Hey guys,
There are lots of discussions since FB launched CBO. Some found it's too uncontrollable but others might find it helpful to get away from "micro-management" on campaigns. I really would like to initiate a thread on various CBO experiments and case studies to gather knowledge and verify rumours. Hopefully, all of you can share your idea, experience and experiment results.
Here is one test i did recently:
Idea/Hypothesis: I want to test out how ad delivery pattern of a campaign under CBO is different from non-CBO
Experiment:
A.$1000 daily budget CBO campaign with 4 ad sets each has similar size of audience
B. 4 single ad set campaigns with $250 daily budget each and contain identical ad sets like in A. Basically separate A's 4 ad sets into 4 campaigns.
Other settings are identical and I also use 2 brand new pages and 2 accounts to minimize the bias. I am running an offer in finance.
Result: (based on one month performance)
1. in the first 19 days, B generated more conversions with higher CPA than A did. Eventually the total ROI was better and the spending was much faster. This pattern was relative consistent with minor fluctuation during learning stage.
2. From 20th day, B started to show huge volatility. The CPA was as high as 3-4 times of average on some days and FB still tried to spend faster than in A on those days. However, A's CPA is relatively stable with lower conversions.
3. Overall in 30 days, B delivered more profit than A with more conversions and also higher CPA.
My thoughts:
1. CBO campaign may try to control frequency by shifting budget to prevent audience saturation. One observation is that one good day of performance in an adset does not suggest same or higher spending on next day. Sometimes that ad set actually spends very little on next days. This may explain why A's CPA is more stable. Therefore, if you want a more balanced delivery at campaign level, CBO will help.
2. B gives more short term boost on ad delivery especially after learning. It seems that budget spending overrides CPA optimization. if your goal is to maximize ad exposure across all audience segments in a relative short term, CBO will probably be your roadblock.
3. I guess I should keep the test for a bit longer period to see what will happen if frequency goes higher. Also I will probably repeat the experience on a smaller audience size to see how significant the impact is.
I really hope you guys find this is relevant and can share some of your test results to extend our knowledge on FB ad.
Thanks and have fun with CBO!
FaceOnAsia
I'm REALLY surprised this post didn't get more thanks! A case study like this deserves more eyeballs!
I know it's difficult to draw conclusions from just one experiment, but the biggest takeaway for me is to test both CBO and non. Just because many people are having great success with CBO doesn't necessarily mean it's the be-all-end-all.
Thanks so much @FaceOnAsia! I'm definitely putting this into the weekly newsletter!
Amy
Great share @FaceOnAsia!
It would be really great if you can share more about your CBO experience.
Here is what's working best for me.
For our hunting brand we are very limited when it comes to targeting because it T1 EU countries is max 1.5M hunters per country.
That said, I have very simple structure but it's working and I can see that's much more stable then ABO.
1) One CBO campaign per country
2) 5 sets with the same targeting
3) Each adset has different image
4) After the first few days I'm monitoring post-click metrics in GA, especially BR because sometime I my creatives can be too clickbaitish and my BR goes through the roof
5) Manually kill the adsets if needed.
Usually I end up with two or three adsets and when the performance drops, I repeat the process.
Thanks Amy! I'm doing more experiments now and will share results with you guys.
FaceOnAsia
Great tips, Wakeboarder!
I will probably use dynamic ads to repeat the test which potentially gives a fairer learning stage for each variation of creatives.
FaceOnAsia