to make sure I reach my audience.

How I Did It: Targeting

My goal was to reach as many people at the conference, located at the San Diego Convention Center, as possible. Inspired by a blog post written by Trey Edwards, I chose a geographic microtargeting approach.

This involved the following:

1 mile radius around the primary location

Multiple 1 mile radii exclusion zones

It looks like this…

It may look a bit messy, but the goal was to reach only those in the San Diego Convention Center. By excluding the fringes of the circle, I was able to do that.

I found that the audience was still larger than I wanted. In response, I layered on the Social Media Examiner interest.

This brought me down to a potential audience size of 6,500 people.

How I Did It: Creative and Placements

I had a bit of a dilemma when it came to placements. Typically, you have to be very careful about the placements you use when utilizing frequency capping. You don’t want to waste your one impression per day (if that’s where you cap) on an ineffective placement.

But here, I was using a very aggressive frequency capping number of three times per day. I also wanted to be sure to reach people where they were. So, while I did remove some placements (Marketplace, Audience Network, Messenger Inbox), I kept the rest.

Since the video I created wasn’t ideal for all placements, I made use of Facebook’s Custom Creative feature and customized the video by placement.

I would create four versions of the video to fit recommendations for each of the placements.

The Results

We can throw the results into a couple of buckets:

Facebook Metrics

Real World: Did it move people to attend?

I spent $111.76 to show the ad to 2,559 people a total of 3,821 times (frequency of 1.49) during a short, three-day window.

Impressions broke down by day like this:

Monday: 722 (18.9%)

Tuesday: 1,151 (30.1%)

Wednesday: 1,421 (37.2%)

Thursday: 527 (13.8%)

My session was at 10:30am on Thursday.

There were 3,172 video plays, 226 which were at 100%. The ad also received…

Comments from 13 unique people

66 post reactions

926 post engagements

At the start of my session, I asked the crowd if they saw my ad. Of the 600 or so in the room, a good number (10-20%?) indicated that they did. That’s not scientific, of course, especially since not everyone will respond.

Overall, I’d consider it a success. For a spend of about $100, I’m confident that this ad helped me accomplish my goal of driving more people to my speaking session.

Your Turn

What do you think about this approach? What have you done in similar situations to promote attendance to an event?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How I Promoted My SMMW Speaking Session appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Understanding “Recently In” Facebook Ad Location Targeting

Location targeting on Facebook can be a powerful feature. However, there are definitely some challenges with understanding exactly how Facebook uses available information to determine location.

I’ve written in detail about location targeting before. However, as with many topics, there is always room for more exploration. The “Recently In” target feature is one such area that deserves a bit more attention.

The “Recently In” Target Feature

As of this writing, Facebook has four primary location targets available. Facebook’s Help Article defines them as follows:

Everyone in this location (default): This option allows you to reach people whose home or most recent location is within the selected area. You might want to advertise large fairs or high-profile sporting events, for example, to everyone in a location.

People who live in this location: This includes people whose home is within the selected area. You might want to advertise a local retail store, for example, to people who live in a location.

People recently in this location: With this option, you are reaching people whose most recent location is within the selected area. You might want to advertise time-sensitive sales, for example, to people recently in the location you choose.

People traveling in this location: This includes people traveling in the selected area as determined by the device and connection information that Facebook collects who are more than 125 miles from their home location. You might want to advertise rental cars, for example, to people traveling in a location.

The option for “People recently in this location” seems fairly straightforward. We target people who had this as their most recent location – ok, got it.

However, there are several questions around this. Specifically….

How is Location Determined?

When I wrote the Detailed Guide article on location targeting, Facebook had a dedicated help page that had additional info on location targeting. Unfortunately, it appears the help page has changed its structure, and it no longer has the reference. Thankfully, I had captured that info in the article. Here’s what we had:

Everyone in this location: People whose current city on their Facebook profile is that location, as well as anyone determined to be in that location via mobile device.

People who live in this location: People whose current city from their Facebook profile is within that location. This is also validated by IP address and their Facebook friends’ stated locations.

Recently in this location: People whose most recent location is the selected area, as determined only via mobile device. This includes people who live there or who may be traveling there.

People traveling in this location: People whose most recent location is the selected area, as determined via mobile device, and are greater than 100 miles from their stated home location from their Facebook profiles.

Other articles across the web had captured this information as well. I’m not sure why Facebook removed this detail, but we have some other interesting info to look at as well.

Facebook Blueprint’s Training Module on Location: Confusion

The original help page I had pulled the device targeting info from now redirects to a variety of general ad targeting resources. One of these is a Blueprint Training Module on Core Audience Targeting.

To add to confusion, this module has a specific section on Location-Based Audiences. That section seems to almost restructure the definitions of the targeting options:

Huh? This is very confusing. According to the way this is worded, it seems that we are to interpret the “People recently in this location” to equate to New Residents. That is, the “People recently in this location” is more about people who have recently arrived to a location, which is differentiated from “People who Live in this Location” based on recency alone.

One potential explanation? This is simply a mistake in the training. The main reason I think this: This definition is not reflected anywhere else in Facebook’s documentation on the topic.

As we saw earlier in this article, the main help page dedicated to Location Targeting defines it as “People whose most recent location was in the area.” This does not imply anything about newly arrived residents. This seems like a mistake in Blueprint. If you’re reading this, Facebook, we’d love an updated Blueprint training that has more detail on this topic!

How Might “Recently In” Work in Reality?

I believe we can most easily think through the various targeting options by looking at some scenarios.

Scenario 1: Resident is traveling on vacation.

Let’s say we have someone (I’ll call them Cassandra) who normally resides in New York City, and is currently traveling in Miami.

Which targets would include Cassandra?

Everyone in this location: New York City

Everyone in this location: Miami

People who live in this location: New York City

People recently in this location: Miami

People traveling in this location: Miami

The somewhat murky area is for “Recently in.” The way I’m interpreting Facebook’s documentation on this, if Facebook can determine that Cassandra’s current location is Miami (based on her mobile device), then she would NOT be targeted with ads associated with “People recently in this location: New York City.”

That said, I can think of one scenario where it could be possible that she would still be included.

As an example, maybe Cassandra last opened the Facebook app on her phone in NYC. She has location services enabled for the app, but only when the app is open. She arrives to Miami, but doesn’t open Facebook on her phone. Instead, she arrives to her hotel, and opens Facebook on her laptop.

In this situation, at least theoretically, ads that are targeting People Recently in New York City could appear on her desktop, as the documentation that we’ve seen in the past indicated that Facebook relies on mobile device location only for the Recently In target. Since Facebook would not have her current location, it would think she was most recently in NYC.

However, in reality, these types of scenarios are likely not the norm. Let’s cover how your campaigns might be impacted by the location target functionalities.

Implications on Ad Campaigns: “Recently In” Target Option

This potentially has significant implications on how people might otherwise think this target functionality works. Based on the way I’ve seen people discuss the Recently In target feature, it seems they are using it almost as a physical retargeting capability.

As an example, you might have someone attend an event in Atlanta, and you want to later retarget everyone who was recently in Atlanta – hoping to capture people who were at the event. Since Facebook would be constantly updating people’s “recently in” location based on whatever the most current mobile device data is, we really would mostly be reaching people who are currently in Atlanta.

This means the “Recently In” location target actually should NOT be used for physical retargeting.

This may beg the question: Why does the “Recently In” target even exist?

To answer this, we can think back to the very first breakdown of definitions at the beginning of this article (in The “Recently In” Target Feature section). As we saw there, the default “Everyone in this Location” target is going to include both people who live in that location AND people whose most recent location was in the area. Since this is including people who live there (but who may be traveling), that could mean we actually have people who are not even in the location seeing the ad.

This thinking aligns with the potential scenario that Facebook mentioned that the “Recently In” target may be applied to. As they state: You might want to advertise time-sensitive sales, for example, to people recently in the location you choose. Knowing that using “Recently In” is the closest alignment we have for people currently in a location, this makes sense.

What To Expect When You Use the “Recently In” Target

To attempt to provide some clarity to a not-totally-clear situation, we can break campaign planning implications into a few different groups when you are using the “Recently In” target:

Situation 1) Ads appearing on the mobile app. In this scenario, you should mostly just expect to reach people who are currently in that location you list. If they are on their mobile app, Facebook will continuously update their location based on the latest data. The latest data should reflect their current location.

Situation 2) Ads appearing on desktop. You should expect to reach people based on where they last were when using their mobile device.

Given the different ways that mobile app usage can impact the way ads are targeted, it may be cleanest to only focus on using mobile app placements for any campaigns that are using the Recently In target. However, you are welcome to experiment and see what you find out!

Where This Leaves UsL “Recently In” Targeting

That was a fun ride down the targeting rabbit hole!

Here’s the short version:

“Recently In” can most easily be interpreted as Currently in a location, based on mobile device data.

The “Recently In” option should not be considered an effective way to “physically retarget” people based on where they were in the past.

Different location targeting options use different data to determine location information.

Facebook’s Blueprint module on Location Targeting appears to potentially have a mistake.

Your Turn

A quick shout out to Trey Edwards over at getnerdywithme.com. After we posted the Detailed Guide on Location Targeting, he put together a super-interesting walkthrough on using exclusion targeting to get much narrower than what one might otherwise assume is a radius for a specific location – even down to a single building!

How do you use Location targeting? Do you have any creative methods?

Let me know in the comments below!

    The post Understanding “Recently In” Facebook Ad Location Targeting appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Facebook Ads Manager Changes: How to Keep Up

Facebook Ads Manager changes constantly. It is dynamic, with users seeing regular roll-outs of new features. Keeping track of these changes can be a challenge!

We commonly see member posts in the Power Hitters Clubs where users share screenshots of something they see, asking “is this new?” Luckily, Facebook has recently made available some features to help with these types of questions, keeping advertisers aware of changes.

Why Facebook Ads Manager Changes Are Important

Digital advertising is an area of regular changes; some huge and some small. Keeping up can be important, not only to ensure that you take advantage of features available, but also to continuously test advertising processes, techniques, and systems. Constant testing is a hallmark of many successful advertisers.

Facebook (and Instagram) have grown tremendously in a very short period of time. As new resources continue to be added, advertisers must proactively maintain an awareness of what is newly available. In some cases, it’s equally important that advertisers be aware of features that may no longer be available. For example, the removal of Partner Categories, with the subsequent reinstatement of some targeting features, illustrates just how quickly things can change.

Changes to ad tools might be due to regulatory pressure, platform competition (e.g. Google), or simply behind-the-scenes continued innovation. Advertisers are tasked with staying current with what is possible, regardless of Facebook’s rationale.

To avoid overwhelm or distraction, I don’t recommend testing absolutely every new change or feature that Facebook releases. Instead, start with your core business goals, and align the items you test against those needs. I would not advocate simply testing or implementing the “shiny new toy”, merely because it’s available.

What’s New with Ads Manager: Facebook’s Help Center

Within the Help Center, there is a dedicated page that tracks features and changes within the Ads Manager tool. As of this writing, this resource goes all the way back to March 2017. However, this resource has not been updated in 2 months. While it’s unclear whether Facebook plans to continue supporting this on an ongoing basis, it can still be a useful reference point.

Nestled within the November 2018 updates, there is a small note about a new feature within Ads Manager:

Perhaps somewhat ironic in nature, this call-out mentions a feature in Ads Manager that will communicate new changes and updates directly within the interface. It seems there are two main ways to access this information. I’ll cover both.

