Hi, and WELCOME to the ‘1st of the month’ update to AidanBooth.com!
Since April 2012 I’ve been adding a new blog post to this website on the 1st of each month, this month is no different.
Facebook: Traffic Game-Changer
Today’s post is about Facebook… it’s divided into two parts:
- The Blog Post – This is a general tour of what you can and can’t do and see with Facebook
- The ‘Better Boosts’ Tutorial Video – An ‘over the shoulder’ video showing you the RIGHT way to boost your posts
As always, it’s all free content!
Click the button above, add your details, and I’ll immediately send you a demo video and PDF detailing the most effective way to boost Facebook posts (it’s NOT using the ‘Boost Post’ button!)
Personal Stuff In July
July was another busy month for me on a personal level!
We started in Argentina (Buenos Aires, where I live), traveled to see family in New Zealand, spent a week on a remote island in Fiji, back to New Zealand, and then finally back to Buenos Aires a few days ago.
This is the perfect example of what I LOVE about having an online business. I’m geographically free to work it anywhere that has an internet connection!
Here are a few photos of highlights from my trip (two pics from Fiji, and one of my wife and I with our nephews!)…
Sometimes it’s easy to lose perspective of just how lucky I am to be able to live this kind of lifestyle…
Anyway, enough about me, let’s get down to business!
Facebook Ads & Insights
You may already know that Facebook has incredible traffic potential, but there’s more under the hood that you may not know about… valuable data that can be game-changing to your business, and data that can save you a lot of money.
In this post we’ll explore what that data is, and where it’s hiding.
I’ve also created a bit-sized demo video showing you the most effective way to boost Facebook posts… this is the ‘secret’ method that we’ve been using for a while now, and it’s a zillion times more effective than just clicking the ‘Boost’ button… more on how to get this video below.
What’s Possible With Facebook?
If you’ve never advertised with Facebook before, use this post as a tour of what’s possible.
If you have used Facebook’s advertising platform, then use this as and overview and reminder of the type of data that you’ve got available to you and how you can best leverage it, and make sure you download the ‘Better Boosts’ demo video.
When you login to your Ad Account, you’ll first be shown a big list of all your campaigns, it’ll look something like this:
Here’s the ad that I was running for the ‘CDLTraining1’ campaign:
The ad above was sending visitors to my ‘CDL Training‘ website: http://www.cdltraininghub.com
To get to the juicy data, you need to drill down deeper into a specific campaign, you can do this by clicking on any of the campaign titles. In this example, we’ll drill down into my ‘CDLTraining1’ campaign.
Facebook Campaign Data
Each campaign has a dashboard that looks a bit like this (this is a new Facebook ad account design which has been rolled out slowly over the past month or so):
The Campaign-level dashboard shows you how your campaign is performing at a high level.
There are a range of performance metrics available, in most cases the main ones will be:
- Number of Results (could be website clicks, engagements, likes, video views, etc)
- People Reached
- Amount Spent
The high level performance metrics are shown by default when you are at the campaign level of the dashboard, here’s a closer look at the Performance tab for the CDLTraining1 campaign I was running:
As you can see from the image above, this particular ad brought 2560 people to my website, at a cost of $0.04 per visitor.
By clicking on the ‘Audience’ tab of the campaign dashboard, you’ll drill down further into more audience specific data:
Above we can see the percentage of men vs women, and a breakdown of ages and how each age bracket performed in terms of reach and clicks. This particular ad was only shown to men, which is why there are no results for women.
By clicking the ‘Placement’ tab, you’ll get data about each ad location:
This is all great “high level” data about an audience, but you can go EVEN deeper by using the ‘Breakdown’ option.
Finding Hidden Data
Here’s an example of how you can focus in on more specific data sets:
In the image above I’ve selected to breakdown the data by region, here’s what we are then shown:
For this particular ad, I was only targeting people in the USA, but didn’t put any preference to specific states. As you can see above, after running the ad for just a short time, we can already see ad results on a per state level, GREAT information which you could use to create more laser targeted ads later if you wanted to.
The other interesting thing is that ads are cheaper in some places than others. For example, I was paying $0.07 per website click for people in Florida, but only $0.03 in Oregon, $0.04 in Michigan, Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma.
Knowing that some states are cheaper than others can dramatically impact advertising costs, and in turn your ROI. For example, if you KNOW that ads in Oregon cost less than half of what they cost in Florida, then you may specifically JUST want to target people in Oregon (and possibly the states that have ads that cost $0.04 as well).
Ad Placement Performance
Here’s another example of how you can uncover money-saving data about ad placement.
As you can see below, I’ve selected ‘Placement’ from the dropdown menu:
And here are the results:
While ‘News Feed on Mobile Devices’ is giving the vast majority of the traffic, at a cost of $0.04, it’s ALSO twice as expensive as ‘News Feed on Desktop Computers’!
If I was on a limited budget, I could select to only show my ads in the ‘News Feed on Desktop Computers’ location and I’d halve my costs again (doing this would obviously also eliminate a lot of traffic, but that would be fine for most people with small budgets in big niches).
Video Boosts (With WEIRD Results)
Here’s another example of a post that I boosted on my internet marketing Facebook page:
And here are the statistics for this boosted post:
As you can see, this video was displayed to 9,144 people (this is the ‘Reach’ metric), and was watched by 1,558 people. The average ‘cost per view’ was $0.01.
WeiRd… 63% Of Views From SPAIN!
