moment garden tech talk (facebook ads how to get 1 cent cpc

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Moment Garden - Tech Talk (You'll Like Our Product) Facebook Ads: How to Get 1 Cent CPC (and why you might not want to) I’ve read more than a few places that it’s possible to get dirt cheap cost per clicks (CPC) using Facebook advertising. However, my experience until then had proved otherwise. I had never been able to do better than $0.25 CPC on Facebook, which simply is not cost effective for a bootstrapped startup like ours . But the promise of cheap advertising convinced us to keep trying. A little research, a little testing, and a lot of patience later has led us to the promise land: We achieved the elusive single penny clicks! Alas, not all that glitters is gold. So I’ll explain how we achieved 1 cent CPC, how you can do it, and why you might not even want to. 1. Broad demographics, narrow interests To start, when choosing the target for your Facebook Ad, you are given numerous geo-targeting options. However, unless you have a product that can 20 COMMENT TEXT 6 notes

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Page 1: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

Moment Garden -Tech Talk(You'll Like Our Product)

Facebook Ads: How to Get 1 Cent CPC (andwhy you might not want to)

I’ve read more than a few places that it’s possible to get dirt cheap cost per

clicks (CPC) using Facebook advertising. However, my experience until then

had proved otherwise. I had never been able to do better than $0.25 CPC on

Facebook, which simply is not cost effective for a bootstrapped startup like

ours.

But the promise of cheap advertising convinced us to keep trying. A little

research, a little testing, and a lot of patience later has led us to the promise

land:

We achieved the elusive single penny clicks!

Alas, not all that glitters is gold. So I’ll explain how we achieved 1 cent CPC,

how you can do it, and why you might not even want to.

1. Broad demographics, narrow interests

To start, when choosing the target for your Facebook Ad, you are given

numerous geo-targeting options. However, unless you have a product that can

20 COMMENTSTEXT

6notes

Page 2: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

only be used in a certain state or country, your best approach will be to select

the broadest range of demographics that apply, and then target the ad based

on specific interests.

For demographics, we chose all English speakers over the age of 24 (sorry,

teen moms!).

For interests, we targeted based on any baby or child related term we could:

motherhood, playing with my kids, playing with my sons, children’s books, you

get the idea.

We chose over 100 terms in total, which put our estimated reach at 14 million

people.

2. Photo, photo, photo!

Let’s get started on how to construct an effective ad.

The first and most important aspect (by far!) of your Facebook ad is the photo

you use. But what makes a clickable photo?

All of my research on Facebook ads pointed to the same definition of clickable

photo: “shows cleavage.” It seems rather vacuous that Facebook users don’t

notice the text of an ad much, but both men and women are apt to notice an

attractive woman’s chest.

However, we run a site for parents; showing an inappropriate photo in our ads

would damage our brand. So we had to consider how to create a clickable

photo that was still relevant to our audience. Our idea was to balance

attractiveness with tastefulness by using celebrity moms and their kids. Finding

several celebrity+baby photos, here are the ads we created for our first test:

Quiz time: Can you guess which ad had the best and worst click through rate

(CTR)?

Here are the results:

B - 0.086%

Page 3: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

A - 0.055%

C - 0.043%

D - 0.025%

What’s notable here? First, people were clicking on the celebrity’s photos at a

decent rate (average ad on Facebook has 0.051% CTR), but Ad B, which had

the least recognizable celebrity, did significantly better.

Our CPC bid for these ads was $0.30, and our average CPC was $0.25.

Note: until you prove to Facebook your ads perform well, you cannot short-

change them with low CPC bids. Facebook won’t run your ad in widespread

circulation until you prove they can make money off of you!

3. To lower your CPC, raise your CTR

A lot of acronyms, I know. But the big key to getting cheap clicks is this really

simple concept: the better your click through rate (CTR) is, the lower cost per

click (CPC) you can achieve.

The reason is because Facebook is trying to maximize their revenue while also

maximizing their users’ satisfaction. Ads that get clicked on often mean their

users are finding something they like (satisfaction). And if they are clicking

more often, Facebook is making more efficient use of their page views

(revenue), and thus can afford to charge you less per click.

Since our CPC from round 1 was much too high, we needed to lower it by

raising our CTR.

4. More Cowbell!

And by cowbell, I mean clickable-ness. Examining the results of our first round,

and our research of what makes a photo clickable, we experimented with a new

version. This one took our best performing ad (Ad B) from round 1, and

zoomed in further to put more focus on the baby and the, ahem, clickable-ness.

Then we lowered our CPC bid to $0.10. Take a look:

How’d it do? Well, the click through rate doubled to a phenomenal 0.15% (triple

Facebook’s average) and sure enough, the CPC went down to $0.08!

Once you achieve a high CTR, you can start dropping your bid to try to

squeeze a better deal out of Facebook. We found that at a $0.06 bid we were

still getting placement and clicks!

Page 4: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

5. Analyze, Rinse, Repeat

We had picked all the low hanging fruit to achieve a very good CPC of 6 cents,

but that was still 6 times more expensive than our goal of a penny per click.