Option 1: Accessing Ads Manager Release Notes via Help within Ads Manager

If you log into either Business Manager or Ads Manager, you should be able to click the small question mark icon (?) to the top-right corner of Ads Manager. Note, if you’re using Business Manager, you need to do this from within an ad account. That is, you need to be within the actual “Ads Manager” sub-tool of Business Manager, at the ad account level.

After you select the help icon, the release notes should populate at the top of a box on the right side of the page. There is a “View All Releases” link that opens to a longer view with more release notes available:

After selecting the “View all releases” link, there should now be a log of release notes separated by week appearing down the right side of the screen:

Option 2: Accessing Ads Manager Release Notes via a Direct Link

I also found a notification within Business Manager that took me to the release notes:

After deconstructing the destination of this notification, it seems that users can navigate directly to the screen by following a standard main link. For this to work, you need to already be logged into your Business Manager or Ads Manager account.

Here’s the link: https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager/manage/campaigns?launch_help_tray=RELEASE_NOTES

By using this link, you should be taken to the same release notes log as shown earlier in this article, populated to the right side of Ads Manager.

Final Tips: Navigating Ads Manager Release Notes

If you scroll to the very bottom of the Release Notes section, you should be able to click on the navigation buttons to access older, or newer, release notes:

Certain items even have additional information available on the specific feature. Normally you can spot these based on a link to  “Learn More” that appears below the specific item:

Other Resources for Keeping Up to Speed with Facebook Ads Manager Changes

Facebook (and Instagram) have a variety of resources to maintain an awareness of changes, new features, and best practices. While the Ads Manager Release Notes are specific to changes for that tool, there are some helpful resources located elsewhere.

Here are a few I find myself reviewing often:

Facebook IQ: A central hub where Facebook regularly shares research, case studies, and best practice examples of advertiser ads and strategies.

Facebook for Developers Blog: A space where Facebook tends to place more technical updates. Though these are sometimes highly technical in nature, you can occasionally get a sooner-than-others preview of potential new features, prior to their release in general advertising resources. There’s also a Facebook group for Marketing Developers.

Facebook Business is a Page where updates are often shared from the Facebook team. Facebook Business also has an email list that you can sign up for here.

Of course, there’s always Jon’s Newsletter, if you aren’t signed up already!

Perhaps the strongest resource: If you’d like to connect with a community of like-minded advertisers on topics such as these, the Power Hitters Club (PHC) offers go-to expertise. Here, members discuss not only the individual changes, but also the direct implications on advertising activities. Jon also shares weekly updates (via webinar) directly with his PHC members, which is a fantastic way to stay current.

Your Turn

How do you remain up-to-date with changes in Facebook advertising?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Ads Manager Changes: How to Keep Up appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

How My Evergreen Facebook Campaign Works

How do you keep a campaign fresh? You make sure that the audience it reaches is perpetually fresh. You can do this with an evergreen Facebook campaign.

I’ve been using this approach since 2015. It still works today.

An evergreen Facebook campaign can utilize one ad or dozens of ads. It can be shown to each user for a handful of days or several weeks. It can be as simple as a single track or it can send people down different tracks depending on how they interact with it.

The possibilities are endless. But I wanted to give you an example of what I’m currently doing.

First, a little refresher…

What Are Evergreen Facebook Campaigns?

Your campaign works great for a few days. Sometimes a few weeks or even months. But then, inevitably, it hits a wall. Why?

In most cases, this can be attributed to ad fatigue. You ultimately start showing the ads — even if you change creative — to the same group of people. You exhaust those who are most likely to act.

Evergreen Facebook campaigns are effective because, while they might run for months at a time, you can limit how long each user is shown ads within it. And you can show a series of ads in sequence, like a drip campaign, to convey a message.

How does this work?

1. TRIGGER ACTION: A trigger action is an action that a user will only perform once. Typically, this may be a registration or even a low-level purchase. Ideally, it’s an action that has some volume, and you have the goal of some greater action later.

It’s important that a user performs this action only once and can’t do so again. Why? Because every time they perform that action, they go through the evergreen Facebook campaign again.

That’s what makes registrations and small one-time purchases ideal. They are easier to control. While you can use reading a blog post or watching a video as the trigger action, you need to get creative to make sure that if they read or watch again, they don’t restart the process.

2. DURATIONS: Evergreen Facebook campaigns work because of Custom Audience durations. What is this? It’s the length of time someone remains within your audience after performing a particular action.

For example…

In the hypothetical example above, you are creating an audience of all people who hit the thank you page following registering for a webinar during the past four days. That is a rolling four-day window. Someone can’t register for it twice (good trigger!).

So here, you can imagine creating an ad set that targets this audience — all people who registered for your webinar during the past four days — with a particular ad. Since this audience updates dynamically, people will only see the ad for up to four days, and a new audience will constantly see it as new people register.

3. EXCLUSIONS: Exclusions are one of the most important and under-utilized strategies in Facebook advertising. They are critical to the effectiveness of evergreen Facebook campaigns.

First, you can exclude people who already performed the action you are promoting in the ad. Whether it’s reading a blog post, watching a video, or buying a product, there’s no need to show people the ad after they perform that action.

Second, exclusions allow you to create a series of ads in sequence. For example, what if you wanted to show two ads in sequence, each for four days, following the registration for your webinar?

You’d do this…

Ad #1: Target webinar registrations – 4 days

Ad #2: Target webinar registrations – 8 days (exclude webinar registrations – 4 days)

You don’t have to stop at two ads. You could go on and on and on, showing a specific ad to people at specific points in their journey through the campaign.

For more on this, check out a couple of blog posts I’ve written:

How to Create and Evergreen Facebook Ad Campaign

How to Create a Basic Evergreen Facebook Ad Campaign

My Evergreen Facebook Campaign: Trigger

The trigger action that I use for my current evergreen Facebook campaign is registration for my free webinar. There are two ways that I can target these people.

People registered both on my website and via Facebook lead ad forms. As a result, I could target registrants via a Website Custom Audience of the thank you page following registration on my website as well as the engagement audience of those who registered via the lead ad form.

Note that I’m also running a similar evergreen Facebook campaign for people who participated in a quiz that I’m doing. That one functions almost the same way, so I’ll focus on the webinar example here.

My Evergreen Campaign: Durations

As you can see in the image above, I decided on durations in multiple of five for this campaign. No real reason. I actually went with four for the other campaign that targets quiz participants.

That means I can show people a new ad every five days. My campaign can run beyond 40 days for some people (showing eight very different ads).

My Evergreen Campaign: Ad #1

I like to start with an About Me post, telling the new registrant more about me and my business.

Note that I’m not selling anything here. I’m taking a long-tail, soft sell approach. You don’t need to.

If you wanted, you could go straight to the sale. Promote something related to the trigger action.

My Evergreen Campaign: Ad #2

During days 6-10, I show registrants an ad that includes a survey.

This survey occurs on my website and asks questions about your experience and comfort level with Facebook ads.

This is useful information generally, but I also use this for targeting later. You see, I’m able to create audiences of people based on their answers.

[How I do this is a bit more complicated, and I’ll be covering it during my upcoming training to help you create your own evergreen campaigns.]

My Evergreen Campaign: Ad #3

My next ad, during days 11-15, features another survey. This time, I want to know more about your business.

I want to uncover who is a business owner or entrepreneur. I’ll be able to target those people later in this campaign (and in other, separate campaigns).

My Evergreen Campaign: Ad #4

Next, I showcase a quiz during days 16-20 of the campaign. This quiz tests you on your knowledge of Facebook ads.

Similar to the survey, I can use this information for later targeting.

My Evergreen Campaign: Ad #5

During days 21-25, I utilize a carousel to showcase three blog posts I’ve written about evergreen Facebook campaigns.

The hope is to get you interested in this approach.

My Evergreen Campaign: Ad #6

During days 26-30, I promote my upcoming Evergreen Campaigns Master Class.

I will exclude the following groups:

Already signed up for training

PHC – Elite member (already get access to training)

Indicated they are a beginner advertiser in survey

Faired poorly on quiz

Since creating evergreen Facebook campaigns is a more advanced strategy, I don’t want to show this ad to new advertisers who are just getting started. It is bound to be over their head.

My Evergreen Campaign: Ad #7

I will promote my PHC – Elite private community during days 36-40. This is also the ad that will run in place of promoting the training after the training is complete (since members can get access to the recordings).

Once again, we’ll exclude beginner advertisers and current PHC – Elite members from this audience.

My Evergreen Campaign: Entrepreneur Track

From there, the “base” evergreen Facebook campaign is complete. If you don’t sign up for the training or PHC – Elite after those first 40 days, you’ll stop seeing the ads in this campaign.

With one exception…

If you indicated in the business survey that you are a business owner or entrepreneur, you will now fall into the entrepreneur track of my evergreen Facebook campaign. That includes ads for blog posts focused on entrepreneurship…

This thing can keep going and going, depending on what you want to do!

My Evergreen Campaign: Optimization

Know that you have lots of options for optimization. There isn’t a clear right way to do this. Ultimately, two main questions should determine how you want to handle it…

1. Do you have lots of volume of trigger actions? 2. How important is it that you reach everyone who performs the trigger action?

If you have plenty of volume or don’t feel the need to reach everyone, you can optimize for a specific action, like a purchase.

But if volume is low or you are determined to reach a high percentage of people within the campaign, you might optimize for Reach using the Reach objective.

That’s typically my preference, capping frequency at once per day.

My Evergreen Campaign: Placements

Of course, what you do here coincides with your choice for optimization. If you optimize for an action like purchases, your options for placements are wide open. Do what works for you.

But, if you optimize for Reach and use a frequency cap like I do, limiting placements would be a good idea. Why? If you cap your frequency, you don’t want to waste an impression on a less effective placement (like the right-hand column or Audience Network).

I focus on the feeds only for the purpose of this campaign.

Training: Create Your Own Evergreen Campaign

If you want to learn more about how you can create your own evergreen Facebook campaign, sign up for my training! It occurs this Thursday, February 28. While the training is live, you will also get access to the replays.

If you miss my training and still want access to the replay, join PHC – Elite, my exclusive membership. PHC – Elite members get access to ALL of my training replays (as well as live training, weekly webinars, a private Facebook group, and more).

Your Turn

This is how my evergreen Facebook campaign works. Have you ever done anything like this before? How does yours work?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How My Evergreen Facebook Campaign Works appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Change: Pages Can Join Facebook Groups

Did you miss it? In a change that could have a signficant impact, Pages can now join Facebook groups. If you are a group moderator, you should think about whether you want this to be the new normal.

Let’s take a closer look at the announcement, what it means for your Facebook groups, and what you can do about it.

The Announcement

On February 7, Facebook wrote an announcement about changes coming to messaging and groups for businesses. The big change is this one for groups:

…in the coming weeks, Pages will be able to participate in Facebook Groups and join community discussions in a way that is representative of their business or organization.

Note that Pages have been able to create and link groups for a while now. As a group creator, the admin has the option of interacting in the group as a person or as the Page. But until now, other Pages couldn’t join the group.

Facebook provides the following use case from Claire Lee of Venue Queen Ltd. to provide support for this update:

By joining group discussions using my Page identity, I’ve been able raise [sic] the profile of my business. In fact, since switching over from my personal profile to my business Page in the groups I network with, I have seen members from these groups follow me or send messages to my Page Inbox. It’s great because these interactions can eventually lead them to consider me for future opportunities.

Sounds good for the brand. But…

Do You Want Pages in Your Group?

