Does CTR really mean anything anymore? (23)
It's a topic that's always been talked about as it's the main point for cheaper cpc but how is it working for you at the moment?
Here's my issue....
Last week had a few ads seeing 1.xxx% CTR seeing 0.05/0.06 cpc (US Demo)
I've started to tweak this week and set up some new campaigns..... inital CTR's are 5.xxx% even reach 8% and this has now seen over 500 clicks yet i'm seeing cpc at $0.10-$0.15, really boggled me, obviously I will be leaving the ads to run for a few days to naturally see how much it drops but no idea why it's 3 times as high as my last set of ads (no change to ads just fresh campaigns)
Also these campaigns were started at the start of the day so it's nothing to do with the 24hr spread
Do you know if any competition may have got in there targeting the demo?
very very doubtful dude but i was paying as little as 0.04 on shittier CTR, not im hitting 5.00%+ CTR's and that's after a few 1000 clicks, so not a small test.
My $0.10 on this: CTR matters, but it's an indicator rather than a directly relevant factor.
For example, LP CTRs are useful indicators of what's going wrong - if the CTR's drastically low, that could be contributing to a low EPC. And ad CTRs on most platforms are strongly enough correlated with CVRs that it's possible to use very low CTRs an early-warning system, in effect, to save money on obvious loser ads.
But I'm sure that most experienced affiliates have seen the "super-high CTR that doesn't translate to CVR" problem.
Not talking about LP CTR i'm talking about FB ad CTR being a factor for prices of cpc. I've now got one ad doing 0.300% seeing 0.03cpc yet the other 2 with 5%+ with 1000's of clicks doing 0.10.... can you explain that? Same demo etc the lot.
OK, that I cannot explain. Been seeing a few threads like this recently - seems like FB's having one of its funny turns again.
Anyone have any insight?
Yeah man, I have 3.0 CTRs that I'm dropping .20 a click on right now. I made a thread similar to this yesterday. Add me on Skype if you want to have a conversation about FB. I'm in the same boat as you and would love to chat about it.
Skype: Michael.Bagozzi
AIM: MichaelBagozzi
hey,
ive been seeing the same thing for awhile...have you had any luck? I run ads with shittier CTR b/c they get cheaper likes, all else equal. Only thing I can think of is complaints or peple reporting the ads may increase CPC..... either way, i said fuck it and just make a bunch of ads, let them run a few days and pause the high cost per likes while keeping the low ones....still makes no sense to me though
Yeah, checkout the thread titled "ad delivery problems"
I worked through it and posted along as I fixed it.
Guys... CTR is not magical. There are qualities of FB's ad serving that go beyond what we see. I don't even see many people consider the *unique* CTR (not overall) and frequency (both of which you CAN see) - these matter a lot.
You also can't see what slot you sit in. If you sit in the top ad spot and get a CTR of 0.3% you will pay more than somebody sitting in 2nd spot and getting 0.4%! That same 0.4% would pay MORE being in the top spot. Yet you can't see this info. Bids come into play here.
If you have 5% CTR, you are running News Feed ads, and you're not doing very well - I've never kept a News Feed ad under 6% CTR and many of mine do 10-11% CTR from age 25 onwards in multiple countries. Everyone should test to see if they fit into their marketing plans, because it's not as clear-cut as we think. 10% CTR on News Feed ad gets me the same CPC as 1% CTR (for certain age groups) on a RHS ad. It's just not as simple as "higher CTR = less CPC" especially when it comes to different types of ads.
I have two RHS ads with volume hitting 6.0 CTRs right now actually. It's rare but possible. You're right about the news feed ads though. I don't even like to mix them in with my RHS ad campaigns. You can't figure out what's working and what's not. Unfortunately FB automatically has them both active when you create an ad and a lot of people scroll right past the check boxes.
6% CTR on RHS is not right. It's likely it is being mixed with other things. It doesn't matter if you are calling out an interest and have a logo of the interest and show their town name, 6% of people (in 25 visits) will not click the ad for any meaningful number of clicks (more than 100 clicks let's say).
Sorry, but it is not possible. It is a News Feed ad, or you have failed to declare your want for a RHS ad only.
I will of course eat my hat if it's a RHS ad, but when considering the CPC as well (it should be a fraction of a cent if you had 6% CTR on RHS), I can only come to this conclusion.
My CTR went up from around 2-3% earlier to 6%. It's definitely RHS only. My CPC on these is estimated at 0.00. I'm getting 2-3 clicks per penny as of last time I checked. There's a screen shot of the morning stats in "Ad Delivery Problems" on the second page.
I'm only using tapatalk while I'm out with my daughter right now but it was at 6% when I left. With my luck it won't be there when I'm home to show but it was sitting pretty for awhile even after ramping the budget.
Oh! Right. Sorry. This is probably direct at wildfing then, if he is running RHS ads with a "higher" CPC. 2-3 clicks per cent sounds about right for RHS ads getting that CTR - great work btw!