The next step to lowering your CPC is by super targeting. Remember, we

originally targeted broadly on demographics and narrowly on interests. After

running your ad, Facebook provides you demographic data so you can see

which countries, ages, and genders are clicking your ads and at what rate.

That way, you can stop damaging your CTR by not showing your ad to people

who never click. And the higher the CTR, the lower you can get your CPC.

Here’s our demographics report for the “more cowbell” ad:

Fascinating stuff. What we learned:

Old Middle-aged people (over 44) don’t click on the ad at all.

Muslim countries clicked at an incredible rate. Pakistan and Egypt provided

CTRs of 0.23%!

We then ran a new version of the same ad, targeting just muslim countries, and

people aged 18-44. We began our bid at 4 cents, and as we started to earn

impressions and clicks, we dropped it penny… by… penny… until…

1 CENT CPC!!

Page 5: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

All that glitters ain’t gold

While we did in fact reach our goal of 1 cent CPC, we realized that we lost sight

of the forest through the trees.

We’re a business, and as such, we want (no, need) to make money.

Our final ad, costing us just 1 cent per click, was not coincidentally targeting

some of the poorest countries in the world. How many people in Pakistan are

going to pay for a Premium Moment Garden account, or buy $50 photo books

of their child, when their average monthly income is just $41?

So while we did indeed find gold in our quest for penny clicks, we quickly

realized we were chasing fools’ gold trying to reach it.

Lessons Learned

We did learn a tremendous amount from our Facebook Ad experimentation.

While you may not be able to get much value out of 1 cent CPC, all the above

techniques can be applied to drive down your CPC within the market you ought

to be targeting. Just be sure you’ve identified who that market is, and aren’t

spending your precious cash showing your ad to people who don’t need, or

can’t afford, your product.

In addition, here are some “secrets” we learned along the way:

Many people recommend switching to cost per impression (CPM) bids once

you drive down your CPC. We tried this as well, but what we found is that it

results in much lower CTR, and subsequently higher CPC. The reason? If

Facebook knows it’s getting your money as long as it shows your ad

(whether or not anybody clicks on it), it’ll show your ad lower on the page.

That way it can milk higher CTR from ads with CPC bids by putting them at

the top of the same page, and still get just as much money from your CPM

bid at the same time. That’s my theory, at least. Sneaky.

Likewise, as we lowered our CPC bid from 3 cents to 2 cents down to 1 cent,

we saw a drop-off in CTR. Why would the same ad perform differently based

on your bid? I’m guessing for the same reason as above - Facebook

decides to put your ad lower on the page to fill inventory, while showing a

more lucrative ad near the top.

Ultimately, what matters from ads is your conversion rate. How many of

those clicks turn into users. We tracked this data and found that for our first

$37 in Facebook Ads, we got 442 clicks and 58 new users from Facebook.

Page 6: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

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Jon Lim • 2 years ago

Great post - definitely interesting to see the path you guys

took to get to your $0.01 CPC goal and the outcome of it all.

I hope that you've found a middle ground with an affordable CPC

rate and with people who perhaps are able to afford your service?

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That works out to a 13% conversion rate, and a user acquisition cost of

$0.64.

Not surprisingly, people coming to our site from Facebook were much more

apt to click the Facebook “like” button on our homepage than an average

visitor. Out of those 442 clicks, we got 43 new “likes.”

Step 5 above requires access to your demographics’ CTR data, so you’ll

know which demographics are clicking the most often. While you can access

much of the demographics data via Facebook reports within a day of

starting your ads, the CTR column was missing for us. It took about a week

for that data to show up in the reports! Just keep this in mind if you’re

wondering where that column is, like we were.

We hope you learned a bit from our experiences, and that you can apply some

of this knowledge to your own Facebook Ads.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below.

Page 7: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

Reply

Haha, thanks for the read.

1

Reply

garbowza • 2 years agoM o d Jon Lim

Thanks! While the experimentation was really

useful, the $0.01 CPC was not very valuable since the

volume was so low. At $0.02, we got much higher volume,

and a fair number of them registered for a Moment Garden

account. However, I doubt many (or any) will convert to

paying customers. But I guess time will tell! At such low

CPC, it's worth the experimenting!

1

Reply

inm • 2 years ago

Interesting analysis. It's sort of disheartening to see that

despite working to optimize ads as much as you have, the CTRs

are still pretty abysmal. I think thats why there are so many

interesting advertising opportunities being created around the

Facebook ecosystem. A lot of businesses are just interested in

boosting up their fan count and there are services like

http://facebook.popularfans.co... to accomplish that. There are all

kinds of interesting analytics and other types of tools that are also

coming out to measure engagement with your audience. I think

Twitter popularized this trend because of their open API. I think

Google CTRs will always be important, but social is also very hot as

well.

1

Reply

garbowza • 2 years agoM o d inm

You're right, it's kind of sad that our 0.15% CTR is

really good, relative to Facebook's average. But really, all

that matters is your rate compared to other similar ads - if

yours is better, then it will help drive your CPC down. Given

the massive amount of impressions Facebook generates, it

can still be profitable for you and them.