The example above provides evidence for why I do not want Pages in my groups. The argument for interacting in a group as a page is entirely self-promotional.

Now, there may be times when this makes sense. Maybe the entire purpose of your group is focused on promoting and supporting local businesses. But the opportunity for abuse is huge.

Groups are most effective for person-to-person discussion. That’s what makes them interesting and different in the first place. People don’t hide beneath brands and logos. There’s more accountability that way.

I have private communities built around Facebook groups. The entire purpose is to help one another, and we have strict rules that these communities are not places for self-promotion.

I always think about ways that bad actors can abuse a new feature. I fully expect pages — eager to improve their following and organic reach — to begin joining as many groups as they can as a way to promote their businesses.

More spam is coming. More low-quality group content is coming. It’s easy to predict.

What You Can Do About It

As it currently stands, an influx of pages and low-quality content in groups is inevitable because the admission of pages in groups is a default. However, groups do have the ability to turn this off.

First, go to your Group Settings.

Down the page, you should see a section for “Membership Requests from Pages.”

In the example above, the default is set to “Allow Pages to request to join as group members.” I don’t want that! Instead, you can simply select the option to disallow new requests from Pages and save the setting. If you’ve already let some Pages in (if you use automatic approval, for example), you may need to go in one-by-one and handle that.

As I type this, I have the “Membership Requests from Pages” section in the Group Settings of two of my three Power Hitters Club private Facebook groups. If you don’t yet have it, I assume that Pages can’t yet join your group.

Why is Facebook Doing This?

I have a hard time understanding this move. In the face of misinformation, spam, inauthentic behavior, and fake accounts, Facebook should be focused on quality. The user experience should always come first, even at the expense of business.

That’s not what appears to be happening here. The thought process behind allowing Pages into groups is focused on improving results for businesses. This will be at the expense of inauthentic, impersonal, and spammy behavior. We, as users and group admins, did not need more of that.

Business owners may see this as a win, but it’s a short-sighted win. While it will be a loophole to get your business seen at a higher rate, many will abuse this. As a result, the quality of posts within groups and the usefulness of groups generally will decrease.

Unless, of course, Facebook does something about it. One step is simple: Turn this off by default.

Your Turn

What do you think about this update? Will you allow Pages into your groups?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Change: Pages Can Join Facebook Groups appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

The Difference Between Facebook Clicks

There are several variations of “clicks” found within your Facebook ad reports. Knowing — and not knowing — what they mean could vastly impact how you view results. Do you know the difference between Facebook clicks?

After reading this post, you will have a clear understanding of the meaning of the following:

Clicks (All)

Link Clicks

Outbound Clicks

Landing Page Views

CPC

CTR

Unique Clicks (all types)

Ready? Let’s roll…

Where to Find This Info

Facebook has improved significantly in this area. You may not even realize how easy it is to find this info.

If you’re ever uncertain about what a Facebook ads metric means, simply hover over the header row in your ad report.

As you can see, the hover definition is pretty good. But there also tends to be a “See More” link that provides even more info. Click that.

Now you’ll see a really nice pop-over window that includes info like the following:

Brief definition

Exaplanation of how the metric is used

Explanation of how the metric is calculated

List (with links) of related metrics

Links to further related reading

That’s thorough!

I’ll pull the definitions from this information, but I’ll abbreviate and clarify the best I can as well.

Now let’s take a closer look at these similar “click” metrics…

Clicks (All)

Quite simply, this measures the number of clicks on your ads. Any click. Easy.

Clicks to any of the following destinations on a Facebook post or ad would be considered a Click (All)…

Link clicks (includes on Facebook and outbound)

Clicks to business Page profile or profile picture

Post reactions (likes, loves, etc.)

Comments or shares

Clicks to expand media (photos, videos) to full screen

Clicks to take actions identified as your campaign objective (such as liking your Page for a Page engagement campaign)

It’s everything. These clicks add up in a hurry.

This is a good way to measure total engagement on your ads. However, it’s not where you should be looking when wondering how many people clicked through to your website.

Link Clicks

Facebook defines Link Clicks as “the number of clicks on links within the ad that led to destinations or experiences, on or off Facebook.” So, while Link Clicks are more focused than the Clicks (All) metric, they still include clicks on any links, whether they take people on or off of Facebook.

Clicks to any of the following destinations would be considered a Link Click…

Websites

App stores or app deep links

Click to call

Click to message

Maps/directions

Facebook Canvas

Facebook lead forms

Facebook Marketplace

Playable experiences

Videos that launch the Watch & Browse experience

Videos hosted by another website (like YouTube or Vimeo)

The Link Clicks metric does a better job than Clicks (All) of isolating higher quality clicks that are related to your objective. However, remember that this still includes clicks to destinations on Facebook as well.

CPC (Cost Per Link Click)

Now that you know how a Link Click is defined, there’s no reason to go much further here. Instead, I wanted to reinforce this.

When you track CPC as a key performance indicator, do you realize what clicks are included? Are you okay with the fact that this includes many low-quality clicks that never result in the loading of an external web page?

Advertisers focusing on this metric when measuring the success of an ad sending people to a landing page are making a mistake. And, more than likely, they are creating a very large gap between CPC and Cost Per Conversion.

Outbound Clicks

Not surprisingly, an Outbound Click would be reported any time you click a link that takes you away from Facebook.

Clicks to any of the following destinations would be considered an outbound click…

Websites

Your app in an app store

App deep links

This should be your focus when reporting clicks to your landing page, right? Not necessarily.

Here’s why…

Landing Page Views

The newest of the click metrics, Landing Page Views measures the number of times a person clicked on an ad link and then successfully loaded the destination web page or Instant Experience. The primary requirement of Landing Page Views is that you must have the Facebook pixel installed.

While this is similar to Outbound Clicks, there’s one very important difference: Page load. Outbound Clicks don’t require the click to result in a full load of the page you’re going to, whereas Landing Page Views do.

This may seem like a minor detail, but it’s an important one. Someone may click on an outbound link from your Facebook post, but they may immediately abandon the loading website. If the site doesn’t load long enough for the Facebook pixel to fire, Facebook doesn’t know that the page was loaded.

Why may this happen? Maybe the person clicking has a poor internet connection. Or they click frequently and accidentally.

This matters. It’s about quality. A click on an outbound link lacks value if it doesn’t result in a page load. Landing Page Views provide some confirmation to the value of that click.

CTR

There are two primary versions of CTR when it comes to measuring rate of engagement with a Facebook ad: Outbound and Link Click.

Once again, we’ve covered both already. Just know that Link Click-Through Rate is going to include the click rate on all links while Outbound CTR will include clicks only on Outbound links.

Link Click-Through Rate may provide a better measure of engagement while Outbound CTR is a clearer measure of rate clicks related to an outbound landing page you are promoting.

Unique Clicks

Each of the clicks discussed above also has a “Unique” variation…

Unique Link Clicks

Unique Outbound Clicks

Unique CTR

Unique Outbound CTR

Unique Clicks (All)

Cost Per Unique [Link Click, Outbound Click, or Click (all)]

People often ask why Unique Link Clicks will be less than Link Clicks. Understand that “Unique” is measuring the number of people who performed an action.

For example, you may have 38 Link Clicks and 33 Unique Link Clicks. This is because there were 33 unique people who created those 38 link clicks. In other words, some of those clicks were performed multiple times by the same person or people.

In Summary

Let’s recap in order of highest volume down to least.

Clicks (All) includes all of the clicks we discussed in this post, whether on links or not.

Link Clicks includes clicks on any link, whether directing people on or off of Facebook.

Outbound Clicks are clicks that direct people away from Facebook.

Landing Page Views are recorded only after a click results in the load of a web page and Facebook pixel.

Unique [Clicks (All), Link Clicks, Outbound Clicks, Landing Page Views] focuses on the number of unique people who performed clicks.

All of these metrics have a purpose. The Clicks (All) metric is good for measuring total engagement on a post or ad while Landing Page Views (and even more precisely, Unique Landing Page Views) is best for measuring quality clicks to an external website or landing page.

Compare them yourself. Go ahead and customize columns in your ad reports…

Then find all of the “click” metrics discussed in this post. How do they compare? What gaps are there between them? How might you explain the difference?

Your Turn

Which click metrics do you rely on when measuring results?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post The Difference Between Facebook Clicks appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

How to Target Referral Traffic with Facebook Ads

Facebook advertisers have a deep toolbox available to help reach their ideal audience. One underutilized and underappreciated group they can target is their referral traffic.

How much of your traffic comes from Google? From Instagram? From somewhere else? Are the behaviors, needs, and expectations of these people different from your typical visitor?

Knowing the referral source could allow you to create advertising that caters specifically to their needs.

I have admittedly long taken for granted that not everyone has the ability to create referral Custom Audiences. I’ve been able to do this for years. It’s not because I have access to any Facebook features that others do not. It’s simply due to how my pixel is set up.

My pixel collects parameters along with the standard PageView event. These parameters allow Facebook to collect things like referrer, language, post category, post tags, and more related to the visit.

I have a third party tool that does this for me. While I’ll provide details on that, you don’t necessarily need to use a third party tool to accomplish this. I’ll also provide the manual solution for everyone else to create the custom parameters that will help you generate referral Custom Audiences.

Custom Parameters: Test

You may already be adding parameters to your pixel for certain events, like purchases. In that case, you may include details like product ID and price. But we can do the same for the base PageView event.

In order to create Custom Audiences based on referral source (and other information mentioned above), we need to collect parameters for all visits with our pixel. In a moment, I’ll get to how you set this up. But first, let’s test to see if you have this set up already.

If you use a plugin that injects your pixel code, you may have a setting like I do to control whether your visits as an administrator get tracked.

For this test, you may either want to turn this off or simply log out first. Then, do the following…

1. Install the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome plugin (it’s free).

2. Go to Google.

3. Type in a search that would bring up results to a blog post or page on your website. Be as specific as possible to make sure you get the results you want.

4. Click the link in the Google Search results that redirect you to that page on your website. You will now be referral traffic from Google.

5. While on that page of your website, click the Pixel Helper icon.

Here’s what my results look like:

I have a section for AdvancedEvents. That’s where my parameter info is. I click to expand and the following details are revealed…

As you can see, the following parameters were collected:

Login Status

Post Tag

Post Category

Language

Post Type

Object Type

User Agent

Object ID

Referrer

Note that there may be others that my pixel collects, but these are the items that were relevant in this case. If I went directly to my home page without a referral from Google (or somewhere else), I wouldn’t see parameters for Post Tag, Post Category, or Referral.

Keep in mind that you may still have Custom Parameters, but organized differently. My plugin organizes them under AdvancedEvents, but it may appear differently for you.

Add Custom Parameters: Pixel Caffeine

The reason I’ve long added these parameters is that I use the free Pixel Caffeine WordPress plugin (not an affiliate link).

[SIDE NOTE: I don’t use affiliate links. I get nothing from Pixel Caffeine for referring them.]

Within my Pixel Caffeine general settings, I have all of the Advanced Tracking checked…

Add Parameters to PageView Event: Manually

Of course, I realize not everyone uses Pixel Caffeine. In fact, it occurred to me during research for this post that most websites don’t collect parameters on every page view. As a test, I went to several websites (including as a Google referral), and I couldn’t find a single one that tracked this information.

I reached out to an engineer at Pixel Caffeine to find out how someone would do this manually. They were very kind to provide the info.

When you go through the manual pixel setup process, Facebook provides the base pixel code that you need to paste before the closing HEAD tag in the template of your website.

