Facebook updates cost per click

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Facebook has issued an update to how cost per click is measured, to help advertisers better understand how their ads perform against their objective.

“Advertisers come to Facebook to drive business goals, like in-store traffic and website clicks, and they need to know how effective their ads are at driving their stated goal,” says a Facebook spokesperson in a release.

“That’s why starting today, as part of our latest API release, we’re updating the definition of cost per click (CPC) on Facebook to only include clicks to websites and apps – and not likes, shares and comments.

This update is intended to help advertisers better understand how their ads perform against their objective. In the coming weeks, this change will take effect in Ads Manager and Power Editor as well.

Here’s what you need to know about the update:

How CPC is measured today on Facebook

Currently, CPC takes into account any click taken within an ad unit: a like, a comment, a share, a click to a website, “continue reading,” etc.

What’s the updated definition of CPC?

We’re updating CPC to only account for what we call “link clicks” — i.e., the clicks related to certain ad objectives:

  • Clicks to visit another website
  • Call-to-action clicks that go to another website (i.e., “Shop Now”)
  • Clicks to install an app
  • Clicks to Facebook canvas apps (developers.facebook.com/docs/games/canvas)
  • Clicks to view a video on another website

Why are you changing the definition now?

Over the last few years, Facebook’s ad offerings have become increasingly tailored to helping advertisers meet specific business objectives. This update is part of that effort: it’s designed to provide measurement that’s more closely aligned with how advertisers are bidding so they can better optimize their campaigns against their stated goals.

What this change means

Once this change goes into effect, advertisers who optimise for link clicks are likely to see better return on advertising spend, since they’ll be paying for only the most valuable outcome. Separating link clicks from engagement clicks (including likes and comments) means your budget will be spent more efficiently no matter if you bid for clicks or engagement.

As a result of this change, some campaign reporting metrics related to clicks will look different. By excluding likes, shares and comments, CPC will increase but will also become more valuable as it counts only the clicks you want. Similarly, it may look like your click-through rate (CTR) has decreased; again, this is because the CTR will no longer factor in the additional clicks.

Do the “other” clicks still matter?

If an ad has lots of likes and shares, that’s a signal of high-quality content being delivered to the right people. This positive signal helps ads perform better at auction, and advertisers can still bid for engagement clicks (including comments, likes and shares) by choosing other optimisation options if they wish. These outcomes, however, will not be tracked in the updated definition of CPC.

It’s also important to remember that having lots of likes and shares on an ad or post is rarely an end unto itself. The most important factor for an ad’s success is bidding for the correct business objective.

What happens next?

It depends on how you buy Facebook ads.

  • If you buy through a Facebook interface (like Ads Manager or Power Editor): You don’t need to do anything right now. We’ll share further information about the updated CPC’s implementation in our interfaces. We’ll also provide messaging in the interfaces themselves once the change has occurred.
  • If you buy through a Facebook Marketing Partner: You should speak with your Marketing Partner to understand when they’ll be implementing the new API with updated CPC.
  • If you buy through the API: You can begin buying ads with the updated CPC today (July 8) in v2.4 of the Ads API. If needed, you can continue using the existing CPC definition until October 7. After this date, only the updated CPC will be available.

Read more here.


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