The amount you pay Meta for your ad to be seen by 1000 users is called CPM («Cost Per Mile» or «Cost Per Millennium»). The higher the CPM of an ad campaign, the more money you spend on advertising. A low CPM lowers both the cost per click (CPC) and the overall cost of results. So how do you lower CPM?
What affects the CPM of Facebook/Instagram ads?
Supply and demand factors — the niche of your business, your CA and its size, the purpose of your campaign and placement. All of this affects the cost. Seasonality is also important — summer, holidays, preparation for the new season. At this time, all competitors participate in the auction at the same time, and this leads to higher CPM.
Ways to reduce the CPM of advertising
1. Using relevant audience
The relevancy of an ad also affects the CPM. Relevancy is measured from 1 to 10. The higher the score, the more your ad is interesting to your target audience. The lower the relevancy, the higher the CPM.
The metrics that affect relevancy rankings are quality ratings, engagement rate, and conversion rate. All of these are tracked and analyzed by Facebook.
Also, don’t try to reach the maximum audience — target ads to relevant users. Narrowing your ads allows you to reach the right users who will be interested in your ad and provide a higher CTR.
2. Don’t be afraid to use viral creatives
Creatives are the first thing a user sees when they come across your ad. If the creative catches on, the user will look at the ad further. If not, he will ignore it, and all your efforts will be in vain. Therefore, creatives should be creative — to attract attention and stand out among other similar ads. Do not be afraid to go beyond the limits and depart from the templates, keep your hand on the pulse of trends and new trends.
Various formats are suitable for Meta social media ads, but short vertical videos work best because they attract attention quickly. Therefore, Meta gives more space for video creatives. The demand for video ads is higher than the supply, because not all advertisers realize that this format will increase engagement and reduce CPM.
Another point is that there is more content and the attention span of users has decreased as they are already tired of constant advertising. To increase the engagement rate, it is recommended to make ads viral, using memes and trends.
3. Monitor the frequency of ads
If you show ads to the same users too often, they will start ignoring them or even hide them and mark them as spam. All this will lead to lower CTR and higher CPM. Therefore, track the impact of ad display frequency on users.
The frequency of ad impressions helps to see the average number of impressions to a user from your CA. Keep your campaigns low-frequency — set a frequency limit in auto-rules. Exceeding the limit also uses up your budget, so add a frequency column in Facebook Ads Manager.
Trends and traffic on Meta social networks are fickle — a decision that brought your campaigns to success today may not bring results at all in a week. That’s why you should constantly monitor your campaign performance to adjust it in time to reduce CPM — this way you will achieve your goals with less budget.
