Facebook Ad Impressions – Why They Are Meaningless

Ad impressions represent an important part in any media buy campaign as they detail how many individuals have been exposed to an advertisement. Additionally, many publishers will base their pricing on CPM (cost per thousand impressions) because of how important of a metric impressions are to other advertisers. When it comes to Facebook advertisements, however, this metric is meaningless.

Facebook advertisements are notorious for producing an extremely low CTR (click through rate). Typically, advertisers will see anywhere in the realm of a 0.02% – 0.08% CTR which is a lot lower than most other advertising networks. I’ve heard many Facebook advertisers express concerns over this metric; frantically altering campaigns to produce “better” results when in reality they should be focusing on other performance metrics.

If impressions are so important in other media buy campaigns, then why are they meaningless when it comes to Facebook? Because an impression on Facebook does not necessarily equate to a user viewing the ad. Every time an advertisement appears on a user’s page it counts as an impression regardless of whether or not the user actually sees the ad. While this holds true for any network counting impressions, the difference in Facebook ad impressions versus the amount of users actually viewing the ad is a lot more substantial than other advertising networks. Basically, the majority of users being shown a Facebook advertisement will not see the ad.

Why is this the case?

Think about why users come to Facebook.com in the first place. Generally, they either:

• Received a notification about a friend request, reply to a status update, message, etc.
• Are there to implement some sort of action item in the form of a status update, event creation, etc.
• Want to chat with other Facebook users.
• Are bored and want to browse through news feeds and member profiles.
• Want to look a person up

Basically, Facebook users visit the website with a purpose of completing a task. The fact that users are on a “mission”, so to speak, when visiting the website means they are less inclined to be browsing around the website. If I’m going to Facebook because I received a new friend request, I’m going to sign onto Facebook to check out that user and either accept / deny their request (and maybe send them a message / write on their wall). Chances are if I’m on Facebook to implement some sort of action item I will be completely oblivious to any form of advertising on the site.

The argument can be made that people who are on Facebook to just “browse around” should produce a high CTR, but have you ever noticed how much there is to do when singing onto Facebook? Here is a list of items you can do just on the homepage alone.

• Check your notifications
• Check your messages
• Accept or deny friend requests
• See upcoming events
• Manually add an upcoming event
• See whose birthday is it today
• Create a status update
• Browse other status updates
• Comment or like other status updates
• Respond to requests such as page suggestions and group invitations
• Edit your newsfeed settings
• Visit your profile
• Edit your pfoile
• View updates from fan pages that you are subscribed to.
• Chat with friends
• Change chat features / options
• Change the page language
• Organize news feed by “top news” and “most recent”

Again, this is just for the homepage. I’m likely leaving even more features out, but with all there is to do it is easy to not pay attention to an advertisement that’s mixed in among the clutter.

Plus, any community that focuses on communication more than content will have a lower CTR by nature. When your chatting with a Facebook friend; you’re not viewing advertisements and when you receive a notification and go to check in out; you are not viewing ads, but yet if they’re on your page they’ll count as an impression. These are welcome distractions to the Facebook user, but again they divert attention away from advertisements.

Should I Advertise on Facebook Then?

Absolutely, just don’t base your campaign on impressions. Facebook offers a highly targeted advertising platform that can’t be replicated by any other advertising network. That along with Facebook’s 500 million+ user base equates to an advertising strategy that can be extremely beneficial to a brand. Also keep in mind that your advertisement will be viewed by some users (in the millions if you’re targeting enough people) despite the fact that most impressions will not equate to actual views. If you want to get the most out of your Facebook advertisement, follow the below tips:

• Run Your Advertisements on a CPC NOT a CPM: Before you launch a campaign you have the ability to select whether you want to pay for impressions or pay for clicks. Generally a CPC campaign will produce a better overall ROI.

• Take Advantage of Facebook’s Advanced Targeting: It might sound great to potentially reach 500+ million users, but you will get better campaign results if you target the right users on Facebook. If you have a store in New York City, it wouldn’t make sense to target users in Russia. Additionally, don’t limit yourself to the targeting options that Facebook provides. If you have a product that targets mothers, for example, it might seem impossible to target this demographic since there is no “mother” option on Facebook. You can work around this by targeting users who “like” things such as “I love my children”, “my son”, etc along with females.

