Chuck Lasker said
1 year, 4 months ago: Bidding on Facebook ads is an art and a gamble, in my experience. I’ve discovered some interesting ideas in keeping cost-per-click (CPC) low while getting high results, but it takes time and experimentation. Fortunately, with the “daily cap” you can place on ads, you can limit your risk. And focusing the demographics tightly at first lets you start “small” and work up to broader audiences if necessary.
Keep in mind when you place a high CPC bid, say, $1.00, Facebook will only charge the amount needed to win the bid for the ad. For example, if someone else bids 30 cents, and you bid a dollar, you win the bid, but only pay 31 cents. So really it’s not a high risk to bid high.
Here’s the thing, though… Let’s say the person bids 30 cents, but has a daily budget of $20. When that budget is up, that ad is out of the bidding. So, here’s what could happen if you bid lower or bid higher:
- You bid $1.00 with $30 daily cap.
- Competitor bids 30 cents with $20 daily cap.
- You win the bids at 31 cents until you hit 97 clicks and your budget is reached for the day.
- Competitor’s ads start showing up at 30 cents.
Or
- You bid 10 cents with a $30 daily cap.
- Competitor bids 30 cents with $20 daily cap.
- Competitor wins the bids at 30 cents until they hit 67 clicks and their budget is reached for the day.
- Competitor’s ads stop at budget cap, so your ads start showing up at 10 cents until you hit 300 clicks.
You could, of course, end up with no ads that day if your competitors all had higher bids and their budget caps were not reached. So the next day, try a higher bid.
In my experience, most companies set up an ad campaign with a set bid and set daily cap and check on it monthly, if at all. That gives you the opportunity to play around day after day and see what works best. So it’s all a game, a gamble, and quite fun if you like that sort of thing.