Live58 • 11 days ago

I just stumbled across this article in my search for how to

get low cost likes. I've gotten my cost per like down to $0.02 with a

CTR of .834% (yes you read that right). I'm running it for a poverty

fighting christian organization that is brand new. All the likes are

USA based and I target 21 and up. The potential reach is just over

15MM and so far we've only reached 51k. I just started a day ago

and started with a budget of $10. I just upped it to $50 for the day to

see if I can sustain a $0.01 cost per like. We're also working on

making sure our page engagement rate can remain pretty high with

the influx of ad acquired likes. We don't want to dilute our

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Page 8: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

Reply

the influx of ad acquired likes. We don't want to dilute our

community. Cheers!

Reply

Anirudh Bahadur • 22 days ago

Awesome Tips

Reply

Jamie • 9 months ago

This was really helpful, thank you :)

Reply

Norman • 10 months ago

Great info... thanks so much for sharing. This all makes

perfect sense and kept me reading right to the end. I nearly bought a

product on the Warrior forum giving details about 2 cent CPC, then

decided to do a google search first, and very glad i did.

After all there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Reply

Dpike33 • a year ago

I got my ctr on one of ads to .17 my cpc is at .36 was

wondering if the rates have gone up that much in 9 months. My ad is

in a campaign that has other ads with not as high of scores? Should

I just run the high ctr ad solo?

Reply

Bret t the Cheap Traffic Guy • a year ago

Thanks for your detailed post, very interesting and easy to

follow. You brought up a fantastic point of getting 1 cent clicks but in

some of the poorest countries in the world.

Reply

Andy Brice • 2 years ago

Interesting, although slightly depressing that the success of

an ad is proportional to the amount of cleavage shown! I had less

success with Facebook ads:

http://successfulsoftware.net/...

Ash • 2 years ago

Thanks for the honest 'real world' post.

A little advice.

While most of your potential customers use FB, you would probably

find better targeting with ads on websites and forums that your

potential customers go to when they have questions about their new

or impending bundles of joy. No need to spam as the majority of

these places are happy to display your ads for reasonable monthly

fees. Contact them and usually, they will take an easy online

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Page 9: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

Reply

payment like Paypal. Be honest and they will work with you as they

want happy advertisers with products like yours that make their

visitors happy.

The instant gratification of quick stats on FB or Adwords and such

make it very easy to lose track of the importance of focusing on

conversions (as you have obviously learned).

You're doing great and these are lessons that must be learned

before sustained success comes. You will be better off for having

done the work that you posted about.

Cheers and Good Luck to you

Reply

jonathanjaeger • 2 years ago

I run Facebook ads all day at my job and you're definitely

going to have to pay much more for ads in U.S. (over Canada or

anywhere else). In addition, starting your ads at a lower CPC will get

you a lower quality score for your ad -- so even if you get served

initially, the life-span of your ad getting served on Facebook will be

much less. You will then have to reupload and starting spending at a

higher CPC much quicker. Of course if you're a small business,

starting out at a much higher CPC (>$1) and running a lot of initial

volume might not be feasible for most people. You need to start out

with greater than .100% CTR if you want to have the ad sustain for a

long period of time. Running celebrity ads for a short period of time

will work, but you could be looking at C&D at some point if you're

running a huge amount of volume.

Edit: At the end of the day CPC and CTR are useless if you can't

drive enough volume from the ads based on your targeting.

Edit 2: Targeting 30+ women will get you a higher landing page

conversion and CTR (obviously depends on the vertical, but in

general).

Reply

cavezza • 2 years ago

I've gotten down to $0.02 per click in North America only -

it's very feasible.

Reply

jonathanjaeger • 2 years ago cavezza

Nice! I'd like to know the volume you were getting in

terms of clicks and your CTR that made this feasible. Was it

sustained?

garbowza • 2 years agoM o d cavezza

Oh wow, that's impressive! I would love to hear

some tips if you're willing to share. I haven't been able to get

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Page 10: Moment garden   tech talk (facebook ads  how to get 1 cent cpc

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the low CPC in N. America.

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Rishi Shah • 2 years ago

Would love to see numbers on how many of the 1 cent

CPC actually converted to users/paying customers.

Thanks.

Reply

garbowza • 2 years agoM o d Rishi Shah

To be honest, very few. In fact, once we got down to

$0.01 CPC, the volume was horrible: we just weren't get

many impressions or clicks. At $0.02 we get much more.

Reply

Dev Basu - SEO s ince 2007. • 2 years ago

Super interesting stats - The days of a 1 cent CPC in a

North American market are gone. The lowest we've seen are

around 10 cents for decent clicks and conversions. Thanks for

posting your stats.

Reply

garbowza • 2 years agoM o d Dev Basu - SEO since 2007.

We've definitely come to the same conclusion as

you. Any time we try to target more towards N. America

generally and the U.S. specifically, or CPC rises

dramatically.

1

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