Social Media

Top 3 Facebook Ad Hacks: Boost your Campaign Performance

While planning some Facebook campaigns, I noticed a couple of new features that Facebook recently introduced to ease the life of advertisers. These features are awesome and definitely worth a try!

#1 Split testing

Split testing is just the same as A/B testing, in which Facebook will test your campaigns on the basis of the parameters you select. It also allows testing 3 variations like A/B/C testing. However, you can only test one variable at a time. The system will create a different group of audience and run the campaign. You can select the one of the following option and Facebook will make variations for you:

1 - Split testing in Facebook ads

Split testing is available only for these types of campaigns:

1 - Split testing in Facebook ads

How to create a split test?

When you open your ad manager or power editor, you should get an option to create the campaign. Within that, you need to select a checkbox that asks you to do split testing on the campaign.

It can be done at the ad set level for 3 variables:

4 3 types of split testing in Facebook ads

a. Delivery optimization

You can optimize the ad set for various delivery options available in this section.

Facebook offers the following techniques for testing:
5 - Delivery optimization split testing in Facebook

You can select any option to test your ad sets to obtain the desired results. I would recommend you to go with Conversions, to see which ad is performing better in terms of the conversion rate. You can make it manual or automatic, and you can change the bids in both the variations. The remaining settings for the campaign will be the same as a normal campaign.

6 how to optimize ads for delivery in Facebook ads

b. Audiences:

You can select the audience from your previously saved audience list. You can select 2 or 3 different saved audiences and Facebook will split those audiences to test the best performing segment.

7 Facebook audience split testing

c. Placements:

There are basically two types of placements available: automatic and manual. In the automatic avatar, Facebook will decide on the placement. On the other hand, you can select the platforms where you want to show your ad manually. You can also customize the placement by selecting the place of appearance: a right side box, news feed etc.
8 Facebook placement split testing
After selecting the desired options you can simply set the budget for the split test campaign.

#2 Split Test Budget

There are two types of budget methods available:

a. Even Split:

The budget will be divided equally amongst two ad sets.
9 Split Test Budget in Facebook ads - Even budget split testing

b. Weighted Split:

The budget can be modified to suit your requirements. In simpler words, you can split the budget into 80-20, 60-40 and so on.
9 Split Test Budget in Facebook ads - Even budget split testing

#3 LTV customer – Lifetime value custom audience

Customer Lifetime Value Feature is another cool feature you should check out. Facebook recently added this option in the audience section. To understand the feature you must be aware of “lookalike audiences” on Facebook. When you create lookalike audiences, you upload a list of the customers and Facebook finds a list of people who match that audience. By using the LTV feature, Facebook will help in finding those audiences which are most likely to react to your ad and expand your business.

9 Split Test Budget in Facebook ads - Even budget split testing
So what exactly is Customer Lifetime Value?

Basically, the transactions made by a customer with the company in past determine the lifetime value of that customer. It’s completely monetary and depends on how much a client has already paid you. The lookalike audiences for higher LTV customers could drive valuable customers to your business. Facebook uses LTV to find people who are similar to your highest value customers.

You can create the audience in Business manager -> Audience section.

These are the following steps you need to take to target LTV audience.

12 how to create value based custom audience in Facebook business manager

To use the value-based lookalike feature, you will have to upload a list of identifiers as well as value-based attributes. You can select fields from the available ones to add to your customer file and targeting options. By doing so, you will get the customers who are most likely to convert, aka high potential customers.

13 Custom audience - Value-Based Lookalike feature in Facebook Ads

#4 Fullscreen Canvas Experience

Another feature is Fullscreen Canvas, a mobile experience. You can create a custom layout to drive better engagement.

14 Facebook Ads - Fullscreen Canvas Experience

When you check the box Add a fullscreen Canvas, the field will be expanded to select the template for an image, a video etc. All the templates are optimized for different business objectives: acquiring new leads, selling the product, showcasing business etc. There is also an advanced template-builder available, which will allow you to customize templates. You can tailor the templates you build to provide a better user experience for mobile users.

15 Add a fullscreen Canvas in Facebook ad campaign

When you select the template, you can edit the text, button, image, link and other attributes according to your business needs.

I have used these features for my campaigns. The cost of running campaigns has reduced, and it is easier to generate leads. Cost-per-Click is also reduced and the CTR has been better than the previous campaigns. I loved these tools. I hope you will find them useful too!

About author

Richa Pathak is Founder & Editor at SEM Updates – The Digital Marketing Magazine. She is an emerging digital marketing influencer, a creative consultant & a corporate trainer. With a decade of experience in working with B2C & B2B brands across the globe, she is also a featured author in top-10 marketing magazines globally. She offers various consulting, training, & mentorship programs to share her knowledge. Richa's principle - Plan, Execute, Learn, Implement, Repeat! Digital marketing is Richa's passion & love. She is an innovator & wants to explore more, learn more, try different tools, hacks with various campaigns. She loves reading non-fiction books and does nature photography.