With the current state of the Facebook ad landscape starting to look pretty saturated it’s natural to start to wonder if it’s even worth it- and if so, how best to optimize an ad for the best results. Well i’m here to say that yes, Facebook ads (And especially Facebook video ads) are still an amazing way to get your business in front of the right audience, at the right time. It’s just getting a little more challenging and a little more costly to do so. So while the ads might not be the bargain they used to be, you can still get amazing results with a little planning and some great targeting.
As discussed in our previous State of Facebook Advertising post, video is rising quickly in the eyes of many publishers for it’s ability to catch the eye of viewers and it’s relatively lower cost in the ad network. You don’t have to be a video production superstar to get some great clips (Check out Fiverr for some great producers) either. But what we are here today to talk about is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle! The best video in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t get it in front of the right audience – and to do that you’ll need to pick the right kind of optimization.
To start off i’m going to introduce you to the two new types of bidding optimization that has been introduced for Facebook video ads: Pay Per Impression and Pay Per View. Both are found in the bidding section when setting up your campaign.
Video Views – Pay per Impressions
This bid type is optimizing to reach the audience most likely to watch at least ten seconds of your video but does not guarantee any amount of time spent viewing. If you want to set a custom bid here you are able to do so, but Facebook does not guarantee that your bid will stay below that limit although they do point out that it is uncommon for bidding to go above your limits. Basically they are saying that this option is good for letting Facebook’s algorithm decide how much to bid and which audience segments to display to. It’s algorithm is pretty sophisticated so i’m inclined to believe them.
Video Views – Pay per View
Similar to the above optimization in that Facebook video ads will be optimized to find audiences likely to watch at least ten seconds of your video, this type will only charge you once a viewer has watched a minimum of ten seconds of video or 97% if your video is less than ten seconds long. This method also differs in that bidding will NEVER go above your max bid if you choose to set one. Facebook says that this option should be only used when you want to make sure that your cost per video view does not exceed a particular amount. I say go ahead and use it, especially if you have a smaller budget that you want to stretch for every penny. Larger campaigns should let Facebook optimize for the best audience and bid amount.
- Next up, a few more tips to help you make the most of a video ad campaign:
- Target a specific segment of your audience according to the subject matter of the videos
- Add captions. Most videos are played on silent so make sure you have captions to hook a viewers attention without sound.
- Use a bright title card. Catch the viewers interest quickly as they scroll through their news feed. (Check out this post by Social Media Examiner on executing this well)
With these tips combined with some knowledge about how the video ad optimization works you should be on your way to setting up the right video ad campaign for you. In general a good rule of thumb is that Facebook’s algo is pretty good finding the right audience and bid for your campaign, providing that you have enough budget. If you are short on cash then make sure to take a little more of the reigns and do some more homework to figure out the targeting as granular as you can on your own.