The Art of CTR In FB Ads

Since I've launched my consulting services I have been spending hours and hours with clients looking at their campaign flow and helping them perfect their system. It's interesting to see that even advanced affiliates can make rookie mistakes and don't realize where they mess up.

This is the reason I decided to come up with an article about 3 major mistakes I tend to see with my clients:

Mistake #1. Not Analyzing data the RIGHT way – Making desperate decisions

So one of my clients was whining about how his CPC is great but he's still not making a positive ROI. So we got on TeamViewer and he showed me his stats. His engagement rate was super great, almost as much shares as likes on his ad. Relevance Score also high. He's spent $600 but only made back ~$100.

Okay, I asked him to click on the “Performance and Clicks” column to see the CTR(link) and CPC(link). Boom! It turned out that he was looking at the CTR column which is a sum of all the clicks that you get on your ad so it can be a like, share, comment or click on the image. When we looked at his “Link CTR” it was just half of what he thought it was. Also, when you're looking at the Link CTR, don't forget to take a look at the Link CPC as the higher your CTR is the lower you should be paying for your traffic usually – so always check!

Conclusion: When I launch a new campaign, the first thing I look at is the link CTR on the ads. If they aren't meeting my minimum standards I don't let it run all the way wasting $600... I make sure it's performing so I can collect more useful data and then make data-driven decisions. Work smart, not desperatly.

Now that we found something to fix in his flow he asked how he could increase the CTR on his ads.

Mistake #2. Not testing enough images – leaving money on the table

CTR is an important factor - as I have mentioned above it affects how much you're paying for your traffic and images have the largest effect on CTR of any factor when dealing with FB. When FB sees your ad is performing great it rewards you with decent CPC prices. Of course there are other factors such as your competition or time of the year (end of Q1,2,3 or 4) affect prices but at all times you should be aiming for the highest CTR possible. So what's a decent CTR - you may have in your mind now... Let me just give you an example, as it – again - boils down to many factors such as geo, targeting, etc... In the US targeting a broad community (1+ million ppl) on desktop I try to aim for a CTR above 7%. If you can do better than 7% you may be able to get a CPC below $0.10 – but again it depends on how much volume you run and who you target, but now I am just presenting it as an example.

If you have no clue about what CPC you should be paying to make a positive ROI with your campaign start with a little math.

What is the EPC on the offer you're testing – ask you AM, specifically for FB traffic stats.

If it is $7.4 then you can work backward to calculate ballpark goal CTR goals for your landing page and FB ads.

It's a reverse calculation, so first do the math on the LP. Out of a 2500 clicks you get 100 people to click through (so, 4% CTR, which is a believable average). Your offer's payout is $74, and 10 people convert.

Here are a few metrics for you:

EPC (earnings per click): revenue divided by the clicks you sent → ($74 payout x 10 / 100 clicks = $7.4 EPC)

If each person to the offer was worth $7.4, then each person who visited the lander was worth 4% of that – about $0.30

Now let's see how your ad’s CPC prices can affect your ROI:

Daily budget $300 @ $0.22 cpc → 1363 clicks on ad → 4% CTR on LP → 54 clicks to offer → $7.4 blended EPC → $399 revenue → $99 profit (~ 30% ROI)

Daily budget $300 @ $0.15 cpc → 2000 clicks on ad → 4% CTR on LP → 80 clicks to offer → $7.4 blended EPC → $592 revenue → $292 profit (~100% ROI)

Hmmm... I think it's pretty self-explanatory why you should focus on your ads at first place.

So what are a few “tricks” to increase CTR on your ad?

1. Start with a thorough research – what are others doing? Don't copy but model and make your ads unique.

2. Add a border to your ad – I like to use read or yellow borders to make the ads stand out in the newsfeed.

3. Add a striking background to your ad – you can use neon colors.

4. Put a big red arrow or a sign on your ad – make it stand out

5. Duplicate your ad 3x within the ad set if bidding CPC– you'll find some ads “take off” better than others. This isn’t effective when bidding for impressions.

6. When you publish your post publicly on your timeline (in other words not advertising dark posts) your engagement adds up on that particular post. When you create 3 duplicates and get shares or likes or clicks on each unpublished posts, FB counts them as separate posts completely.

Okay so now you understand the importance of your images and basic ad CTR. Easy... But where else can you improve?

Mistake #3: Their ads aren't written by a native speaker

Geeze! That's all I can say when my clients send over an ad copy in English for review and even I find it poorly written. I am not a native English speaker but can easily spot grammar mistakes and misspellings in my clients' ad copies. Probably because they're not from the USA. But I mean COME OOOOOON!!!

So how can you make sure you aren't making this mistake? Hire a VA from Fiverr or Upwork who's a native speaker to proof-read your ad copies. Go the extra mile to stand out from your lazy affiliate competitors, because these are the little factors that can differentiate you from your competition. Many affiliates try to run the same angle but not many will take the extra effort to make things better in their flow...

I go into details about how much difference it can make in one of my STM threads, click here to read the details.

I'd love to open a discussion on what other elements you have recognized that affect the CTR on your ads. Please comment below or ask if you have any questions! :)

I hope you enjoyed this article. Stay tuned for the next one! ;)