How to choose your bid strategy on Facebook Ads?

You use Facebook for your business and wonder how you can use Facebook Ads? 

The following figures should help you understand the scope of this social media platform. According to Facebook Reports, in December 2020, there were 1.84 billion daily active users on the platform and at the beginning of 2021, there were 2.89 billion monthly active users (Statista). 

Facebook is the most extensive social network worldwide, making it one of the most interesting spots to promote your business and launch your advertising campaigns. If Facebook is the place to spend most of your marketing efforts, you do not want to pay in the air for all that. We will guide you through all the options you have so that you can choose the bid strategy that is the most suitable based on your business spendings’ plan.  

This article should help you whether you want to plan your first Facebook ads campaign or optimize your advertising strategy on the platform.

What is a bid strategy
on Facebook ads?

Facebook is a social media essential for your business for two reasons: it is the biggest social network worldwide and it is easy to advertise through this communication channel. Facebook will make your advertising efforts worth it and result in a significant ROI and CPM.

Facebook Ads is based on the auction system. It displays the ads that have the maximum bids and performance. To advertise on Facebook ads, you have to set up a bid. What does that mean? 

The bid determines the frequency of your ads while being seen by the target audience. In concrete terms, it corresponds to the sum of money you are willing to pay to have your ads displayed on Facebook. You can set a bid cap to make sure that your bids never exceed a certain amount. 

How does it work?

1/ Determine efficient objectives

Not every strategy is made for you. Think about your KPIs: what do you want to achieve? Which factors are to be taken into account to reach your aims?

Here are some available objectives that you can choose for your bidding strategy:

• Conversions: the default option. If you choose this objective, your ads will be first delivered to users who are most likely to convert. 
  
  
• CPC: manual CPC bidding allows you to manage your maximum CPC bids by yourself.
  
  
• Impressions: your ads will be delivered to as many users as possible.  
  
  
• Daily unique reach: your ads will be delivered once per day to each member of your audience. 
  
  
• Post engagement: your ads will be delivered to the most likely users to engage with you. 
  
  
• Leads: this objective allows you to target people who are more likely to give their personal information, such as their email address.  

You may be wondering whether or not you have to make changes manually or not. Well, it depends. Facebook Ads allows you to change your bids manually but, if you have trouble maintaining your budget, we advise you to choose automated bidding. It means that Facebook’s algorithm will be in charge of making the changes instead of you. 

Manual bidding is not available for every campaign objective. For instance, you can’t use it for lead generation. 

2/ Find the perfect strategy

Once your objectives are clearly defined, it is high time to think about your bidding strategy. There are three main bidding strategies: 

• Lowest cost: this strategy aims to target as many users as possible at the lowest possible cost. This sounds promising, but there is a logical drawback to this appealing strategy: you do not have a stranglehold on the “lowest cost” and thus, can’t control your actual cost. Manual bidding could help you cope with this issue since you would choose your daily spendings. 
  
  
• Lowest cost with a bid cap: The bid cap is used to avoid overspending. Setting a bid cap helps you set the maximum amount you can pay for an ad. It prevents Facebook Ads from exceeding the budget you are willing to spend on your advertising strategy. The drawback of this strategy is that if you set a bid cap that is too low, Facebook might be unable to spend your budget. To find the perfect in two minds, Facebook recommends you to set a daily budget that is at least 5 times your bid cap. This does not mean that your strategy will work for sure but at least it is the best way to optimize your chances.   
  
  
• Target cost: this strategy allows you to keep a stable average cost per conversion. Thus, Facebook can bid once above and then below your average bid as it adjusts automatically to reach your budget. With this bidding strategy, you can face cost fluctuations in the short term. If you prefer to work with regular spendings and pay for steady sums, you should not choose this option.

At the moment of choosing your bidding strategy, do not hurry. The target cost strategy and the lowest cost using a bid cap require some knowledge of your audience. You should first start by setting the lowest cost strategy to avoid useless spendings and gather necessary data. 

3/ Run some tests

It is not always easy to find the strategy that suits your objectives. By starting with a manual bidding strategy, you can ensure that you will reach your goals without exceeding your cap. Start small and then run tests. Try different objectives, different strategies; let the algorithm lead your budget as soon as you get accustomed to Facebook Ads.

FACEBOOK ADS:
A GATEWAY TO SUCCESS

Facebook ads allow you to create bidding strategies for each of your marketing objectives. You can choose to spend the same amount everyday, or to have an average spending per day. You can also choose to cap your spendings or not, you can define all your bids manually or let Facebook do it for you. Facebook Ads offers many options so that you can find the one that corresponds to your marketing strategy. 

Get help from our agency to set up your bid cap wisely and track your ads performance if you do not want to get lost in CPCs, bid caps, auctions and bids.