7 Proven [But Simple] Strategies to Minimize Your Facebook Ad Costs

If you arrived at this blog post, it’s a sure bet that you tried your hand at Facebook ads.

The Facebook advertising platform is perhaps the most effective vehicle for getting your message in front of a highly-targeted audience. No other platform comes close.

Yet, as easy as Facebook makes it for us to advertise, there’s no guarantee of a successful campaign.

Sure the barrier to entry is low (as little as $5 or less per day) and the platform is relatively easy to use. But putting the right pieces together can be the biggest challenge.

In this article, I’ll cover seven techniques that can help you maximize your ad engagement, while lowering the all-important cost-per-click (aka CPC).

However, if you’re short on time or want this information offline, download my free infographic: 7 Proven Strategies to Minimize Your Facebook Ads Cost.

Let’s get started.

Tip #1: Control costs through a bid cap

Having an understanding of your ad metrics can pay huge dividends.

If you’ve run past campaigns for the same or similar product then you should have an idea of the CPA (Cost Per Action). By calculating that amount, you can set an effective bid cap to meet your objective while avoiding breaking the bank.

According to Facebook, if you use a bid cap or cost target for a conversion-optimized ad set, they recommend setting your budget at least five times as high as your bid cap or cost target. This makes it possible to get at least 5 conversions per day.

Make it a best practice to break down your numbers so that you can fine-tune your ad spend whether that be on a campaign, ad set, and/or ad level.

Tip #2: Increased engagement = Lower ad costs

A surefire way for lowering your Facebook ad costs is to increase your ad engagement. Increased engagement sends a positive signal to Facebook. And they will, in turn, reward you with lower ad costs. But how do you do that?

If you’re running a single-image ad, choose an interesting, eye-catching photo.

Feel free to add some attention-grabbing text on the photo, keeping in mind to stay within Facebook’s 20 percent text guideline. Facebook provides a free tool that you can utilize to check your image text.

Get creative with your ad copy.

Having the right type of copy — copy that speaks to your target audience — is essential to keeping them stuck to your page. The more they find your copy engaging, the more likely you will get that coveted “click.”

Tip #3: People love FREE giveaways (with a high-perceived value, of course)

When the value is there, the decision is easy.

Take the time to study and understand the pain points of your target audience. Developing a customer avatar will go a long way towards helping you get inside the mind of your ideal customer. Then offer something of value that your avatar will love.

This aligns closely with Tip #2 because it involves increasing your overall ad engagement, which will lead to lower Facebook ad costs.

For example, if your target niche is into internet marketing then offering a free eBook on “Build an Email List of a 1,000 Subscribers in 30 Days” will definitely resonate with them. These types of offerings are called “lead magnets” because their primary objective is to get your avatar to give you their email address in exchange for a free gift with a high-perceived value. 

 

Tip #4: Take it to the next level with Custom and Lookalike Audiences

Facebook has some of the most powerful remarketing tools of any major advertising platform, allowing marketers to hyper-target prospects through custom and lookalike audiences. This hyper-targeting involves reaching your audience using very specific parameters and can result in higher conversion rates along with lower overall Facebook advertising costs.

While there are many types of custom audiences we’ll highlight some of the more common types.

Customer Lists

This is the standard custom audience type where you can upload your customer list to Facebook who will, in turn, match your list to its user base. Facebook has a free data file template that will help you organize your data for easy system mapping.

Website Visitors

One of the easiest ways to build a custom audience is by inserting the Facebook Pixel onto your website. This will allow you to place your Facebook ads in front of those people who have visited your website for up to 180 days.

Engagement

You can also create a custom audience based on those visitors who engaged with your content (be it a blog post, video ad, landing page, etc.). For example, you may create a custom audience of people who watched 50% or more of your video ad or downloaded your free eBook.

Lookalike Audience

The power of Facebook’s advertising platform is apparent when creating a lookalike audience. After you’ve created your custom audience, you can ask Facebook to utilize that audience’s interests, age, gender, etc. to create a broader audience (called the lookalike audience) that is very similar to your custom audience.

Tip #5: Split test your ads

Initially, managing your Facebook ad costs won’t come easy. It will take an investment of time and money to find what ad(s) work best for your audience type. However, the payoff can be huge.

And the only way to find the best performing ad is by split testing the different elements of your ad.

Test which headline, picture (or video) works best. In some cases, changing the product itself can make a huge difference in the way your audience interacts with your ad. If you’re new to split testing, Facebook will guide you through the process of setting up your first split test. You have two options to do so: guided creation and quick creation.

Just keep in mind that you should only test one element at a time to ensure you know if that element has had an overall impact on your ad engagement. Once you’ve found a winning creative, you can slowly start scaling up your ads to reach a wider audience.

Tip #6: Start utilizing video ads

It’s no secret that people react favorably to video.

Why? It could be that they would rather watch your message rather than read it. Or maybe it’s an instant gratification thing.

Whatever the case, using videos in your ad creative could pay off big time by lowering your overall Facebook ad costs.

Why?

In most cases, a video ad is more memorable and engaging than a standard single-image or even carousel ad. According to studies, the average viewer remembers 95% of a message when it is watched, whereas only 10% when read. And video generates 1,200 percent more shares than both images and text.

It is because of these attractive statistics that many marketers consider Facebook video ads to be a secret weapon to build engagement with their audience, while lower overall ad costs.

Tip #7: Check your ad “freshness”

It is extremely important to consistently update your ad creative — even if it is successful (yes I said it).

Think about it.

If you consistently saw the same ad for a product in your Facebook News Feed, would you: 1) get tired of it (aka “ad fatigue”); or 2) not even notice it (aka “ad blindness”)?

There aren’t any positive outcomes to this scenario. Now think about how this would affect your ad engagement, and then your ad costs. Scary huh?

So always remember that just because you have a high-converting ad, that doesn’t mean it will stay that way forever.

Now that you know seven proven tips to lower your Facebook ad costs, which one will you employ on your next campaign? Will you immediately start building a custom audience? How about employing a bid cap? Does the thought of split testing your ads sound good to you? Or will you use all of them?

Let me know in the comments section the tip(s) you decided to try out. And if you have any additional suggestions on how to lower your Facebook ad costs please share them.

[FREE INFOGRAPHIC] 7 Proven Strategies to Minimize Your Facebook Ad Costs