How I Reached $0.01 per Click on Facebook Using Content Marketing Tricks

If you’ve done content marketing in the past, then you’ve probably run campaigns on networks such as Taboola, Outbrain and Rev Content. Now, don’t get me wrong, those networks are fantastic if you know what you’re doing. I even run campaigns on them myself. Each platform has its own unique algorithm, but once you figure it out and manage to weave through the piles of publishers they have in their systems, you can really find gems – publishers that drive performance.

Over the last couple of years content marketing has become a buzz word and can now be done on many different platforms apart from those three. If you understand the concept of “content marketing”, know how to create engaging content and buzzy teasers, then you can take your content marketing strategy to any platform, especially Social Networks such as Facebook.

I, in particular, am a big fan of Facebook. I think they have done an amazing job over the last couple of years with their targeting efforts. As a matter of fact, I spend an insane amount of time, creating Facebook Ads. Not the typical ads that lead your traffic to a generic landing page or to your website, but Ads that are on the borderline of “Clickbait” Ads, but still drive quality traffic to interesting content. The idea behind effective content marketing is that if you can drive quality traffic to an engaging, interesting page, you’ll create a higher level of intent that will result in a better ROI.

Does it always work? Hell no! About half of my time is taken up by testing new concepts. The other half is creating new Ad sets and making sure that the content is f**king awesome. Most of my Ads are dumped after only a few Dollars, but the winners kill the system and will sometimes reach a CTR of just above 8%. One thing I must say about Facebook is that it’s an amazing traffic generation platform. Their reach is phenomenal and as they are constantly rolling out new Ad formats the options there are endless.

Ok, before you read any further, let me clarify a few things that you are probably thinking. Number one, the $0.01 per click is not for Tier 2 or 3 traffic, but for quality US traffic. Number two, and this is for the skeptics amongst you. Here’s a screen shot of my account:

Unfortunately, in this article I won’t be able to reveal all the tactics I use to get cheap quality traffic, but I will give you a few tips to help you get started.

1) One Ad Per AdSet

When creating a campaign, most of us create an Ad Set and then create 3-4 Ads within that Set. Now, if you have been doing Facebook for a while you’ve probably noticed that once these campaigns start, one Ad will grab most of the Ad Set’s budget. Basically, the system automatically locks in on the “best” working Ad, the one with the highest CTR and doesn’t give the others enough cost.

Sure you can let Facebook optimize your campaigns for conversion, but if you want to optimize the traffic by yourself or your company isn’t that keen on exposing its conversion data to Facebook, then things become a little tricky. Even if you do manage to spend a few Dollars on each Ad, you will probably reach a conclusion that only one of the Ads work well and the rest don’t work at all. Right? Well, you’re Wrong!

While companies like Facebook might class themselves as innovative and have state-of-the-art systems, their systems are based on algorithms that weren’t originally developed for performance marketing. Over the years, performance marketing has become more popular forcing these companies to adapt their algorithms and evolve from a CTR distribution model to a Conversion based model. The problem is that most of them still don’t work as well as they could or should.

If you want to self optimise and reach conclusions like I do, think of each Ad Set as a separate creative and only add one Ad. By doing it this way you will give the Ad a fair chance and the results will be much better than what you would have expected.

2) Don’t Settle for Average Content

Most companies can’t afford to employ top rated copywriters and to find a copywriter that understands performance writing is virtually impossible. Sure, you can hire a freelancer on Fiverr, but remember, you are going to get what you paid for. TechSors is an UK based company that offers its services globally. What we’ve noticed is that no matter what GEO location you’re dealing with, most companies try to save on content and are not willing to pay for quality work. This is something I just can’t fathom out. Most companies haggle on content prices but then waste hundreds of Dollars on campaigns that don’t work. I have given consultancy to marketing managers and VPs that bash a network’s traffic, when most of the time they’re not really using the right content on that specific network, or they’re using poor quality content. A simple few content tweaks will often paint a different picture.