If you paste this base pixel code manually into your template or into either a plugin or Google Tag Manager, you should be able to do this.

We need to inject some additional code after ‘PageView’ and before the closing SCRIPT.

fbq('track', 'PageView', { referrer: document.referrer });

As a result, Facebook should then track the referrer for every page view of your website.

Note that I haven’t tested this myself, but I’ve been assured it will work. Please report back.

Create Website Custom Audience

Once you start collecting this information, you should be able to create Website Custom Audiences for these relevant groups. Note that it may take a day or two to show up.

When creating a Website Custom Audience, you should see an option for “From Your Events.” Under it, select the “PageView” event.

Next, click “Refine by” and then “URL/Parameter.”

Click the drop-down where “URL” appears. You will now see relevant parameter options that you are tracking. Select “referrer.”

If you want to create an audience of all referral traffic from Google, I’d select “Contains” and enter in “google.com” below it.

I’d avoid containing traffic that only includes “google” as it’s possible that this will pull in traffic that includes Google in a URL or UTM parameter. In those cases, it’s not guaranteed to always be referral traffic from Google.

After doing this, of course, it occurred to me that the domain is different depending on the country. You may also want to include other variations of the Google domain, like google.co.uk. Or, include far more variations at once by using google.co.

You may not want to create Custom Audiences of referral traffic from Google. Maybe it’s from Pinterest. It’s the same process. Simply create your audience based on the Pinterest domain instead.

The duration you use for this Website Custom Audience is up to you. Keep in mind the volume of referral traffic that you get when setting this.

Target Referral Traffic

Now that you’ve created the Website Custom Audience of referral traffic, you can target these people!

Within the ad set, enter the name of the audience you just created…

You may want to use the Worldwide region, but it’s up to you at this point. Only you know what kind of volume you get from these referrals.

Is there something specific that people search for when they come to your website as a result of a referral? If so, can you then serve them an ad related to this need?

Your Turn

I hope this guide helps you set up the ability to target referral traffic with Facebook ads. Have you done this before? What results do you see?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Target Referral Traffic with Facebook Ads appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Facebook Campaign Budget Optimization Becomes Fixed Default

More than a year ago, Facebook launched Campaign Budget Optimization. Beginning in September, Campaign Budget Optimization will become a fixed default that can’t be turned off.

This is a very big change to the structure of Facebook campaigns. In short, you will no longer be able to set a daily or lifetime budget at the ad set level. Let’s dig into the details of what this means…

The Announcement

Facebook quietly announced this change within a Help Center post titled About Campaign Budget Optimization Migration. The two key takeaways:

Your new and existing campaigns will start to move to Campaign Budget Optimization this September

Once the rollout is complete, you won’t be able to turn off Campaign Budget Optimization for new and existing campaigns

It’s difficult to overstate how much this changes things. While Facebook hasn’t released numbers on how popular this feature is, it’s safe to assume that a very small percentage of advertisers currently use Campaign Budget Optimization. So forcing it will be a major change in habits and process.

Setting Budgets: Now and Before

The current, default method for setting a daily or lifetime budget is at the ad set level.

With this approach, advertisers set a budget based on a combination of targeting, placement, and bidding. But the primary reason for a new ad set (and budget) was for a different audience.

For example, you may create two different ad sets based on targeting:

Cold Audience (Interests or Lookalikes)

Warm Audience (Website Visitors, Page Likes, or Email List)

In most cases, the warm audience will be much smaller than the cold one. But, the warm audience is also likely to be more effective (cost per desired action) than the cold one. You would consider these things when setting your budget.

Another example of why you’d create multiple ad sets is to separate countries, particularly when you are spending a bit more. I have found, for example, that the bulk of my paying customers come from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. However, it’s much cheaper to get link clicks and free registrations from other countries.

If I’m promoting a blog post or opt-in, it’s usually not a good idea to include all countries in the same ad set. Facebook will optimize to get the most link clicks or opt-ins. As a result, the ad may be shown primarily to countries that don’t ultimately result in a paid conversion.

In other words, I’m willing to pay more to get clicks and email addresses from certain countries because I know they are more likely to ultimately buy. If I leave it up to Facebook, the optimization may leave me spending very little in these primary countries.

This is why creating separate ad sets by country or country group can be a good idea. It forces Facebook to spend in certain places.

We’ll come back to this later…

Campaign Budget Optimization: What Is It?

Launched a little more than a year ago, Campaign Budget Optimization is an option to control your budget at the campaign level.

By default, this is off.

When activated, you can control the overall daily or lifetime budget for the campaign. Assuming you have multiple ad sets within that campaign, Facebook then optimizes to distribute your budget to those ad sets. Hopefully, this will be more efficient.

This is very similar to what currently happens with ads. You don’t set a budget at the ad level. You can have multiple ads within a single ad set, and Facebook determines how to distribute the budget between them.

If you want to retain some control over the minimum or maximum spend by ad set, the prior version of Campaign Budget Optimization provided some settings for that…

However, from what I can tell, this is in the process of being removed. There is no mention of minimums and maximums at the ad set level within Campaign Budget Optimization documentation.

How Campaign Budget Optimization Works

Let’s use an example Facebook provides in their documentation. Assume you have three ad sets and spend $10 per ad set.

Without Campaign Budget Optimization, Facebook will attempt to spend $10 per ad set, regardless of performance. With Campaign Budget Optimization, Facebook will react to the performance of each of your ad sets. You may then instead spend more or less per ad set to get the most results.

Here’s a visual representation without and with Campaign Budget Optimization…

Without Campaign Budget Optimization, the campaign resulted in 10 conversions. But, one ad set clearly outperformed the other two. With Campaign Budget Optimization, Facebook optimizes to distribute more of the budget to the high performing ad set, resulting in 15 conversions.

This is all in theory, of course. This is how Facebook says it works. If the feature is valuable, this is how it needs to work.

How is Campaign Budget Optimization Helpful?

Assuming it works and is actually more efficient than the old method (which I realize is a leap), Campaign Budget Optimization does simplify the campaign creation process.

Setting budgets can be a challenge. One of the primary questions I get revolves around how to set budgets based on the size of the audience. And when you split up targeting into multiple ad sets, it becomes a guessing game regarding how you should distribute your budget.

At minimum, this will be good for the less experienced advertiser who struggles with setting budgets.

My Tests with Campaign Budget Optimization

When this feature originally rolled out as an option, I tested it. I had very underwhelming results. At the time, I received worse results with Campaign Budget Optimization than without it. I then quickly abandoned it.

Lately, however, I’ve heard from several members within my Power Hitters Club – Elite community who are using it and getting good results. I’ve since begun to experiment with it again.

My focus with this feature is on two promotions: 1) My free webinar and 2) My Facebook ads quiz. Both utilize the Lead Generation objective.

For each promotion, I created separate campaigns by country or country group. I then have multiple ad sets within each campaign for both cold and warm audiences. Facebook optimizes budget at the campaign level.

I am seeing solid results. Not results that blow me away, but results that I would normally expect. If I’m not getting results that are superior to what I received while setting the budget at the ad set level, I’m at least getting results that are in line with expectations.

This, though not a glowing endorsement, is a sign that the feature is improving since my original tests.

When Won’t Campaign Budget Optimization Work?

This is going to be a controversial change. Advertisers have their routines. We’re accustomed to setting budgets at the ad set level, and most of us think we’re pretty good at it now. Many will see this as forfeiting control.

If you are still angry about ad distribution optimization — and you create separate ad sets for each ad so that you can control the budget spent by ad — you aren’t going to be happy about this.

I can tell you that I’ve long let go of this concern. If I create multiple ads within an ad set, I let Facebook do its thing. I’m done losing sleep over it.

So, I’m going to try and embrace this change, too. But there are going to be frustrating moments. There are going to be times when I won’t agree with Facebook’s optimization.

This happens at the ad level, too. Facebook distributes budget almost entirely to one ad over another. One ad didn’t even get a chance. We want to see what will happen when that ad gets seen!

When it comes to Campaign Budget Optimization, I immediately envision some potential problems. As mentioned earlier, it may be cheaper to get engagement or email addresses from some countries. But, people from these same countries may be less likely to buy. So, ultimately, it may make sense to spend more to get the engagement or email address.

Does Facebook know this? Probably not. If your objective is engagement, traffic, or leads, Facebook is focused on getting you those things at the lowest possible cost. They won’t focus on whether these people ultimately buy from you because it isn’t your primary objective of this campaign.

What Should You Do If CBO Doesn’t Work?

The example above seems to be an immediate problem area. Facebook’s algorithms are unlikely to be smart enough to understand that even though a certain user may result in the cheapest engagement or registration, they may not be a good target long-term. At least, I’m going to assume that Facebook’s algorithms aren’t smart enough to sort this out. I’d be hugely impressed if they are.

Now, I’m going to assume that advertisers will not have the option of setting budget minimums and maximums at the ad set level, as originally allowed with Campaign Budget Optimization. If this is indeed an option, it can solve a lot of problems. Simply utilize minimums and maximums to continue controlling budget at the ad set level.

Otherwise, advertisers will simply need to do the same thing they’ve been doing when confronted with similar ad optimization issues. Force Facebook to spend and distribute the way we want.

To do that, we would need to create separate campaigns per ad set (or group of similar ad sets). If you don’t trust Facebook optimization and you feel the need to do this exclusively, it’s going to create some significant headaches.

I would not recommend taking this approach going in. Give Campaign Budget Optimization a chance. See what happens. Then, where necessary, adjust.

Preparation

If you’re reading this in February, March, April, or May, this change is still a bit in the future. You have time to experiment with this feature and prepare.

However, note that your existing campaigns will migrate to Campaign Budget Optimization. That’s a big deal. That could change how your campaigns are currently running.

In August, this will become an urgent issue. At that point, it will be important to check all active campaigns as the very structure will be changing.

Your Turn

As I type this, about eight months remain until the change goes into effect. There’s time for Facebook to improve Campaign Budget Optimization. There’s also time for us to get better at understanding how to use it efficiently.

What are your thoughts on this upcoming change? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Campaign Budget Optimization Becomes Fixed Default appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

How to Manage Facebook Ad Frequency

A high Facebook ad frequency is often the culprit when a campaign stops performing. But what exactly is considered “high” Facebook ad frequency, and what can you do to manage it?

Last year, Lucas dug into the question of an “ideal” Facebook ad frequency. But I wanted to focus on some specific ways that you can manage it.

Let’s take a closer look…

FIRST: Defining “High Frequency”

Before we get started, we need to start with a definition of “high frequency.” I want to stress, as Lucas did previously, that there isn’t a set number of times reached over a designated number of days that results in alarm bells. Many factors are involved.

We should also mention that “high” frequency may actually be desirable in some cases. If you’re looking to build your brand awareness and recall, getting an ad in front of people many times may be a good thing.

That said, high frequency is often cited when discussing the drop in performance related to Facebook ads meant to drive conversions.

Four factors, more than any other, help determine “high frequency” in this case:

1. Placements used. If you only run ads to News Feed, you may start seeing a negative impact when reaching the same people regularly. These are ads that interfere with a user’s routine. But other placements aren’t so intrusive.

Right Hand Column is an example of a less intrusive placement. You can have an average frequency of 3.0 for two different campaigns, one with RHC and one without. You’re likely to see less negative feedback from the campaign that includes RHC because these ads are more easily ignored.

2. Length of campaign. Is a frequency of 3.0 bad? I can’t answer that. Is that over one day or one month? This context certainly matters.

