Hi STM!
I've been thinking for some time about asking around for the best tips to decrease CPC on Facebook. Instead of falling to my knees and spread the cheeks, begging for answers, I want to start out by sharing a few things that I do on a daily-ish basis to decrease CPC in my own campaigns.
1. Creatives
Having better, more relevant creatives are probably the no. 1 place to start if you want to lower your CPC. If you strike the right nerve in your audience, you will be rewarded with higher CTR, higher Relevance Score and in turn, lower CPM.
I usually test 20+ different copy/image combinations when I start a new campaign.
2. Proper Targeting
If you target carpenters for a golf product, your campaign most likely won't be a hole-in-one. You will be punished with low CTR and relevance score, and Facebook will bend you over and take you to Brown Town.
I usually start out running a smaller audience for my initial tests to make sure I target as precisely as possible, and see if the rest of the campaigns have legs.
3. Non-Misleading Ads
If you promise to deliver X on your landing page, and give visitors Y, you're inevitably going to end up with negative feedback on your ad. And negative feedback = higher CPM. So make sure to try and make your ad as congruent to the lander as possible and don't overpromise.
4. Reduce Audience Overlap
If you're running multiple adsets in the same campaign, you might run into an issue of audience overlap. This means that you're suddenly bidding against yourself for multiple adsets. *Cue Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme*
As long as the adsets aren't targeting the exact same thing there is a simple work-around. All you have to do is simply exclude the targeting from Adset A in Adset B and vice versa. Easy!
5. Ad Spend History
After testing myself, and having conversations with other affiliates, I can see that new ad accounts usually have a higher CPM than ad accounts with a bit of spending history.
I also have a tip that I haven't yet tested myself. Can any of you confirm if this has made a positive difference for you CPM?
6. A "Real" Fanpage decreases CPM
If you start to fill out all the little things on your Facebook fanpage (about section, website, CTA button, etc), and start to regularly post content, you'll be rewarded with cheaper clicks.
I'm always chasing a cheaper (but still relevant) click, and would LOVE to hear what you do to decrease your CPC on Facebook!
Cheers!
I would also add to work with dynamic retargeting. While the target segment is still warmed up, it can influence the CPC reducing.
5. Yes, the better reputation the account has (ad-wise, spend-wise etc) the better placements you get and if your ads/targeting are on point your cpc will be below 0,10ct without a problem.
Although I must say I don't see a real difference between farmed accounts vs rented accounts - both with no spend.
Eventually it's all about having ads live with positive comments/likes etc. This has so much impact on your reputation.