New to Facebook Ads--Some questions! (5)
Hello! So I am in a fun seat- Currently the only person in charge of acquisition in a start-up company called Tracy's Closet. We are a social e-commerce where women can use items they already have in their Closets to get what they want from other women who share their style and size. Based on my target research, I found out that there are a lot of women actually using Facebook groups as a platform to trade/sell pre-loved clothes, and so I have decided to take a stab at Facebook Ads!
As a new face to the platform, there are holes in regards to understanding why certain ads were or weren't successful and how to optimize them. Currently- I am brainstorming my next campaign (goal: registrations) using all the results I have compiled. My most receptive audiences thus far have been "Online shopping & Fashion" and "Clothing Resale". Here's where I'm at:
1) Ads performed better when they were split up by age bracket (18-24, 25-34, 35-44). My boss suggested to switch to 18-45 (for better reach), but this hasn't improved actions. Suggestions?
2) I have 3-4 pictures that have done really well in some campaigns ($3.2 per conversion- the best I've seen so far), haven't reached their potential audience, but have lost momentum when I created new campaigns with them.
* Does this mean that I need to get new creative for this audience (even though the freq. is only 1.17)? Should I just extend campaigns when ads are doing well rather than starting new ones?
3) Lastly, I usually have a lifetime budget of $300.00 per ad set [3 diff. ads], oCPM (optimized for clicks). Not sure if this is the way to go.
Appreciate any nuggets you have in regards to this. I am learning a LOT by reading the forum! But as a newbie, I'd like to know more from the solo acquisition people who have to manage all aspects of the project. I feel overwhelmed sometimes 
1) A performance won't improve by splitting it into age groups, if your ad CTR/Engagement is same across all age groups ( which is worth testing ? ). CVR may improve. But i would look at ROI for further optimization.
2) Keep running them till ad degrades in performance ( Fall in CTR and increment in cost ).
3) oCPM is ok. Its much better than any other offering
1. I would think the mindset of woman who are swapping clothes differs as you move through the ages. How many people do you have using the service so far? I would leverage any data available and tailor ads/landing pages to the type of clothes and apparel these woman are evidently interested in.
2. What do you mean by new campaigns? Duplicates of the high performing ads? Or new campaigns using different ad images? There are lots of reasons why you may lose traction.
If your ads are sitting at 1.17 frequency then just extend budgets instead of starting new ones... if on a lifetime budget try to extend it in increments rather than jumping from $300 to $600 - that may give a burst of traffic that causes problems.
3. I would usually opt for daily budgets. Lifetime budgets have their uses but they can be annoying if you then want to scale.
How many groups are there on FB that focus on clothes swapping? You could use Open Graph search to scrape user IDs from these and then directly target those women.
Also, I presume you are using news feed ads?
Good point on the first answer Zeno. We currently have 13,300 women using the site, 2,300 of which came directly from Facebook Ads. I have been using two approaches in terms of creative: 1) Lifestyle images (fashionable women who look great) 2) Product (items of interest). Some lifestyle images have performed well across all age groups so I was thinking to split up my next campaign ($500 budget) as follows:
18-45 W- Shopping & Fashion - News Feed Ad
Image 1// C1 18-45 W
Ad 1 [duplicate]
Ad 2 [duplicate]
Ad 3 [duplicate]
Image 2// C1 18-45 W
Ad 1 [duplicate]
Ad 2 [duplicate]
Ad 3 [duplicate]
Image 3// C1 18-45 W
Ad 1 [duplicate]
Ad 2 [duplicate]
Ad 3 [duplicate]
* My gut keeps pushing me to run a campaign per age bracket (because there are a few images that performed better in diff 3 age brackets)-- which would push me to 18 ads at $55 per ad set. Would this be the best way to test this? Or should I divide ages in advert sets?
2. I meant duplicate ads that performed well in one campaign into a new one- that's where I'm saying big changes in momentum.
* A LOT of Facebook groups do swapping! I have actually been using this funny program called Facebook Snatcher that pulls Facebook IUD's (although it's more of a manual process, so Ill have to check out Open Graph). I have seen a lot of success with "snatching" ID's and then creating lookalike audiences for targeting.
I guess my main goal is to figure out the "Stickiness" of the ads right now in regards to creative and target demo. They worked so well for a bit and then, I started running less ads with higher budgets (assuming this would achieve volume) and....... I feel like I'm going backwards.
I would go with your gut and split out age groups into separate campaigns.
Rarely do Facebook ads perform uniformly across age groups - particularly images.
You can split into separate campaigns or ad groups, the end result is the same - a campaign is basically a container for ad groups, the only real purpose it serves right now is setting an annoying campaign objective that locks you into certain ad types.
Also, if you are running oCPM news feed ads, you probably don't need 3 duplicates - this is mainly for CPC ads. I haven't found much use for this when running oCPM as the 'sticking' phenomenon is largely absent, it's more at the mercy of Facebook's nebulous oCPM system and duplicate ads can give you a false sense of ad performance here. If you do run dupes, run them for many days before making a call.
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