3. Quality of audience targeted. If you are targeting people who know and trust you, they are more likely to give you some rope on how often you reach them.

4. DOES IT STILL WORK? Ultimately, this is all that matters to me when determining whether frequency is too high. Is the campaign profitable? Does it still work? If so, who cares what the frequency is?

You should watch for trends. Is the cost per action (conversion, lead, etc.) going up over time? Is the CPM also going up? Is negative feedback increasing? These are all signs that your ad is getting stale and may need to be repaired.

I see high frequency as more a metric to monitor if an ad isn’t working, rather than maintaining it at a specific level.

How to Monitor Frequency

You may not see frequency by default in your ad reports. To get this data, you’ll need to customize columns…

Check the box for Frequency to add a column for that metric. You can also drag it to a new location in your report.

You may also want to do a “breakdown” by week to monitor trends in performance over time…

Now, let’s discuss some specific ways that you can manage your Facebook ad frequency if it becomes an issue.

1. Get Creative with Exclusions

High frequency is at least partially attributable to mistakes that advertisers make. They target people that no longer need to be targeted.

If you’re promoting a one-time purchase, exclude those who already made that purchase. I tend to be diligent and exclude purchasers in two different ways: by Website Custom Audience (visited the thank you page after purchase) and Data Custom Audience.

If you’re promoting a one-time registration, exclude those who already registered. You can do this by excluding a Website Custom Audience…

…a Data Custom Audience (customer list), or with a Lead Form Custom Audience (if you use Facebook Lead Ads)…

If you’re promoting a blog post, exclude those who already read that blog post.

These, I hope, are obvious. But you can take it further.

If you’re promoting a video, exclude those who already watched it. If you REALLY want to tackle frequency, exclude those who only watched three seconds.

Of course, you may want to continue targeting those people. But instead, target those who watched for three seconds with a different ad.

This is one reason I love using video, when possible. It provides greater flexibility for creating audiences of those who already engaged with the ad in some way. And since watching video is more passive than clicking, subscribing, and buying, you can more aggressively limit frequency through exclusions.

Back to Facebook Lead Ads for a moment. You can create audiences of those who opened and submitted the form, but also of those who opened but didn’t submit. This provides another opportunity to limit frequency.

With this option, I often exclude those who opened but didn’t submit during the past 14 days. This at least provides a break for those who opened the form and considered registering but didn’t.

As with the videos, you then have the option of continuing to target that group during those 14 days, but with a different ad.

2. Use a Budget Consistent with Audience Size

Another mistake I see advertisers make is using a budget that is simply too high for the audience they’re targeting. While you can get away with big budgets (multiple hundreds of dollars per day and more) when targeting audiences in the millions of people, you have to be more careful when targeting small audiences.

Consider that when targeting an audience of 100,000 people, for example, you won’t reach all 100,000 people. If optimizing for an action, Facebook may only show your ad to 10-25% of that audience.

Let’s assume a CPM of $10, which would mean $10 per 1,000 impressions. Spend $100 per day, and you will get 10,000 impressions in a single day. That increases to 70,000 impressions in a week. If you are only reaching 10,000 people in all, you’re looking at an average frequency of 7.0 in seven days.

I used round numbers for this example to make it easy to understand. That doesn’t mean you will necessarily have a $10 CPM or be able to reach only 10,000 people in an audience of 100,000. But I hope it helps you understand what to watch for when setting your budget for a smaller audience.

People often ask me what a “small” audience is and what your budget should be. There is no universal answer because it relies heavily on what it costs to reach those people.

3. Keep Copy, Creative, and Targeting Fresh

A good way to avoid high Facebook ad frequency is to stay on top of it by updating copy, creative, and targeting.

1. Copy. Create ads within the same ad set with copy variations.

2. Creative. Seeing the same image in your feed repeatedly can create noise. Once you suspect frequency is getting too high (and performance is dropping), try a completely different image.

3. Targeting. If you’ve been heavily targeting a particular audience, give it a break for a while. Try a different group before coming back to it later.

4. Run Short Campaigns

Number 3 above is good practice. Or you could simply get into the habit of running short campaigns in general. If you run a selection of ads to a group of people for a maximum of one month, you build in Facebook ad frequency management.

Unless you are spending a ton for a small group, short campaigns will almost always mitigate your frequency issues. That said, you may not WANT to stop a campaign that’s working particularly well, though.

5. Frequency Capping

You can actually cap frequency — tell Facebook not to show your ad more than a certain number of times — by using a few different settings.

1. Reach and Frequency Buying

In about 99.9% of campaigns, advertisers select the default “Auction” option. But you can instead select the Reach and Frequency option next to it.

When selecting Reach and Frequency, you’ll have several options for controlling frequency…

Keep in mind, however, that when using Reach and Frequency buying, you will have very high minimums for budget and number of people you’ll need to reach.

This may not be a realistic option for most advertisers.

2. Frequency Capping with Reach Optimization

If you use the Reach objective, you can choose to optimize for Reach and then utilize a frequency capping option. For example, you can tell Facebook to reach users no more than once every seven days…

3. Daily Unique Reach Optimization

Daily Unique Reach is an optimization option that is available under several objectives and has been around for some time now. When this is selected, Facebook will deliver your ads to people up to once per day.

When using Reach Optimization and Daily Unique Reach, keep in mind that Facebook will NOT optimize for an action. In either case, they will show your ads to as many people within your audience as possible. This can, and likely will, lead to poorer results (if you are wanting an action, like conversions).

Also consider placement when choosing to cap frequency. You may not want, for example, the one time you reach someone over a given period of time to be in the Right Hand Column. When using these options, I tend to focus only on the News Feed.

6. Utilize Evergreen Campaigns

The items listed above are all ways that I’ve managed Facebook ad frequency. However, the method I find to be most effective is an Evergreen Facebook Campaign.

Evergreen Campaigns allow you to show a series of ads to a particular person, in order, for a set number of days. If, during the campaign, the person converts, they are excluded and won’t be targeted again. If they don’t convert within a designated number of days, they fall out of the campaign.

There are three primary ways this is done:

1. Trigger. The trigger is an action that a user will perform one time (like registering for a webinar). Once a user performs this trigger action, their time in the campaign begins.

2. Custom Audience Durations. Durations allow you to control when and for how long someone sees ads in your campaign. Create a Website Custom Audience with a duration of 4 days for the registration to your webinar, and you can then target any user who registers for that webinar with an ad for the next four days.

3. Exclusions. Theoretically, your Evergreen Campaign could include only a single ad targeting people for a set number of days after performing the trigger action. If you want to show a series of ads in order, you’ll need to create multiple Custom Audiences with different durations (4 days, 8 days, and 12 days, for example). Then, you’ll need to exclude the prior period in each ad set (exclude 4 days when targeting 8 days; exclude 8 days when targeting 12 days).

If you’re confused (it’s okay!), I’ve written quite a bit about Evergreen Campaigns over the years. Here are three blog posts:

How to Create an Evergreen Facebook Ad Campaign

How to Create a Basic Evergreen Facebook Ad Campaign

4 Examples of an Evergreen Facebook Campaign Trigger

If you really want to take this concept to the next level, sign up for my upcoming training course on Evergreen Campaigns!

Your Turn

There are many different ways that you can help manage Facebook ad frequency. What do you do?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Manage Facebook Ad Frequency appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Facebook Attribution: View Top Sources for Conversions

Facebook quietly launched Facebook Attribution last month, a free tool that gives marketers “a more holistic view of the customer journey, both on and off Facebook.”

“Holistic” is a fancy way of saying “complete.” Essentially, Facebook Attribution helps you get a more complete view of what people are doing on and off of Facebook.

I wrote a thorough guide on this tool a few weeks back, but I wanted to highlight how Facebook Attribution truly shines in this area.

Top Sources opened my eyes. Let me give you an example…

Facebook Attribution: Top Sources

Your Facebook Ads Manager helps you understand how your paid Facebook campaigns contribute to results like engagement, traffic, installs, and conversions.

But Ads Manager only provides results related to your paid efforts on Facebook. It neglects the organic side.

The beauty of Facebook Attribution is that it helps you easily compare organic versus paid. It separates out Messenger, Instagram, and Audience Network. But, it also includes conversions from other sources (like Google, Pinterest, and email campaigns).

All of that info comes with little or no effort. Copy and paste some code here and there, and you can also bring in paid efforts from other platforms.

One of the biggest advantages of this all-in-one approach is reporting consistency. As we all know by now, Facebook and Google Analytics will never match up. But having one report act as the equalizer can provide a much more accurate sense of the impact of your respective efforts.

Top Sources: Website Registrations

Here’s an example of the top sources of website registrations for a single line of business…

In the example above, paid Facebook efforts bring in by far the most website registrations for this line of business. It’s brought in more registrations than Infusionsoft (email campaigns), organic Facebook, organic Google, and paid Instagram efforts combined.

Way down the list are paid Messenger (5 conversions) and paid Audience Network (2 conversions). The most valuable source of website registrations to this line of business is clearly paid ads from Facebook.

Top Sources: Website Purchase

Of course, a website registration may not be your final goal. You likely want a sale.

You can switch to view the sources of website purchases as well, complete with conversion value (if you track this). Here’s an example for that same line of business…

This time, Infusionsoft email campaigns represent the strongest source of website purchases — both in volume and revenue. Organic Google searches make up about half of the number of sales, but a larger share of revenue.

Paid and organic Facebook fall in a distant third, followed by a single sale via paid Instagram and Messenger campaigns.

What we are seeing is how, specifically, Facebook advertising is being used for this business. Build the email list with Facebook ads. Drive sales via email campaigns. And do some solid SEO to get organic website registrations and even purchases through Google search.

Top Sources: Add a Platform

Facebook Attribution automatically provides these sources, assuming you connect your Facebook pixel and ad account. But what about if you are also running ads via Google AdWords and want to get this information included in your results?

At the bottom of the source list, click the button to add a platform…

Scroll down to Google Ads and select the item for either display or search (depending on where you are running ads).

You may agree to the terms…

Facebook provides a tag to add to your Google AdWords account. While viewing all campaigns, click on Settings > Account Settings. There, paste the tag in the tracking template.

Click the button to test. If all comes out well, click to save. Within a day or two, you should start seeing paid Google results appearing in your sources.

This Line of Business

If you hadn’t figured it out, the line of business above is my own. If you know much about my business, it was obvious. I spend the bulk of my Facebook ads budget on driving traffic and building my email list. Further down the funnel, I spend less (to a small and warm audience) to sell. I let my email campaigns, built and nurtured with Facebook ads, do the heavy lifting.

I’ve long been spoiled by my organic search traffic driven by Google. I admit that I take it for granted. But this report opened my eyes.

Why? Because Google isn’t just sending me traffic. It’s not just driving website registrations. It’s bringing revenue (quite a bit of it). And this is without spending a dime on AdWords.

But this report changed my thinking. Yes, Google has been great to me. But why not leverage that success? Let’s throw some money at it.

It’s been years since I spent money on Google. My strategy is heavily focused on Facebook ads, my email list, and website content. But, thanks to Facebook Attribution, I’ve decided to give AdWords another shot.

That, my friend, is one example of why Facebook Attribution is so powerful. It helps you see things you may otherwise miss — or completely ignore.

Learn More About Facebook Attribution

I encourage you to discover your “holistic view” of your own customers’ journeys on and off of Facebook. Poke around Facebook Attribution yourself. Or you can sign up for our training on this topic that occurs on Thursday, December 6 [CLICK TO LEARN MORE!].

