I took out some Facebook ads for a friends business page.  Small town of 11,000 and just over 5000 are on Facebook.  The ads did okay but when I bid to the top end of the ad price then Facebook really pushed the ads.  An ad had a reach of 299 for the first half of the day, then I bumped up the bid .15 cents and within an hour (mid afternoon) the reach was up 1000+ and went crazy by the evening.

My question is when Facebook gives you a range of .85 to 1.15 a click and you bid 1.00 how can .15 cents make such a difference?  If that’s the case why would I ever bid at the low end?  I know Facebook talks about bidding impacting your ad but that much?  If anyone has more knowledge on Facebook ads I would appreciate any information you could provide.

Thank you Rich, I too would love to get some additional insight to Facebook Ads.

Thanks @rich-brooks !

@tomk There are several factors that play a roll in how well your ad gets served. Bidding is one, but it’s not the only one. So, here are the 3 factors:

1. Bidding: The bid you indicate is the amount that you are willing to spend per click. If you think about it, most people are going to bid in the middle of the range, so adding a few cents to your bid can help you (although, I don’t feel it helps to bid higher than the range). Every time someone signs on to their profile an auction occurs and Facebook determines which ads they are going to serve. So, if yours is slightly higher than the rest of the competition you are most likely to win the bid.

2. Performance: Meaning how well the ad performed in the past. If the ad didn’t do well or slowly declined in the past, performance wise, it won’t be served as often, no matter what the bid. As this means the likelihood of someone clicking on it is lower. If it did well last time, it is more likely to do well the second and third times, and Facebook takes that into account and serves your ad more frequently.

3. Quality of the Ad: Facebook uses several different factors to determine this, but I think of it more like engagement factor. Did a lot of people engage with your ad? What it positive or negative feedback? Did it generate a lot of likes? These are all factors that determine a sort of grade for your ad and give it a quality score that determines ad placement.

So, it’s a bit trickier as you can see than simply bidding the right amount. You may have seen an increase by simply upping your bid by $0.15 but there are other factors that were probably at play there besides the bid.

Make sure you check out Facebook’s help page on Ads it does a pretty good job of explaining how the ad delivery works. http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=173594992698822 

Hope that’s helpful!!
Joan

So, one thing occurs to me. If the quality of the ad is an important indicator, could you in theory pay more the first time you run the add to get the eyeballs, and then if it does really well, maybe lower your bid next time and rely on the quality for it to show up more? 

@joancrocker your quote is the issue I have with Facebook “Facebook is never very clear with how things truly work”  The ad I ran had virtually no reach but by moving up the bid they showed it on average of over 12 times to a person over the second half of the day.

It seems once they had the chance to max the money then they pumped the ad.

Some clearer guidelines from Facebook would be helpful.

 @joancrocker Great insights Joan, thanks for that!
I have a related question about Facebook ads; so far I have run Facebook ads for my own business but I now have clients asking me to run ad campaigns on their behalf. 
As a consultant, do you think it is better to run ads on your account for the client (and then bill them for this along with your fee) or in practice is it better to get them to run the ads themselves from their account with your input and direction at each step?
And related to this issue, can you have multiple admins to the ad serve platform?
Regards