How to Optimize Facebook Ads Using Click Through Rate (CTR) and Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM)
Your Facebook ads may still be generating real results (inbox messages, leads...) regularly, while the daily figures in Ads Manager or Google Analytics (GA) are trending down. Are you looking for the cause but unsure where to start?
Today, Optimus will suggest a few metrics to track and ways to optimize. Take a look and try them out!
Step 1: Check these 2 metrics
Click Through Rate (CTR): The number of clicks an ad receives divided by its number of impressions)
Cost per 1,000 Impressions (CPM): The cost for every 1,000 impressions
Step 2: Compare and assess these 2 metrics over recent days
CASE 1: CTR drops sharply & CPM does not change much
This means the ad is still reaching customers, but the content is no longer appealing enough to attract potential customers' attention.
Solutions:
- Add more variations of content and images (banners) to the post so the platform can distribute the best content automatically.
- Add more seeded engagement to the post, maintain back-and-forth interactions with customers in the comments, or improve the experience after they enter the landing page or Messenger chat to increase social proof.
- Run additional engagement or click-to-message campaigns. This helps machine learning understand the behavior of the audience engaging with the post and deliver more ads to similar audiences.
CASE 2: CPM rises over the days & CTR still does not change much
This means the audience or ad content has become saturated. Showing ads to users is becoming increasingly limited compared with before.
Solutions:
- Expand your audience. You can use broad targeting without limiting the audience by interests, or expand your remarketing audience if you have enough data. For example, increase the duration from 7 days to 30 days.
- Run an additional reach campaign to increase awareness and reduce CPM in support of the main campaign.
Above all, every method comes from the experience and observations of the person running that campaign. In practice, there are many other scenarios (such as both CPM and CTR changing), so different creative approaches may be needed at different times.
You should also stay focused on your main optimization objective, for example:
- Sales: If orders, conversion rates and ROAS are good, you do not yet need to focus on CTR and CPM. If you still want to optimize these metrics, you can allocate a small part of the budget to testing.
- Engagement: Metrics such as cost per engagement (CPE), link clicks, reactions and comments play the main role. CTR and CPM therefore play supporting roles. If engagement is good (the post receives plenty of engagement from real people, such as shares), expanding the audience to reduce CPM could make the ad reach users outside your target audience and lower engagement quality.
These are some methods Optimus has drawn from hands-on advertising experience. If you want to learn more or need a provider of services for Facebook advertising, explore Optimus's services today!
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