Your Turn

Does Facebook Attribution shed any light on information you had been missing about your top conversion sources?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Attribution: View Top Sources for Conversions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

How to Edit a Facebook Ad and Retain Social Proof

One of the most common problems I hear from Facebook advertisers revolves around editing ads (or posts that are being promoted in ads) and retaining the social proof. How do you do it?

First, credit is due. Peter Frisch, a member of the Power Hitters Club – Elite (my private membership), posed this question and uncovered the solution. This post is inspired by his research.

There’s a lot to cover here. Let’s take a closer look at the actual problem and how it’s solved for published and unpublished posts.

Editing Ads: What’s the Problem?

You start an ad. It’s doing well. Then, a few days later, you spot a typo. Or maybe an area that can be clarified.

When you click the top right of a typical post that isn’t being promoted, you’ll get the option to edit…

But, it’s not so easy when trying to edit a post that is being promoted — or was promoted — in an ad. When you click that same area on such a post, the “Edit” option doesn’t exist…

This ad has been running for multiple days, and you’re getting a ton of comments, likes, and shares. You could just start over and create a brand new ad, but that social proof is valuable.

So… How do you get around this??

The Solution: Background

There’s a simple explanation for when you can and can’t edit a post. You can’t edit a post that is associated with an active ad. In fact, you can’t edit a post that is connected to an ad, even if that ad is inactive.

You can only edit a post if it isn’t currently connected to an ad — whether it is active or inactive.

When you create an ad, you can promote an existing post (published or not)…

When you select a post to promote, there is a column for the post ID.

This list includes both published (they live on your Facebook page) and unpublished (they don’t) posts.

The Solution: Published Posts

I often create organic Facebook posts to share a recent blog post. I then later promote that post through Ads Manager. Here’s an example of such a post:

As you can see, I can’t edit that post. The reason is that this post is connected to an ad. That ad isn’t even active anymore, but the fact that it is connected to an ad is preventing me from editing it now.

So, I find that ad (or, in this case, multiple ads)…

And I change the post that those ads are promoting…

Remember that this ad is not active. If it were, I’d want to deactivate it first since I’d otherwise mess up my metrics. Then, publish it.

Once published, guess what? I can go back into that post and edit it…

If I were to edit the post, go back into the ad and change the post back, I could then publish and reactivate with the edited copy.

As you can see above, that edited post retains the original social proof.

The Solution: Unpublished Posts

You’ll follow a similar process for unpublished posts, but the editing is a little less straight-forward.

First, find all ads that are promoting the unpublished post that you want to edit. It may only be one, but it’s possible you have created multiple ads promoting the same post.

From within the ad, select the option to view the Facebook post with comments.

When that tab opens, you may need to add “business.” before “facebook.com” in the URL to open it in Business Manager (assuming you use Business Manager).

Keep that extra tab open and go back to the ad(s).

Make sure these ads aren’t active and then change the post that is being promoted. Then publish.

Now, go back to the open tab that had the original post. You should now be able to edit it…

If you now change the post promoted by the ad(s) and publish, you will be able to promote the edited post while retaining social proof.

Recap

That was a lot, but let’s knock this down into the basic steps.

Find the original post

Deactivate all ads connected to that post

Connect those ads to a different post

Publish ads connected to a new post

Edit the original post

Reconnect the ads to the original post

Republish ads and reactivate

Of course, instead of reconnecting, republishing, and reactivating, you could simply create a completely new ad connected to the edited post as well.

Your Turn

As simple as this concept is, it’s extremely easy to miss. As a result, it’s created an insane amount of unnecessary frustration for advertisers. Hopefully, this helps.

Have you been editing ads in this way? Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Edit a Facebook Ad and Retain Social Proof appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

How I Used Facebook Lead Ads to Create a Quiz

One of my favorite things to do is solve problems by using a tool in ways it wasn’t meant to be used. In this post, I will outline how I did that by using Facebook lead ads to create a quiz.

First, credit goes to Lucas Elliott of our team. A few weeks ago, I talked about using quizzes as a lead magnet. Lucas suggested creating a quiz with a Facebook lead ad. I balked, knowing that it wouldn’t be as dynamic as what I wanted to do.

A few weeks later, I was inspired to try it out. Now I feel crazy for not trying it sooner.

Ultimately, I warmed to the idea because this would be one of a few strategies involving quizzes. While the Facebook lead ad may not function the way a quiz would on my website, the benefits of experimenting with this would be huge.

So, let’s take a closer look at the thought process, creation, and results. Why quizzes in the first place? How did I set this up? What kinds of results am I seeing?

Background: Why Quizzes?

My email list is the backbone of my business. When it comes to generating revenue, it’s my list that is responsible for much of it.

In many ways, I use Facebook ads backwards compared to most advertisers. I spend most of my budget promoting content (building a remarketing audience) and growing my email list. While I do run ads to promote products, my email marketing is then mostly responsible for the heavy lifting.

During the past couple of years, my primary list builder has been a monthly webinar. But even if the content is largely the same from month-to-month, it takes a great deal of effort to do this.

That’s why I stopped my monthly webinar after April’s edition. As a result, the growth of my list — though you could still register generally to my newsletter — lurched to a stop.

And that, of course, is a problem. I need a fresh, active list to help drive revenue. When list growth stops, revenue is at risk.

And so, I finally restarted my monthly webinar, albeit temporarily, in November. I’ll run it at least one more time, if not two. In the meantime, I’m on a mission to find a more manageable replacement.

I’ve thought of turning my webinar content into a video series. But I also decided I’d experiment with quizzes.

I learned a year ago with my 30-question quiz how engaging they can be. But what if I had more than one quiz? What if they were all 5-10 questions? And on a specific topic? I could create dozens of them.

So, the first thing I did was find a quiz software (I chose TypeForm). I would use a single quiz to invite people in. If you wanted access to the (eventual) quiz library, you’d need to register.

Here’s that quiz…

(function() { var qs,js,q,s,d=document, gi=d.getElementById, ce=d.createElement, gt=d.getElementsByTagName, id="typef_orm", b="https://embed.typeform.com/"; if(!gi.call(d,id)) { js=ce.call(d,"script"); js.id=id; js.src=b+"embed.js"; q=gt.call(d,"script")[0]; q.parentNode.insertBefore(js,q) } })()

Strategy: Lead Ads and Quizzes

Okay, so what do quizzes have to do with Facebook lead ads? Can I use them to drive registrations to the quiz library? Or could I create a quiz directly within a lead ad form?

Why not both?

Lead ad forms allow the flexibility of creating custom questions. I can, then, add my questions to the form itself. And if you want to see the answers — and participate in future quizzes — you provide your contact information to subscribe.

The hope is that this form will be engaging enough to get people through a nine-question quiz (I’d use nine of the 10 questions from the embedded quiz above, removing one with long answers).

My Facebook Lead Ad Quiz

To kick off this experiment, I created a VERY simple ad. I find that simple is the key to any experiment since it limits or eliminates delays.

If you click on my ad, the form opens. You can scroll through all nine questions before entering your contact info and submitting (click the image to get a close-up view)…

After submitting, you are presented with a thank-you screen within the form…

If you close the form, you’ll still receive an email from me with your answers as well as the correct answers (more on that later). If you want, you can click on the “See the Answers” button and you’ll be redirected to a page on my website with an explanation of all 10 answers.

Set Up a Lead Ads Quiz: Campaign

So, let’s walk through, step-by-step, how I did this — and how you might be able to do something similar.

First, make sure to use the Lead Generation campaign objective…

Set Up a Lead Ads Quiz: Ad

Create the copy with text, headline, and news feed description. You can now use a square image to take up more vertical real estate in the news feed. Facebook recommends a 1080x1080px image.

For the call-to-action button, there aren’t great options for a quiz, unfortunately. I went with “Learn More.”

Set Up a Lead Ads Quiz: Form

When creating the form, I used the “More Volume” form type.

I don’t know that it matters much in this case given anyone who submits the quiz will have to go to a lot of effort. But feel free to experiment.

I added an intro that included a shorter (1200x628px) image and a prompt to provide contact info at the bottom so that I can send the answers.

Within the “Questions” area, first I added a simple headline (“Ready? Let’s go…”) and selected the contact info I would need. In this case, I asked for first name, last name, and email address.

Next, I created custom questions. These would be the actual questions for the quiz. I chose to use multiple choice questions.

Here’s how it looks as I added my questions…

After updating the privacy policy, I created a thank-you screen.

Note that I have given people the option of viewing all of the answers on a new page I created on my website. You can send people wherever you want here.

Targeting

Whom you target with these ads is completely up to you. But something that can apply universally is how you exclude.

In my initial test, I targeted people who are in the top 5% of those who spent the most time on my website during the past 180 days.

After a successful initial test in the US, I created new ad sets for audiences in other countries. Another day later, I would create ad sets targeting lookalike audiences.

But again, you shouldn’t necessarily copy that targeting approach. The people you target depends on the resources available to you.

Exclusions

What is mostly universal, though, is the group of people you should consider excluding.

In my case, I am excluding the following groups of people:

Subscribed to Quiz Library (Website Custom Audience thank-you page)

Subscribed to Quiz Library (Email Custom Audience)

Subscribed to Quiz Library (Submitted Lead Ad Form)

Opened (but may not have submitted) form within past 14 days

Some explanations may be in order…

Notice that I’ve excluded the people who have subscribed to my quiz library in three different ways. The reason for this is that no one way will capture everyone.

Recall that some people could register via the form on my website while others do from the lead ad form. By excluding all three methods, there’s a better chance that I avoid targeting people who are already registered (though never guaranteed).

Finally, I have excluded those who simply OPENED the form during the past 14 days. This way, I cut out those who poked around but maybe didn’t submit — at least for the time being. I’ll hit them again in a couple of weeks. This is a way to control frequency to a point.

Another approach I like to take, but didn’t here, is using video instead of a static image. If you do that, I would also consider creating an audience of people who already watched the video (or a portion of the video) and exclude those people (either using the 14-day method or longer). Once again, this is a way to manage frequency.

My Quiz Automation

First, know that people who complete your Facebook lead ad forms aren’t automatically added to your email list without some third-party automation. I use Zapier for this (not an affiliate link).

I create a Zap with a trigger of those who submitted my lead ad form.

I use Infusionsoft as my CRM. The first action, then, is to tag the new contact in Infusionsoft.

I then create another action of sending a Zapier email.

While I can also just rely on my email campaign in Infusionsoft, there’s a special trick that you can pull off in this Zapier email. Since it’s connected to your lead ad form, you can pull in the exact answers. That can allow you to craft a more personal email.

For mine, I list out the question, the answer you provided, and my explanation of the answer. Here is what it looks like through the first couple of questions…

I’m sure there are ways to feed this info into your Infusionsoft contact and then craft a personalized email from there as well. But again, I opted for simplicity (Infusionsoft is always a beast).

And that’s it!

Early Returns

I’ve been pretty amazed by the early results. For the first four days of this campaign, I generated 61 leads at $.66 per lead. Keep in mind that the audience I was targeting was very small (top 5% of website visitors from the US who spent the most time on my website during the past 180 days).

There are a couple of reasons why this cost per lead is impressive. First, all of the registrants are in the United States, typically the most costly country for a lead. These results aren’t being puffed up by a cheap country.

Second, it takes a significant amount of work to complete this form. Normally, we’re told to limit the amount of information we request in a form. The more form questions, the higher the quality of the lead — though more costly.

