The Surprising Reason You’re Not Winning The Meta Ad Auction
I’ve got a juicy Facebook ads breakdown to kickstart your week! Let’s talk about ad auctions and how you can “win” them.
Hint - winning might not be the right goal…
You probably already know that Facebook/Meta ads are based on an auction system.
But most people think it’s simply that the highest bidder wins the ‘prize’ of getting in front of the very best audience for their specific offer. A bit like winning an eBay auction.
That is not actually the full story.
The winner of the auction is the ad with the highest total ‘value’ (more on this below).
The goal of the algorithm isn’t to award the ad with the highest bid a spot in a particular user’s feed.
Meta has other motivations - and wants to accomplish two primary things:
To show a user an ad they are likely to enjoy, take an interest in and engage with, so that people stay on the platform and keep coming back.
Provide results (conversions, traffic, app installs, video views etc) to you, the advertiser paying for the ad.
If only the highest bid mattered, users would be less likely to see the ads they care about…
…and advertisers would be less likely to get the results they paid for.
How Ad Auction Bidding Works
It’s more nuanced than just having the highest bid. The winner of the ad auction is the ad with the highest total value. The total value is determined by three factors:
1. Bid:
This is still a factor. The bid is how much the advertiser is willing to pay to get their desired result. This is sometimes set manually, but in the vast majority of cases, this is set automatically - allowing the algorithm to bid what it needs to to get the most results possible for the budget.
2. Estimated Action Rates:
This is an estimate of the probability that a person will engage with your ad. This could be based on what a user tends to engage with and the rate that people are engaging with your ad.
3. Ad Quality:
This is derived from real-time feedback of users who have seen it so far and automated assessments of the ad that include checks for violations like engagement bait.
So how do you win the auction?
Maybe this is the wrong question.
You can win the auction primarily on having the highest bid, but that would mean wasting budget on people who never take action or pay
The real question is…
How do you win the auction with the right people, who will not only see your ad, but click on it, and buy your products?
How do you more efficiently reach the right people who are most likely to perform your desired action?
With effective creative.
Effective creative grabs attention and inspires engagement while playing within the rules.
Sometimes that might mean being a bit more controversial with your ads, or inspiring some debate. Ads with lots of comments send a signal to Facebook that the ad is interesting and engaging.
I am not suggesting that you feed the trolls here. But it is a fun irony that those troll comments on your ads could actually be helping you!
Ultimately, it’s a quality ad that will give you the biggest advantage with winning auctions while keeping your costs down.
I’ve recorded a quick video about it below too!
So there you go. Your golden ticket to winning ad auctions!
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And don’t forget, we have an expert team at Webtopia who can help you accelerate your business growth with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterst and Google. Book a free meeting to find out what we can do for you - hello@webtopia.co