When creating content make sure the service or people you are working with understand your objectives. Writing for lead generation is completely different compared to writing for page engagement or brand awareness. The first question your copywriter should ask you is “What are your goals?”. This is essential in order to pump out quality content that will meet objectives. Furthermore, its important to understand that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Content that works on display networks will have to be adapted for Social Networks and content that works on social platforms may not work as-is on Content Marketing networks. You might have to spend a few extra Dollars adapting your content if you want it to work. Obviously this is better than wasting a couple of hundred Dollars on a non-effective marketing campaign.

I have been doing content marketing for quite a few years. Even after so long I constantly create new content and ideas. I try to stay up-to-date with the recent content trends. Stuff that works and I am always working on upping my content-game to improve performance on campaigns.  Plenty of what I do fails but the ones that work, work like a charm.

3) 80% of the Job is Picking the Right Picture

If this is not obvious by now, then it should be. We’ve all heard the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well on Facebook, a picture is worth much more than that. It is the first thing your users are going to see and it is the first thing that is going to stick with them. When 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, it doesn’t matter what type of ad you make, your image needs to be visually appealing and grab attention.

Now let’s talk about Relevance.

Relevance is critical for success when using Facebook advertising. You Relevance Score is calculated based on the positive and negative feedback an Ad receives from its target audience.
The more relevant your Ad image, Ad copy, and destination page is to your audience, the more positive feedback you are going to get. Feedback will effect your score and Facebook will give your Ad preference accordingly. Therefore select your images carefully. Choose an image that will drive engagement as this is the first thing that people tend to respond to.

Images of people work best. Preferably their faces. Use close-ups of attractive faces that resemble your target audience. I have found that women work better than men, even if you are targeting women. Crazy or funny pictures also attract clicks.

4) Choose Your Audience Wisely

Facebook’s targeting options are amazing. You can target users by location, age, gender, interests, connections, relationship status and a bunch of other parameters. Most people when starting out on Facebook target the largest groups possible. This is a big No No! These groups are more expensive and less targeted. Think about it logically, if you are not targeting the right audience and you are running your campaigns on a broad audience, your click through rates will be much lower. This is obvious right? Your Ad simply won’t interest everyone and you will get thousands of impressions but hardly any clicks.

If your CTR is low then this will effect your CPM rate and Relevance. The higher your CPM rate and lower your Relevance, the more you are going to be paying for clicks.

When targeting an audience, I try to focus on Age, Gender, Location and Interests. Facebook allows you to target interests by broad categories and precise interests. I tend to use precise interests because when targeting an audience using broad categories you are going to most of the time show your Ad to irrelevant people. You will end up finding out that Broad Categories are less targeted, they cost more and people click less on Ads. Precise interest targeting might be harder and require more effort but if you can find a few interests that are accurate your CPC will be much lower.

Another trick you can do is to target your competitors. If they have big Facebook Pages you can target their brand name as an interest.

5) Monitor Your Frequency

Once you have got your campaign up and running, you will need to give it some time. Tolerance is the key. At first you might find that your CPC or CPM costs are high. This is perfectly fine. The FB algorithm takes time until it adjusts itself and takes into consideration all the Ad’s factors. It’s important to make sure that your CTR is high. If you are getting a good CTR then costs will fall. It goes without saying that you don’t just need a good CTR but rather a Quality CTR.

The next thing to monitor is your frequency. This is one of the most important metrics to monitor on Facebook. I try to stick around the 1.1 mark. If it increases then I know that my Ad is being seen more than once to each person. This is my own capping mechanism but without the capping functionality. If you notice that your frequency is increasing, this will directly effect your costs and performance – This is the time to expand your audience or pause the Ad and let it rest.

Conclusion

While there is no right or wrong when running campaigns, the main thing is to test and to try to constantly improve your results. Some of the things above might not work for all of you and if you’ve found a different way of extracting quality traffic from Facebook then stick to what works.

Need help creating quality content that drives conversion. Get in touch!

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