So, this is certainly a good start. I then created two more ad sets…

Ad Set #2: WCA Top 5% Time on Website (UK, Canada, Australia)

Ad Set #3: WCA Top 5% Time on Website (Tier 2 Countries with higher CPM)

I combine countries in this case due to budget and sample size. For more info on how I determine countries to target and the budget, check out this recent blog post.

The results? So far, another 61 leads for $.36 per lead.

Look, these are small sample size results, and the costs are bound to increase in the coming days as I exhaust my audiences. But this is seriously encouraging stuff given 1) The typical cost per lead, and 2) The amount of effort that goes into completing this form.

I created three more ad sets today based on the same countries but using lookalike audiences. It’s still very early, of course. While the costs are higher (not surprisingly when targeting a cold audience), we’re still looking at cost per lead from $.72 to $2.40, depending on the ad set.

Not bad!

Your Turn

This is one of many examples of using tools in ways that may not have been intended. I’m encouraged by the results so far.

Have you ever used Facebook lead ads in this way? What types of results have you seen?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How I Used Facebook Lead Ads to Create a Quiz appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Facebook Account Optimization and Organization Techniques

It’s definitely that time of year. You’ve done so much brainstorming, preparing, and worrying about your Q4 campaigns and now you feel fried. You wake up every morning poised for disaster.

Perhaps one or all of these thoughts races through your head: “something doesn’t seem to be working as well as it was last week,” “accounts aren’t spending what they should be right now,” or “my campaigns are tanking, the client is going to fire us.” 

But wait… as Michael Scott from Dunder Mifflin would say, are we really at threat level midnight?!

In all honesty, probably not, but that doesn’t mean your campaigns couldn’t use some tweaking and fine-tuning. Every account needs a 100,000-mile tune-up. NOW is the time to make sure all the hard work you’ve done to prepare for a successful Q4 isn’t lost thanks to overthinking, disorganization, and pulling random levers just to see what works and what doesn’t.

Remember: YOU GOT THIS.

What it really comes down to is understanding where and when to begin optimizing. What’s the most pressing issue? Or are there multiple things at play? Is it your audience, your creative, your bids or your website?

In truth, it could be a combination of a few different problem areas. Facebook has been more volatile lately, and for many advertisers, it’s difficult to pinpoint what’s causing the mixed results.

To get clear answers moving forward, you need to institute a tried-and-true system of optimization and organization. Learn about my recommended system in our upcoming class!

Definitions

Most Facebook advertisers have their own system of optimization and organization, but in my experience, “system” is a loosely defined term. For example, optimization to one advertiser I spoke to recently was “turning ad sets up or down”, where to me, optimization is the definition below.

Optimization: Increasing yield (results) and cutting waste. Optimization is a continued refinement of your currently active ads. It’s slightly different than overall account scaling in that it’s more tweaking and tuning what is currently active to run more smoothly.

Account organization also has different definitions depending on the advertiser. One advertiser I know recently said, “my audiences are named properly in the audiences area, so I feel pretty organized.” This technically isn’t wrong, but I prefer the more overarching definition below.

Organization: Instituting orderly systems and processes so you don’t get confused and lost while running Facebook and Instagram ads. Examples include using better naming conventions, relying on a go-to build template, and much more.

Your System

If you’ve never defined your optimization/organization system, NOW is the time.

Facebook is much more competitive than it was last year and exponentially harder to work within. In order to stay sane, you need a clear, dedicated system. This system should help you stay on track for what you should be doing every day, week, and month to improve your account performance. The days of scattershot optimization and tweaks are over.

For my system, I start by thinking through the following ground rules…

Generally, my ground rules surround:

What are the pitch(es) I’m making and where?

Who am I showing ads to?

Where am I placing ads?

What types of ads am I running?

What bidding methodologies am I using?

How much am I spending and do I want to spend more?

By going through and recording my answers to these questions on a more regular basis, I am able to come up with new ideas, thanks to fresh thinking.

What about you? What questions are you routinely asking yourself about your account performance? Or are you keeping things on auto-pilot? Why or why not?

My System

To put these ground rules into practice, I developed a straightforward list of DAILY-WEEKLY-MONTHLY optimization metrics that I think work well, regardless of account size. I build these out as reports that I pull down via the Customize Columns area and then I save them. Here are the exact steps I follow:

First, I select customize columns.

Then I select the metrics I want to track.

Then, once it’s done, I save it and name it.

  Is this rocket science? No. But has it been helpful in my account optimization system? Yes, absolutely. 

I use this system for all my ad accounts, with each one utilizing a daily, weekly, and monthly list to identify further optimization areas.

My Daily Optimizations

Here’s how I approach DAILY account optimization and what I’m keeping an eye on:

Amount spent

Results

Reach

Cost Per Result

Budget

Website Purchases

Cost Per Website Purchase

Website Purchase Conversion Value

Website Purchase ROAS (return on ad spend)

Link Clicks

Cost per Link Click

CTR (Link)

I pull out these metrics and save them as a daily report, which I then run for each client. I compare yesterday versus today using the date picker.

Here are the account optimization questions I ask myself on a DAILY basis:

Is my CPA going up/down?

Is my CTR going up/down?

Is my CPC going up/down?

Do any of the ad sets show signs of fatigue?

It’s basically a quick checkup on big picture campaign components. Am I successfully bringing in more traffic at a reasonable cost and is that traffic producing revenue? After I do my daily optimizations, I dive into weekly optimizations.

My Weekly Optimizations

Now, here’s how I approach WEEKLY account optimization. Notice the additional levers I’m pulling? I’m keeping an eye on all these issues:

Reach

Cost Per Result

Website Purchases

Cost Per Purchase

Website Purchase Conversion Value

Website Purchase ROAS

Link Clicks

Cost Per Link Click

CTR (Link)

CPM

Relevance Score

First time impression ratio check on ad sets

Check on creative, bidding, placement or audience gaps that need to be filled

Here are the questions I’m asking myself on a WEEKLY basis:

Am I driving more conversions / leads at the same or different cost?

Is my CPA going up/down?

Is my Relevance Score going up/down?

Do any of the ad sets show signs of fatigue?

Am I seeing a lot of latent conversions not previously counted over the last 7 days?

My Monthly Optimizations

Lastly, here’s how I approach MONTHLY account optimization. See all the items I’m reviewing in-depth?

Website Purchases

Cost Per Purchase

Website Purchase Conversion Value

Website Purchase ROAS

Link Clicks

Landing Page Views

Cost Per Link Click

CTR (Link)

CPM

Relevance Score

First time impression ratio check on ad sets

Check on creative, bidding, placement or audience gaps that need to be filled

Latent conversions month over month

A/B bidding check to see comparisons

Now, here are the questions I’m asking myself on a MONTHLY basis:

Am I driving more conversions at the same or different cost?

Am I driving more/same amount of traffic at the same/different cost?

Is my CPA going up/down?

What’s wearing out?

What’s new that needs to be tested?

What worked this month and what didn’t?

What “gaps” have shown that we can run tests on tests can next month?

System Sneak Peek

This is just a sneak peek at the optimization/organization system I use to keep my accounts running smoothly. Over the past month, I interviewed over a dozen Facebook advertising pros including reps at big ad agencies, in-house marketers, and other consultants — all of whom work in different verticals with diverse client needs — to hear from them on what EXACTLY they’re doing on the account optimization and organization front.

To hear from the pros and get all their helpful tips and techniques, be sure to sign up for our upcoming class!

Your Turn

What systems do you use for account optimization and organization?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Account Optimization and Organization Techniques appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Why I Turned Off My Facebook Messenger Bot

During the past year, I experimented with a Facebook Messenger bot. Last week, I turned it off.

This isn’t meant to be an indictment on Facebook Messenger bots. My goal isn’t to convince you that they aren’t valuable. I simply wanted to share my experiences with it and why I ultimately decided to pull the plug.

There are plenty of good reasons to have your own bot. You will have no problem finding examples of success stories of brands using them in productive and even profitable ways. But there are potential pitfalls that you need to be prepared for.

Messenger bots can be great. I’m sure they can be great for me, too. The reality is that I was not ready. There will likely come a day when a bot makes sense for me. But that day is not today.

Let’s take a closer look at how I was using my Facebook Messenger bot and why I ultimately disconnected it…

My Bot

Here’s what my bot looked like when you started a conversation with it…

This was meant to funnel you into different high priorities of content and products. The options included…

1. Ask a question.

Have a question about Facebook ads? Just ask it.

Of course, those questions would ultimately be answered by me or my staff, not by the bot. And that lack of immediacy could be confusing. More on that later.

2. Subscribe to Quick Video Tutorials.

Late last year, I started a series of 30-60 second video tutorials. While everything beyond #50 would only be available to my Power Hitters Club members, I would leverage those first 50 within my bot. Subscribe, and I’d send you a different video every couple of days.

3. Subscribe to my blog.

Beyond subscribing to these videos, you could also subscribe to my blog without providing an email address. Every time I published a new blog post, I’d send a Messenger broadcast to those subscribed with a link.

4. Learn about my products.

Links and info to my training products and private communities. And if you had questions, a member of my team could answer them.

Engagement Rate Was Misleading

One of the reasons I started using a bot in the first place was because of the reports I heard regarding open and engagement rates. Better than email. Way better than email.

Well, the final month of broadcasts would go out to close to 6,000 people in all (not unique, just from all broadcasts). Those messages would be opened (or “read”) by over 50% of those users.

Sounds amazing. Anyone who can get a 50% open rate on email would be absolutely pumped. But if you’re like me, an “open” Messenger message doesn’t necessarily mean you read it.

The click rate would be about 2.8%. Maybe not horrendous, but when you’re only getting about 165 total clicks over an entire month, that’s not saying much.

Especially when you consider…

It Was Expensive

When I first started using my bot a year ago, it was $4 per month. Back then, these kinds of numbers would be fun! But as my subscriptions increased, so did my costs. By the end, I was spending $375 per month.

So, I’m sure you can start to see why I turned my bot off. I spent more than $2 per bot click. Fun times.

By comparison, I spent about $400 for Infusionsoft last month. My list is, not surprisingly, much larger than what I was handling with my bot. I received close to 10,000 clicks from my email campaigns during the month of October.

So, I was spending $2.23 per click for my bot broadcasts and $.04 per click for my email broadcasts. And my email campaigns routinely lead to revenue.

It Was Corny

This is partly my fault. Bots aren’t my style. At least the way mine was set up. Mine was based on a template, and I made minor tweaks to it. But ultimately, the voice was not mine. And I hated that.

But it’s easy for bots to have a high-corny factor. You’re dealing with a “robot,” not an actual person. So you try to give it a personality of its own.

My bot made use of a library of auto-replies based on dozens (hundreds?) of messages someone might send. While discovering this may be fun or entertaining at first, it could get extremely frustrating for users as well.

The biggest problem when using the bot as a user was deciphering the line between automated bot and actual person. And these auto-responses often led to more trouble than they were worth for their entertainment value.

It Was a Time Suck for Staff

When it comes down to it, this (in addition to the cost) was why my bot was turned off.

Some people, once they knew I had a bot, would do all they could to test it. They’d throw every message at it they could think of, trying to break it and test its boundaries.

That’s fine. But here’s the problem…

My Facebook page is hooked up to ZenDesk, my customer service ticketing software. Every time someone sent a new message, a new ticket was created or updated. As much as my team dug and tried to find a solution for this, there was none. We had to deal with it.

So, I had one staff member sorting through messages, closing everything that didn’t require a response and assigning others to a team member to answer questions. Every time a new broadcast went out, there was a surge in these tickets.

