Today’s post is on the 3 ways to optimize Facebook Ads bidding. Enjoy!

What is Facebook Ads Bidding?

If you want to advertise on Facebook, you will have to bid for your Facebook Ads.

This process is like an auction. Because the attention of Facebook users is limited, you will have to bid for advertising space by competing against other advertisers. It is interesting to note that this bidding is not the only consideration taken into account by Facebook. They will also take into consideration the content of your advertisement and its relevance.

How high should you bid for your Facebook Ad? Ideally, your bid amount should be the maximum that you are willing to pay to reach the goal of your campaign. The goal of your campaign can vary–if the goal is to optimise conversion in the target audience, then your bid amount is the maximum amount you are willing to pay per single conversion in the target audience. Facebook follows the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves auction system, which ensures that every advertiser will pay less than his maximum bid. The point of bidding an absolute figure is only to determine whether one wins the round of auction.

So while you don’t need to worry about bidding too high, be sure not to bid too low too! How then, can you optimize bidding on Facebook Ads?

Here are at least three options:

Option #1: Bid to optimize for clicks (CPC)

If you bid to optimize for clicks, you are also saying that you are using the cost per click (CPC) bidding method for Facebook Ads. In other words, you are paying for each click made to your Facebook Ad.

Therefore, if you want engagement on your Facebook Ad, it is a good idea to optimize for clicks. For instance, you can do this when you are promoting any sort of post that does not include a link–such as a photograph, an image, or even a video. Facebook will then display your advertisement to people who are inclined to click anywhere in that space.

What do you do if you want to optimize for conversion or a very specific action? In that case, it might be a better idea to optimize specifically for conversion (option #3) than to optimize for clicks. Optimizing for clicks even when you want conversion might work nonetheless, just not as well as if you were to optmize for conversion.

Option #2: Bid to optimize for impressions.

For this option, you are expected to set a bid that indicates the most you are willing to pay for 1,000 impressions.

When you optimise for impressions, the objective is simply to show your Facebook advertisement to as many people as frequently as possible. In other words, the objective is to increase brand awareness to as many relevant people as possible. Be careful to set your target audience to be relevant though.

When bids are placed to optimize for impressions, Facebook will simply display your advertisement to as many people in your target audience as possible. Therefore, the cost to reach a large audience is likely to be low.

Option #3: Bid to optimize for conversions.

We recommend that you bid to optimize for conversions or a specific action in most cases. There are many variables you can optimize Facebook Ads for, such as for “downloads”, “clicks to website” or “offer claims”. This option works best when you are targetting a large audience because the law of large numbers kicks in. As a result, Facebook can help you filter the top percentage of audiences most likely to act.

For example, if you have Facebook optimize for “page likes”, then your Facebook Ad will be shown to an audience most likely to like your page. Facebook has this prior data based on user activity and their history of liking pages that are similar to yours. The beauty of this option is that Facebook will focus your advertisement to only people who are most likely to perform the particular action you set.

We hope you have enjoyed this simple post on Facebook Ads bidding and optimization! Have a great week ahead.