I was running news feed on the 8% but i was RH only on the 2%+ . I appreciate your input red but i've ran fb solid for the last 3 years, it was odd what I saw 
I will also add now atm i'm running ads in a very competitive demo which I tend to pay upwards of $0.50 cpc on 0.1%+ ads, my ads are 0.050% and lower and i'm seeing dead cheap clicks (bidding high as usual) and i'm still hitting my daily limit..... maybe my account is f**ked up, who knows haha
Originally Posted by wildfing
I will also add now atm i'm running ads in a very competitive demo which I tend to pay upwards of $0.50 cpc on 0.1%+ ads, my ads are 0.050% and lower and i'm seeing dead cheap clicks (bidding high as usual) and i'm still hitting my daily limit..... maybe my account is f**ked up, who knows haha
Perhaps this is the calm before the storm? This is my first Q4 running FB, so I don't have the chops you do... just hope these 1c clicks don't turn into $1 like the stories I've heard.
I'm seeing 3% CTR on RHS with broad targeting. I assumed it was a screw up with newsfeed at first, but it's definitely not.
I think FB have either nailed down their 'clickers' DB of people who will click or they've introduced some new placements but not announced it. I tried looking for a new placement, but didn't find anything.
I noticed their CPM price when the CTR is high is also higher - so it definitely has to be something with the placement/quality of the traffic.
This is pretty on topic with an issue I am having. Seeing very expensive traffic with high CTRs. Here's a screenshot of a 1.4% CTR and .13 CPC. This is a US demo male 40-50 with specific interest targeting. In my experience this should be .03 at the most. Let me know if you guys have any ideas.
All of my prices are up today by a large margin. I was attributing that to Halloween (though I'm probably just trying to justify this to myself more than believing it.)
After moving a lot of traffic on FB lately, I've come to the conclusion that while I can't find correlation between CTR and CPC like I used to in my niches, CTR is a great indicator of which campaigns are less risky to scale. The higher the CTR, the less likely my CPC is going to go up upon upping my budget. If my CTR isn't too high but my clicks are cheap, I'll leave the budget where it is. $100 in penny clicks is better than $200 in 2-3 cent clicks.
A lot of us want to spend as much as possible but it's not always the most effective way to maximize an opportunity.
The reason I'm guessing CTRs and CPCs aren't acting the way people are expecting is now there are more placements to consider.
Before when you only had one placement you could show on, everyone competed on the same field and you knew when your metrics were above average or not.
Now they've introduced more placements (RHS breaks into photo pages, app pages etc) they're charging different prices for these, and showing you in different ones based on your objectives and goals.
You used to be able to bid on specific placements within the RHS, but it seems they grouped them up into one now (Another move to fuck advertisers by FB). So when your CTR is sky high, you on a better placement which commands a higher price and your ad is only performing at an average level if your CPC isn't cheap.
That's some great insight. I've been hearing quite a few people questioning how their CTR is higher than ever while their CPCs rise lately. News feed ads are a lot more expensive than right hand ads but they produce monster CTRs. The only way to really get a feel for which placement is best for you is to split them up into different campaigns.
That option is minimized when creating ads and often overlooked. Unfortunately, they're lumped together as the same ad stats-wise so you have to edit or resubmit the ads to turn one off.
Is anybody finding newsfeed ads beneficial right now? Despite their CTR, the value of a cheaper right hand ad is a lot better for me personally.
Better placements aren't necessarily "better". Top spot on the RHS of a FB wall or home page could cost more and could provide less ROI than being 2-3 spots down (but not all the way down, where they might place CPM ads). Paying the same CPC on the first 4 spots on the RHS, the top ad could still be the wors of the bunch because you get "happy clickers". If you've ever advertised on Search (Bing/Adwords) you'd know that the top spot isn't golden (well sometimes the streamlined spot right at the top centre is)... and that's why you can often track the ad position to find out where the best ROI is. Facebook does not allow you to track this unfortunately.
We need to get creative with bidding and testing everything.
Naesm, your CPC is astonishingly high for that CTR... but then again, it could be the interests, and it could just be US traffic. I get 1c clicks bidding $1.99 (you bid 15c) so we can definitely say that everyone here has a different system. My 1-2c (Aussie cents) clicks all come from 0.2-0.4% CTR at the moment, I used to pay higher for 1%+ CTR. I think I'm just getting very quality traffic and definitely not serial clickers who don't sign up.
When you bid 15c on CPC and your CPC is 13c, you are telling Facebook, "be very careful about how many times you display my ad and to whom, because after a few hundred impressions during a bad period and NO clicks, you are losing money and I will still only pay 15c if my ad is ever clicked again". Along those lines anyway.
IMO bid is only taken into account to enter the initial stream and accure history for that ad. Once it has history, lowering it has never been good for me (either for quality or CPC or longevity).
A lot to consider here, and much of this conjecture is contextless as we all have different systems, so to the readers I would suggest testing absolutely everything.
I think FB are becoming aware of that. To place the correct people in that top RHS happy clicker spot, I think that's what their objectives are trying to achieve. If your goal/objective is off site conversions, they won't place you there as more clicks != more conversions. However, if clicks are your goal then they be more inclined to place you there etc.
I'm not sure if this is the case or not, but this theory would seem to make sense.
In their Ads API, they seem to be suggesting their system tries to learn what your objective is and serve that way to best achieve your goals. They also mentioned in their Ads API webinar that they learn what your objective is from how you bid. CPC for clicks, CPM for views etc.
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