• Keep the Ad Content Targeted: Not only is important to take advantage of Facebook’s extensive targeting options on Facebook, but it is also important to target users directly within the ad creative. If you’re a loan provider, for example, that will only give out loans of $200 or more, make sure this is stated within the advertisement otherwise you might get clicks from users looking for a $100 loan (which will cost you money and be unqualified). By keeping the creative AND the reach as targeted as possible it will help lower costs and increase conversion rates.

• Target the Right Number of Users: As mentioned, Facebook ads should be targeted towards a specific demographic. However if you’re targeting users from Random Town, Kansas who list that random 2 second clip from your favorite TV show as their interest, chances are you’re ad will be viewed by almost no one. As a general rule, I like to reach anywhere between 50,000 and 20,000,000 users depending on the type of ad being run. What’s great about Facebook is that they will let you know approximately how many users you will be reaching before the advertisement goes live.

• Promote a Facebook Page Vs. a Website: Facebook released information stating that advertisers have been getting better results from advertising a Facebook page then by advertising a website. While this might sound self-serving on Facebook’s part, the fact of the matter is that Facebook users would rather connect with a page if they are on Facebook then a random website. Through the use of applications like Static FBML, you can now customize your Facebook page as if it were a regular website.

• Keep an Eye on CPC Levels: Facebook provides suggested CPC levels based on the amount of users you are targeting and the current advertising competition related to that target market. Since there are a substantial number of individuals advertising on Facebook, these CPC level recommendations will fluctuate daily. These should be monitored and adjusted when necessary.

• Test Test Test: Try different ad creatives, landing pages, budgets, and target markets for your Facebook campaign. There’s no way of knowing going into a Facebook campaign what will produce the best possible results, but by frequently testing different ads you will eventually find a right fit.

How Do I Measure Results?

If you’re not keeping track of impressions and CTR, then how can you measure results from your Facebook campaign? This will be depend on whether you are landing people on a fan page or a website. If you’re landing people on a fan page, considering incorporating the following metrics as part of your Facebook camapign success:

• New “Likes”: An obvious one, but make sure to assess how many new connections you obtained from your Facebook campaign. Facebook does include this information in their advertising platform, however it will not include new likes obtained from these connections news feed. If I see your advertisement, for example, and connect with your page and then my friend sees through his new feed that I “liked” the page and connects as well, it will track my action, but not his. It is important to look at new likes as a whole instead of just from the Facebook performance dashboard.

• Page Views: Analyze how page views from your Fan Page fluctuated since running advertisements. You will see a noticeable spike during the campaign, but analyze how it effected your page views after the campaign has finished. If you’re seeing more page views than prior to the launch of the campaign it indicates that these new connections are visiting the page.

• Engagement Levels: How have posts, likes and comments been effected since launching a Facebook campaign.

• Traffic from Facebook: If you have a link from your Facebook page to your website, it is important to analyze if referring traffic from Facebook has increased since the launch of the campaign. This is another indicator of obtaining “qualified likes”.

Notice how I left out clicks. While these should be analyzed to some degree, they do little to tell you if these clicks are qualified. People can accidentally click on ads or can click on ad expecting something else. By analyzing the aforementioned metrics instead it will help you truly determine the success of your Facebook campaign.

Now if you’re running Facebook advertisements for your website, the following metrics should be analyzed.

• Quality of Traffic: You’re going to see an increase in traffic; that’s guaranteed, but is it qualified traffic? If Facebook traffic is translating into a 99% bounce rate either you need to beef up your landing page or you are targeting the wrong users.

• Long Term Traffic Increases: Say, for example, that you’re averaging 500 visitors / day to your website. While running Facebook advertisements this increases to 2,000 visitors / day. Once these advertisements are shut off, you will likely notice a significant drop off in total website traffic. However, if your website is now average 750 visitors / day after the launch of Facebook ads it signifies that they were a success essentially because 250 new people are now visiting your website daily because of Facebook. Why look at website traffic as a whole instead of Facebook traffic? If I discover a website through Facebook, I probably will either search for it on Google or type in the website address directly upon my next visit. My additional visits will likely be credited towards direct traffic or Google and not Facebook even though I originally discovered the website through Facebook.

• Leads / Conversions: If you’re landing people on your website from Facebook with the intention of obtaining leads or conversions, this should be an important part of your Facebook Advertising success metric.