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What is the best bidding strategy on FB? (23)

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So basically I have run on FB in the past but somehow I feel that I ain't doing the bidding correctly. My campaigns do show promise but I simply cannot manage to get profitable because I am feeling there's something wrong I am doing.

This is my POA usually:

--> Bid at the mean of the bid suggested by FB when creating the ad(s)

--> As the first day progresses, eliminate non performing images

--> At the end of the first day, lower bids on the remaining images by a small margin. (This I am doing but I aint sure if it's correct because FBs suggested bid is still unchanged surprisingly :s)

--> Try and narrow it down to only 1 or 2 ads per campaign by the 2nd day. (Again I am feeling I am wrong here)

--> Again lower bids on the performing ads at the END of the day.

--> Also, sometimes the CPC shown that I am paying is much less than what I have bid, but I just can't manage to lower my bid because the suggested bid isn't changing though the CPC is. This confuses me even further.

--> If I still lower my bid, my CTR falls as expected.

What do you guys think I should be doing?

Krish

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This has been discussed so many times on this forum, please do a search. Cliffs (for explanations, search and read previous threads):

* You don't need to ever lower bids. CPC will go down at the same rate, whether you lower bid or not
* Guys are getting $0.01 CPC on a $0.99 bid and staying on that bid
* Changing too much shit = look like a dirty scumbag performance marketer to FB
* Suggested bid should never be taken into account for anything ever
* Number of images: just simple maths/marketing/winners. Eventually you will have 1 image until you exhaust a demo, and a backup image to breathe new life into the campaign unless you want to pause the campaign for a few weeks.
* Optimisation: if not making money, it's not working. Search for more info
* Budgeting/bid: impacts initial CTR, which impacts campaign. You never said at what time you were starting ads/campaigns

Good luck.

As somebody who took a week to categorise every strategy/tip from every single FB thread here (the whole FB section + FB Follow-Alongs) going back to 2011, I can tell you that you can find everything you're looking for with a simple search.

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I'll bid pretty high .75 - 1.25 to start and if CTR is good, price could come down as low .10 without touching anything. In the past I would never touch bid at this point. Lately, after running between 24-48 hours, my CPC gradually starts to increase. Even if my CTR holds the entire time or even increases, the CPC always starts to climb slowly. I've been dropping bids but traffic dries up when I do. I still haven't found a balance of the .10 clicks I get on first 2 days and the traffic that comes with it.

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I try and start my ads and campaigns just when a day is about to end. So it's like 11:55 pm on a Friday or any other day.

I really liked your tips btw. I guess I should have searched a bit deeper but nonetheless, thanks for having put all of them up here.

Okay so assuming I bid at 0.8+ and you say that the CPC is going to fall on its own. My query is that I end up losing money bidding high mainly because I fix my first day budgets pretty high - like $500 or so (Geez, I used to think that this is the best way to get traffic)

But what do you suggest one fix his budget while beginning a campaign? $50/$100? I mean, say on the first or second day of the campaign, whilst you are stll eliminating images.

I think another mistake I have made is that when I see money begin blown away too fast, I always end up lowering the budget in the middle of the day, thereby bringing traffic to a halt.

Also, if one image outperforms all the others for two days consistently, I usually pick it as the winner. But does running only a single image for a campaign then, hamper traffic?

Krish

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@redrummr - Interesting Cliff Notes - nice one! I'm going to collate a guide to FB bidding strategies at some point, and will definitely refer back to this.

@cpacharger -

No worries - it can be hard to find what you're looking for on a site with as much info as Stack That Money! We're well aware of that, and I'm actively working to index the site at the moment.

It's always worth doing a quick search to check if the question you want to ask has already been answered, but if you don't find the information there, please don't feel bad about asking a question - any question.

STM's here to help you improve as an affiliate marketer, and I'm always very happy to point people to appropriate resources if they're out there.

As Mr Green and Stackman have said in the past, there are NO silly questions

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As far as bidding goes, I mostly run (shock) non-affiliate stuff on Facebook (and not in huge volume), but I tend to bid around the upper range of the suggested bid initially. As Redrummr says, if you've got a good ad the CPCs will cheerfully plummet on their own.

What CTRs are you getting on your ads? And how many clicks/views are you allowing each ad before you cut it? If you're giving your ads too few views, you're at the mercy of random chance - but if you're giving them views past the point of statistical significance, that doesn't get you more useful data.

Finally, what sort of frequencies are you seeing on your ads, particularly once you eliminate down to one or two images?

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Hi Caurmen,

I am culling ads only if the CTR is below 0.08% even after 20k impressions (in the initial stages here, the freq is between 1.2 and 2 for each ad).

However, once I do narrow down to the ONE winning ad, I see frequencies above 2.8 and my CTRs are from 0.18% upwards. I know it's not like the staggering CTRs which other super affs see, but still it's a good start for me.

