Optimizing your Facebook advertisements for conversion is the most important factor when it comes to designing campaigns. However, Facebook will only show users your ads if people are finding them useful. How their algorithm measures that usefulness is through user engagement, and it plays a big factor in how Facebook determines the cost of reaching your audience.<\/p>\n
Ad engagements are worth improving because of the direct impact they have in leveling up your overall campaigns. More engagements on your ads will typically lower your CPCs (cost per click), therefore improving your brand\u2019s return-on-ad-spend for\u00a0digital advertising.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to keep in mind that the effort to increase engagement with Facebook ads should never come at the expense of trying to get users to convert. The good news is, there are ways you can generate engagements that draw users further into the conversion funnel rather than away from it. The benefits are not only increased leads and revenue, but lower CPCs in the long-term.<\/p>\n
The most common Facebook engagements are likes and comments, but Facebook counts an engagement as any of the following:<\/p>\n
You can change your campaign objective to \u201cAd Engagement,\u201d but again, conversion should still be your ultimate goal. The average engagement rate for a\u00a0Facebook post is 0.18%<\/a>, so you can use that as a benchmark for your own campaigns. If you\u2019re not quite sure whether users are finding your advertisements useful enough to engage with, look to your \u201cquality ranking.\u201d<\/p>\n Quality ranking doesn\u2019t have as big of an impact on your CPCs as \u201cquality score\u201d does with Google Ads campaigns, but best practice is to have above average rankings. I have seen ads that Facebook rated as \u201cBelow Average\u201d that outperform others in terms of conversions. This highlights that high engagement doesn\u2019t always correlate to higher conversions.<\/p>\n Here are a few easy tricks for increasing engagements on your ads. I\u2019ve found these strategies tend to work well to drive engagements for both desktop and mobile users.<\/p>\n Comments are by far the best form of engagement, and using ad copy to prompt your audience with a specific question can help improve the overall number of engagements your ad receives. More thoughtful questions will be enticing to users, making them more inclined to take the time to participate in the comment thread.<\/p>\n Be wary though of\u00a0\u201cengagement baiting.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0This is when ad copy explicitly asks for likes, comments, or shares. Facebook views this approach as trying to manipulate their engagement algorithm in your favor without actually improving the quality or relevance of your advertisements to users. This tactic will result in a much smaller reach (and naturally fewer engagements), so make sure to avoid it.<\/p>\n For B2Bs, webinars are already a big content marketing tool, and they can play a big role in the user journey and sales funnel. When your business hosts a webinar, promote it to a custom audience of your existing customers as an event on Facebook. If they register through the CTA on your ad, that will count as an engagement.<\/p>\nTips to increase engagement with Facebook ads<\/h2>\n
1. Ask questions of your audience<\/h3>\n
2. Promote webinars as events<\/h3>\n
3. Use video assets when you can<\/h3>\n