Episode 2: Targeting and Bidding
This is a three-part series that explores all the things social marketers should do when setting up their social ad campaigns. In our second post, we look at best practices to target effectively and bid for the greatest ROI. For the first three tips see our previous article on account structure and creative.
One of the main goals of the social marketer is to consistently target wider and more precise audience segments, while making smart bids based on a solid bidding model. Follow these best practices to ensure your social advertising campaigns are fine-tuned for the highest performance possible.
4. Target Wisely
When it comes right down to it, Facebook is mass media, and its algorithm performs better with large audiences. A best practice is to keep the target size above 100,000, especially for your prospecting campaigns. A few other rules of thumb:
- Always keep an eye on your reach.
- Avoid campaign overlap—competing against yourself will lower your relevance score and obstruct spend. Use the detailed targeting feature to refine your audience.
- Make use of email-based targeting and Website Custom Audiences.
- Use lookalike audiences, the Facebook conversion pixel, and
Fan Page.
You may also want to use split targeting, depending on:
- How recently users have shown intent using the inclusion and exclusion feature
- The level of intent (beginning of the sales funnel vs. the end)
- User behavior
- The purchase value
Marin Tip
Thanks to Marin's Lookalike feature, you can create high-intent lookalike audiences based on conversions from your best performing campaigns or ad sets.
5. Choose the Appropriate Conversion Window
The conversion window tells Facebook how far back in time to look at conversion data, so that it can optimize appropriately and find the right people to deliver your ad to.
You can use the conversion window for Website Conversions, App Installs, and App Events objectives. You can break them into 1-day, 7-day, and 28-day post-click windows.
In order for Facebook’s algorithm to have enough conversion data to learn from, set up your conversion window to get at least 15-25 conversions per ad set and per week. If you use the longest conversion window but don't get enough conversions, change the promoted object to a step higher in the conversion funnel (for example, add-to-cart rather than purchase).
6. Let the Audience Size Determine Bid Type
When the target size is above 100,000, bid oCPM. This’ll allow the algorithm to look for the users more likely to convert. Optimize for clicks and pay for impressions when your audience is between 80,000 and 100,000. For target sizes below 80,000, use the CPC bidding type.
On small and highly qualified audiences—for example, Website Custom Audiences of lower-funnel stages—you can even bid CPM (optimize and pay for impressions), since your aim here is to make sure that everyone in your audience sees your ads.
Marin Tip
Bid as granular as possible at the ad level in order to push the best performing ads within an ad set. Change bids across ad sets and campaigns in two clicks by clicking the Selected or All buttons.
