If you are advertising on Facebook in one way or another, which you should be, one of your ads most likely has something to do with Cost Per Click (CPC). Facebook’s latest update to it’s advertising service narrows down your marketing dollars to focus spend strictly on the type of clicks you actually want, versus spending the budget on multiple factors.
Advertisers rejoice! The time has finally come to start paying for what you actually want to achieve on Facebook and less of what you don’t. Businesses, agencies, and ad companies have all patiently waited for an update to better accommodate small and large businesses and finally it has arrived.
How Has Facebook Defined CPC in the Past?
The current Website Click ads available on Facebook uses advertising spend each time a user clicks on an ad to like it, share it, comment, and click to the website and/or app. Therefore, an ad you originally setup to direct fans from Facebook to click to your website is really spending part of the budget every time someone engages.
The engagement you’re paying for is clicks on the “Like” button, as well as comments and shares. As great as engagement on Facebook is, having users click from Facebook to your website is much more beneficial for businesses wanting to drive traffic, sales, and new leads to their website from Facebook.
“Over the last few years, Facebook’s ad offerings have become increasingly tailored to helping advertisers meet specific business objectives,” Facebook explained in their blog post announcement. “This update is part of that effort: it’s designed to provide measurement that’s more closely aligned with how advertisers are bidding so they can better optimize their campaigns against their stated goals.”
How Will CPC Be Defined Post-Update?
Thanks to Facebook’s latest advertising update, the advertising budget will no longer be used for engagement clicks (likes, shares, and comments), but directly towards an ad objective such as clicks on:
Links to a website outside of Facebook
Call-to-action links directed to another website
Clicks to install an app on Facebook
Clicks to Facebook canvas apps
Videos that direct a user to another website
An update as specific as this could mean an increased cost per each click. The benefit even if the CPC price goes up is that the marketing dollars spent will be better used towards the objectives businesses need to achieve. It will also help advertisers design better ads by analyzing which ads are getting more clicks, versus engagement, and how they can create more clicked-on ads.
It’s About Time
Advertisers and Facebook have had a few bumps in the road together, constantly trying to find a happy place between accurate metrics, real goals achieved, and revenue for both parties. Thankfully, Facebook wants to put a better foot forward in helping both advertisers and users have a better experience using Facebook. By doing so, this update will help businesses get even closer to meeting their advertising goals. It will also allow Facebook to continue profiting from advertising and give Facebook users a better experience with sponsored posts and ads in their Newsfeed. A huge attempt at a win-win for everybody.
Too Good to Be True?
As with any change as big as this there are a few speculations with it’s success. Some argue that the cost per click will be severely affected, increasing so large it will hurt small businesses. Whereas others argue the update will help small businesses use the most of their dollar. The rest of the feedback seems to be positive. Several people even commented on Facebook’s blog post expressing their gratitude for an update like this, giving advertisers and business more effective analytics and the chance to create more effective ads. #nomorepayingfortirekickers
The current CPC for Facebook Advertising will be available until Oct. 7, but the updated CPC is already available to advertisers who are using the updated Ads API.
What do you think about the latest update? Do you think this will give businesses a better return on investment?
The post Facebook Redefines Cost Per Click For Advertisers appeared first on AuthorityLabs.