Each Monday, I asked my staff how the bot was going. I always sensed that it was an annoyance. That it took way more of their time than it was worth.

My Bot is Off… For Now

I didn’t want to turn it off. A few weeks back, I turned off the front facing bot. What that means is that it was still connected to bot software, but messaging my page wouldn’t necessarily trigger a bot conversation.

My hope was that this would solve my problems — or at least lessen the drain on my staff. It made little difference.

Finally, I pulled the plug entirely. My staff won’t admit it, but I’m sure it was a relief to them. It certainly was for me.

I realize that this post is an invitation to trolls. “Don’t bash bots, they work for me! You just don’t know what you’re doing! I have a great idea for you to have success with a bot!”

All of these things are probably true. I know they work for some. I know that I never bought into and committed to my bot. There is no doubt that there is a way to make my bot work for me.

I’ve had numerous people reach out offering to help me create such a bot. But here’s the deal: It’s just not a priority for me. RIGHT NOW.

If it’s not a priority, I’m never going to dedicate the amount of time and energy I need to dedicate in order to get the most out of it. And when that happens, the bot quickly becomes a waste of time, money, and resources.

Look, I’ll fully admit I hold some skepticism related to bots. I generally hate automation. I think there is a place for it, but this clearly did not work for me.

Assuming bot software continues to improve and adoption grows, I’ll connect a bot again one day.

But today? I’m relieved mine is dead.

Your Turn

Have you experimented with bots, both as a marketer and user? What’s been your experience?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Why I Turned Off My Facebook Messenger Bot appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[marketingplaybook]

Facebook Attribution Tool: The Ultimate Introduction

Facebook recently announced the launch of the Facebook Attribution Tool, a free tool “designed to give marketers a more holistic view of the customer journey, both on and off Facebook.”

A couple of things…

1. This tool is DEEP. Have fun poking around this Facebook Business help guide to learn all of the ins and outs of the Facebook Attribution Tool.

2. I just got access to this thing for the first time, too. I’m still learning it. I’m still discovering its value.

Bottom line? There’s a lot to discuss here. There’s a lot that can’t be put into this single post. And, quite frankly, I’m just discovering everything that can be done with it, too.

But, if you’ll scroll to the bottom and back up, you’ll see just how dense this post is. And it’s simply an introduction to the tool — how to set it up and what it’s for, at least at a top level.

There’s so much more we’ll need to discuss about this in the coming weeks and months. But for now, let’s get to know this tool better. And if you haven’t set it up yet, let’s do that, too!

What Is the Facebook Attribution Tool?

In the simplest terms, think of it like this… When discussing attribution — or in this case, Facebook attribution — we’re looking to determine the cause of a conversion. Where did someone come from? What device were they on? Did they access multiple devices? Was the content organic or paid?

You may have heard of Atlas, which provided valuable cross-platform and cross-device information to the biggest of brands. Atlas has now been repurposed in the form of the Facebook Attribution Tool, and it’s available to all advertisers.

Facebook Attribution is designed to help you understand the impact of your content and ads across multiple publishers, channels, and devices. Note that this includes and goes beyond Facebook — not only the organic referrals from Google and others, but your non-Facebook advertising efforts.

Set It Up: Get Started

To set up the Facebook Attribution Tool, go here. You should also see it within your Business Manager’s top menu.

If you aren’t connected to Business Manager, it’s possible that you won’t get access to this tool. Based on my testing, there is a separate Attribution for each Business Manager. But I tried to access it with my personal account and could not.

The first time you access this tool, you’ll see this…

Click “Get Started.”

Set It Up: Lines of Business

Facebook will first ask you how your business is organized (single business; multiple brands, verticals, or regions; or agency).

Essentially, do you manage ads for multiple businesses as an agency within the same Business Manager? Are you a single business? Or do you have more than one business that you own or oversee within this Business Manager?

Next, you’ll need to set up your line(s) of business by grouping your ad accounts and data sources.

When you click “Set Up Line of Business,” the first thing you’ll be asked to do is choose ad accounts related to that business.

If you use more than one ad account to manage a particular business, make sure to select them. If an account isn’t listed, you’ll need to add it to your Business Manager.

After selecting the ad account(s), click “Pixels, Apps, and Offline Event Sets” on the left.

Logically, you’ll want to select all of the pixels, apps, and offline event sets related to this particular business.

Then click “Time Zone and Currency” on the left and adjust the settings according to your local time zone and currency.

Note the message that you won’t be able to change the time zone or currency after setting this up.

When you’re done, click “Confirm” at the bottom right.

Now, you’ll see a brief summary of your line of business on the main Facebook Attribution set-up page.

If you need to add another line of business, do so now. If you’re done, click “Finish” at the bottom right.

Now, you’ll see this rather pointless alert, and you’ll — of course — want to “Continue to Attribution.”

Set It Up: Ad Platforms

To complete the set-up, you’ll need to add any non-Facebook ad platforms that contribute to your traffic and sales. “Ad Platforms” is the final tab within the “Settings” view and will provide a list of all ad accounts that feed into this line of business. You should see the Facebook ad account(s) that you added earlier.

But note that you can also add another platform. It doesn’t have to be Facebook only.

Why would you do this? Facebook will already know if traffic comes from a particular domain (like Bing, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Google). However, by connecting your other ad platforms, the Facebook Attribution Tool can then differentiate from organic vs. paid traffic.

Click that button to “Add a Platform”…

As I type this, there are 37 options, including Bing Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn, OutBrain, Pinterest, SnapChat, and Twitter. (NOTE: Some are showing as “unsupported by the publisher,” but you can send a message to request support.)

Manual configuration is required for some of the platforms. For example, adding tags for Adition…

While others, like Bing Ads, are preconfigured…

And if an ad platform that you use isn’t on the list, you can choose to add a “custom” platform.

You likely have questions about this process, and we’ll undoubtedly need to discuss it more later. In the meantime, this tutorial may help.

Facebook Attribution Overview: Quick Tour

Okay, so now we’re all set up. So we should see lots of valuable stuff right away, huh? Well, not so fast.

This is what you’ll see after first getting set up…

As mentioned earlier, this is the equivalent of creating and adding a new pixel to your website. The data that Facebook can collect and then report to you starts at that point. You will not get info for activity that occurs prior to configuring Facebook Attribution.

As a result, it may take a day. It may take several days or even weeks to get meaningful data. It just depends upon the amount of activity on your properties.

The Facebook Attribution Tool is broken up into the following sections:

Performance

Custom Reports

Cross-Device

Settings

Facebook Attribution Settings: Quick Tour

After the initial set-up, you’ll default to “Settings,” which is also broken into four sections:

Diagnostics

Data Sources

Referring Domains

Ad Platforms

Diagnostics won’t show you much of anything at first while the tool is building data from your data sources. It needs traffic and conversions.

Eventually, though, it will look something like this…

You’ll see a reporting of conversions, impressions, clicks, visits, and errors (if there are any).

Data Sources will show the pixels, apps, and offline events that you added earlier. It will also list the recent events that have occurred on your pixel since adding it to the tool.

Depending on the events you track with the pixel, you may see something like this…

Referring Domains will list out all of the domains that have referred traffic to your website or app.

Once you have data, it may look like this…

We already discussed the Ad Platforms tab earlier.

Drop-down Controls: Conversion

At the top right you’ll notice three drop-downs that will allow you to filter and alter data.

First, you can choose the type of conversion or event that will receive focus in the data on that page.

What appears here will depend upon what events you use with your pixel.

Drop-down Controls: Time Window

You can also change the time period, as you would for your Ads Manager.

Select specific days or go with “Last 7 Days” or “All Available.”

Drop-down Controls: Attribution Model/Window

And finally, you can change the attribution model or window.

The default attribution model is “Last Touch,” which gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the last click or visit (if no click or visit, then an impression) that happened in a conversion path. But, you can also select from several other options…

Here are your options and how they’re defined…

Even Credit: gives an equal percentage of the credit for a conversion to each touchpoint on a conversion path.

Last Click or Visit: gives 100% credit to the last click or visit that happened in a conversion path.

Last Touch: gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the last click or visit that happened in a conversion path. If there was no click or visit, then it will credit the last impression.

Positional 30%: gives a specific percentage of the credit for a conversion to the first and last touchpoints in a conversion path, with the remaining credit distributed evenly across all other touchpoints.

Positional 40%: gives a specific percentage of the credit for a conversion to the first and last touchpoints in a conversion path, with the remaining credit distributed evenly across all other touchpoints.

Time Decay 1-Day: gives an increasing percentage of the credit for a conversion to touchpoints as they get closer in time to the conversion.

Time Decay 7-Day: gives an increasing percentage of the credit for a conversion to touchpoints as they get closer in time to the conversion.

We can’t go much deeper on this topic here, but feel free to check out this tutorial on attribution models.

There are also some advanced settings…

And you can alter how Facebook defines a conversion based on the attribution window (default being within 28 days of a click or 1 day of a view).

Attribution windows tend to be an eye-opener for new advertisers. You may assume that Facebook counts conversions based on someone clicking an ad and immediately converting on your website. But the reality is that Facebook measures people who click ads and come back on another day — or don’t click, but view, and convert later that day.

Facebook Attribution Performance: Quick Tour

The first tab at the top left is for Performance. Once again, you won’t see anything there right away, and it may take some time to get much of value there. But eventually, you’ll see data splitting out the source of your conversions (paid, organic, domain, ad platform, etc.).

Here’s an example provided by Facebook:

By default, you will be viewing all channels (organic and paid). But you can choose to focus on one or the other by clicking the Channels drop-down at the top left.

Facebook Attribution Custom Reports: Quick Tour

The next menu item is for Custom Reports.

The default view is for the sources of your conversions. One of the cool things about this info is that you can customize the type of report you create (hence, the “Custom Reports” title, I guess).

First, a few presets, including Return On Ad Spend…

And from there, you can add or remove columns of data as you please…

Some helpful metrics here include Return On Ad Spend and Visit Conversion Rate.

Instead of sources, your custom reports can also be broken down by campaign (controlled at the top right).

This report pulls out specific ad campaigns you’re running (across platforms) while also including rows for organic.

Within that last drop-down was the ability to create a custom breakdown.

This topic may require a separate blog post, but read more here for now.

Finally, the custom reports are displayed in columns by default, but you can also choose to view them as a graph instead (toggle at the top right).

Here’s an example of what a graph looks like in these reports…

Facebook Attribution Cross-Device: Quick Tour

Finally, Cross-Device provides some top-level information regarding how interaction via multiple devices related to conversions. Here are examples…

How many conversion paths included both desktop and mobile?

How many conversions on mobile resulted after users interacted with your ads on desktop?

And what percentage of your conversions on desktop happened after users interacted with your ads on mobile?

That’s it. It’s interesting information, no doubt. But there’s no slicing and dicing of data the way there is in the other sections. At least, for now.

How Will You Use the Facebook Attribution Tool?

What’s your customer journey? How much value do your Google ads have versus Facebook ads in terms of leading to sales? What’s the mix of device types for a customer most likely to convert?

We’ll need to discuss in more detail — in another post — some specific use cases for the Facebook Attribution Tool, but these questions provide a start.

Your Turn

We’re just getting started here, my friend. As long as this post is, I fully realize it simply leads to more questions. And as someone who is just diving in myself, I don’t have all of those answers.

But there’s more to come. We’ll figure it out together. And it will be glorious.

Have you set up the Facebook Attribution Tool yet? What types of information are you finding?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Attribution Tool: The Ultimate Introduction appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.