I also do not know at what point should I be touching the budget. This could be another part where I have misunderstood things and hence, am going wrong.

Krish

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Am puzzled.

My CTR goes up and so does my CPC. What's exactly going on here? :S

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Heres a great read that should help http://blog.bevomedia.com/2011/09/27...dding-tactics/

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I disagree on not changing your max CPC's. I change it on some campaigns and since it removes some of the upper limit of bids the average CPC drops even lower. I get a 1-1.5% CTR on some ads and it does not seem to ever go below 5 cents in the US.

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That may be part of your issue, at least in the testing stages. 20k impressions is a hell of a lot to give each ad, particularly if they're not performing well initially. At that point, you know with 80% confidence that a 0.08% CTR ad will never show a CTR of above 0.11% - unless you can make money on a 0.1% CTR, you'd be better to cut the ads earlier.

Have you seen any ads that have dropped to a profitable CPC for you, and if so, what CTR were they at? That'll give you a good level to aim for. Once you know that, post it here (if you're OK with that) and I can probably give you a better idea of what number of impressions gives you solid statistical significance without eating your bankroll.

To give you some example figures: if I decided you were only interested in ads with a CTR of over 0.2, a bit of math using this useful calculator tells me that at 2,000 impressions I can cut any ad that has either 0 or 1 clicks, with only a 10% chance that those ads might have ended up with a CTR over 0.2%. At 5,000, I can cut any ad showing less than a 0.1% CTR. By 10,000 impressions, anything with a less than 0.15% CTR gets the chop.

Remember, too, that fresh ads always have an unrealistically high CTR when they're first displayed. If you're looking for an eventual .2% CTR, you might initially want to aim at a .4% CTR or even higher.

Hope that helps!

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Even with 0.3 to 0.4 CTR, my average CPC ends up at 0.50 or so .. though the suggested bid is much less! I think I will drop my bid now to see what happens.

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Cool - let us know what results you get!

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I am a bit confused. My bid, even though just lowered a bit, is still almost $0.15 to $0.20 more than the upper limit of the suggested bid range. Yet traffic seems to have slowed down and my CTR has crashed by a good 0.1%! I am now actually wondering what works when it comes to Facebook marketing. All of it is so confusing.

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Set budgets super low in the beginning, HUGE CTR's will happen

Then reap the benefits of super low clicks and larger budget

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^ this for sure! Definitely the best strategy to take when launching new campaigns. It work's best for me to start budget low on fresh campaigns and then raise budget to a larger spend moments after my account shifts over to the next billing day, makes for cheap clicks and gnarly CTRs!

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Like Maynzie and Dub said I start with a low budget too. Your CPCs will be high the first day or two, mine usually drop significantly the 2nd day. Once your CPCs drop you can begin gradually increasing your budget. If you change your budget from $5 to $50 your CPCs will spike. I usually only increase mine by 10%-20% at a time to help keep my CPC low. If my CPC is staying down and I want to get my budget up I will increase by small amounts 2-3 times throughout the day. As long as the CPC holds I will keep doing this until I get up to where I want to be. If the CPC jumps up then I will let it rest for a day or two until it levels off.

-Aaron

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thats an awesome tip, what about your max bid? Are you gradually bidding high and reducing your bax bid while you gradually increase your budget?

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What time is next day for FB? 12:01am Pacific?

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I always bid high (more than the suggested bid) and I never touch it again. The other day I created some ads. I bid 0.38/click which was more than suggested. Today I am paying 0.02-0.03 cents per click. My bid is still at 0.38 and will stay there. Just let them drop on their own.

-Aaron

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Low budget on new campaigns is the best strategy.

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Thanks for the tip again. I always run through the habbit of constantly adjusting my bid, and playing around with it. That probably ruins my ctr and drives cpc up.

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that was great, gonna try this

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I'm pushing dating.

I started with by bidding a little on the upper side of the suggested bid. I set the campaign budget at $10/day, and let them run for 2 days without touching anything. The suggested bids are also coming down. For example, for UK Female Demo 41-45 (no interests or likes) the initial suggested bid was $0.84. I bid 0.90, and FB charged around 0.89. After running the campaign for 3 days, the bids have come down to 0.66. The CPCs have dropped a bit, but not significantly like a few of you have mentioned. The CTR is is around 0.044%. I'm using photos of guys btw if that helps. I'm no where getting 0.05 cpc. I believe 5 cents cpc is what you get when you target male demo, isn't it? What is considered to be an "average" or decent CTR for women demo?

The reason why I don't use interests or likes is because the available demo is very low - around 300k, so if I add interests, that would substantially reduce the targeted audience. Do I have to wait a few days more to up the budget and see if the ctr keeps climbing up thereby reducing my cpcs?

Please advise.

Thanks!

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