Here’s a confession: I’ve been working with Facebook ads for 2 years and I still don’t get why some campaigns have a 400% higher cost-per-click than others.
Actually, I do know that the type of content you share together with tens of different targeting & bidding options play a huge role in your ad results.
But what if you’re sharing the very same blog article and get a 400% difference in CPC across different ad groups?
The ad campaign you thought wonderful is actually giving you three times fewer clicks for the same budget. It makes you feel like…
(If something similar hasn’t happened to you, you’re simply not running enough Facebook ad A/B tests)
The tried-and-tested formula to promote blog posts on Facebook
I wanted to share the formula I’ve been using when sharing and boosting blog posts on Facebook.
This method has delivered the best results time and time again, compared to other attempts to promote our blog content on Facebook. It has played a crucial role in growing our blog traffic from 1.6k to 32k monthly visitors.
The Facebook ads CPC depends on many aspects, including the type of content you share. Here’s a quick overview of the campaigns this method has proven useful for:
What’s being shared: B2B blog articles
The average budget: $100 – $500
The average CPC: $0.50
? STEP 1: Create a Facebook post
The best way to start promoting your content on Facebook is not promoting it at all.
Instead, post it to your brand’s Facebook Page. The post will organically reach about 2% of the people liking your Facebook page. That’s not a huge win, but it helps.
Tip: Make sure that your Facebook ad design is colourful, high in contrast, and matches with your post’s copy.
You can also add emojis to your Facebook ads to make them highly engaging and shareable.
? STEP 2: Ask your team & friends to like & share
The success of your Facebook ad campaigns depends on its credibility – do people believe that the content is good enough to click on.
The more likes and shares a Facebook post has, the more likely are people to think it’s good.
More likes under your post = more clicks, likes, and shares.
To get the first likes and shares under your Facebook post that you’re going to boost, ask your team members to contribute.
Right after publishing the post, send your team an email or post to your private groups. Include the link to your latest Facebook post and ask everyone to like & share it with their friends.
After you’ve gathered at least 8 likes/shares, move on to the next step.
(You can also skip this step and not gather any previous likes. However, your ad will likely have a higher cost-per-click)
? STEP 3: Create the right audience
One of the keys to successful Facebook advertising campaigns is finding the right audience that’s interested in your offer.
While interest-based targeting is the easiest way to set up an audience, this is not what you want to do – there are people a lot more interested in your content.
Create a remarketing audience of the people who have previously read your blog.
If you have already installed the Facebook Pixel to your website, you can simply go to the Facebook Audiences and create a new custom audience based on website traffic.
Target people who have visited your blog (or the entire website if you have a low traffic) in the past 30-60 days.
Once you’ve created the audience, wait for 1-2 hours before using it. It takes Facebook some time to gather data about your website’s past visitors and the Custom Audience won’t be ready instantaneously.
If you’re unsure which audience to target, create multiple ad sets and A/B test your Facebook ad audiences to find the one with the highest ROI.
? STEP 4: Boost your Facebook post
After your post has some likes & shares to increase credibility, it’s time to boost your Facebook post, targeting blog readers in the right locations.
I usually prefer to boost the post as soon as possible, to give it some momentum. So get those likes from your team members as fast as possible and boost the post in 1 hour after publishing.
Maybe it’s just me but it seems that Facebook delivers a lower cost-per-click when first presented low budgets. (Anyone else noticed this?)
The way I like to start the boost is with a small bid and 1-day duration.
Depending on the size of your campaign budget, you can start with a larger budget (in this phase, the recommended bid is 10-20% of your total budget).
After you’ve set up your campaign, hit the “Boost” button and start waiting for the first results to come in.
? STEP 5: Review the results and increase the budget
After at least 6 hours have passed since you started the content boosting Facebook campaign, it’s time to check the results.
Look for your campaign’s engagement rate and the average cost-per-engagement & cost-per-click.
If you’re happy with the results, increase the and leave the campaign running for an extended period of time.
Et voila! You have a well-performing content promotion campaign. ?
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P.S. I’m seriously interested is hearing how you promote your blog content on Facebook. Leave a comment and let’s have a discussion.