What’s surprising is where these people come from, and how the cost varied from country to country, check this out:
The video was filmed in the French Alps, only a few miles from Italy, and also very close to Spain (I was living in the French Alps in January).
The video views from France, Italy, and Spain account for 1,396, or 89% of the total views. Coincidence? No…!
Dynamically Displayed Ads
Facebook serves up content to people dynamically based on where they are. So, if you live in London, you’ll see lots of posts and ads from people who live in/around London.
If you go on holiday to New Zealand, you’ll start seeing posts and ads from people and companies in New Zealand.
Since I’d been living in Barcelona, Spain, for three months prior to shifting to the French Alps, I think Facebook’s algorithm may have shown the video ad to more people in Spain than anywhere else… kind of like they over-compensated for the country they assumed I lived in…
The good thing about Facebook though is that you can easily target specific countries (or even more specific town/regions etc) when you’re setting up ads and post boosts. In the example above, I didn’t set a specific location, and the ad was shown randomly to people that Facebook thought would want to see it.
Why You MUST Specify Ad Locations
I’ve done quite a bit of ‘Facebook Post Boost’ testing over the past year. Here’s one of the posts which I boosted on February 1st:
As you can see, 360 Likes, and 2 shares.
The names shown on the image above give you a clue at where these likes are coming from, but the image below removes any doubt:
371 engagements (this is mainly just Likes) from South Africa which cost a total of $27.64!
Another example of why it’s so important to specifically target countries when running paid ad campaigns on Facebook… if you don’t, your results could come from anywhere…
NOTE: I have nothing against my post Likes coming from South Africa, but it’s not where most of my Facebook audience are located, so it’s kind of surprising that Facebook would show my ads so prevalently to people in South Africa.
Here’s Some BETTER Targeting…
Here’s another example of a post I boosted, but where I DID specify the countries I wanted to target:
Here’s who I targeted:
Here’s the audience breakdown:
And here is the country breakdown:
As you can see, both the male/female distribution, and the countries of viewers are much more what I would expect (and hope for) when running a campaign like this.
So that’s a bit of a random dive into the advertising stats that Facebook gives you access to.
Click the button above, add your details, and I’ll immediately send you a demo video and PDF detailing the most effective way to boost Facebook posts (it’s NOT using the ‘Boost Post’ button!)
Facebook Insights
Let’s now take a look at Facebook page Insights…
Only Facebook pages with over 30 Likes have access to Insights, so if you don’t see them on your page, that may be the reason why.
When you click on the Insights tab, you’ll be shown a dashboard highlighting your page growth, engagement, stats from your most recent posts, and information about any pages you’re following.
The Insights Overview
Here’s what the ‘Overview’ section looks like:
And here’s what the summary of your recent posts looks like:
And here’s what the “Pages to Watch” section looks like:
Find The BEST Content In Seconds…
One cool thing about the ‘Pages to Watch’ section, is that it lets you see the most popular posts from the pages you’re following from the last week:
This little tool is super valuable if you run a Facebook page and are looking for good content to share, as you can cherry-pick the best from other related pages.
The ‘Likes’ Section
The ‘Likes’ section of the Insights dashboard shows how your page Likes have grown over time, and some other cool data as well, here’s what the top section of that page looks like:
Organic & Paid ‘Reach’ Statistics
On the ‘Reach’ tab, you can see how Organic and Paid reach has varied over time:
You can also see other useful data such as when Likes, Comments and Shares have occurred, and how these have impacted your following:
Visitor Browsing Data…
The ‘Visits’ tab details your Facebook page traffic, where it comes from, and which sections of your Facebook page have been visited:
What Time/Day Do People Use Facebook?
The ‘Posts’ section details information about when your fans are online:
As you can see from the image above, 4am and 5am are the low points in terms of when people who like my Facebook page are on Facebook. The peak is at 1pm. This is important information, because if you want to get the most engagement possible from your posts, then you should be posting at times when most people are online and using Facebook.
Put Your Posts Under The Microscope
Further down the ‘Posts’ tab, you can see information about posts you’ve published over the past few months:
As shown in the image above, there are a few filters which allow you to slice and dice the data to identify your best posts (which you may then want to running ad campaigns for).
Do You Use Videos?
The ‘Videos’ section shows viewing data from videos you’ve published on your page:
I personally don’t publish many videos on my Facebook page, so don’t have much data here, but if you use videos then this page will give you useful data about how many people have watched your videos, how long they watched them for, how the videos were played (auto-played vs. clicked to play) and much more.
Location, Gender, Age & Engagement
The final section inside the Insights panel is one of the most interesting, because it’s about your fan base! Where they’re from, what age they are, which group are most reached, and which are most engaged:
As you can see on the image above, the biggest group of my ‘Likers’ are based in the USA, but the biggest single city is London.
That completes the overview.
NOW, make sure you check out the 3-minute ‘better boosts’ video! Click the image below to get free access:
In the video above, I show in step by step detail EXACTLY how to set up an optimized boost post advertising campaign.
Click the button above, add your details, and I’ll immediately send you a demo video and PDF detailing the most effective way to boost Facebook posts (it’s NOT using the ‘Boost Post’ button!)
Something To Think About…
Before you go, consider how you can best use all this data. Here are a few ideas:
- Understand your demographic and build a couple of avatars to visualize who they really are
- Learn which posts resonate most with your followers, and focus on publishing at least one of those types of posts each week (more often if you’re using the 100k Factory system)
- Determine which audience base is the most expensive and which cheapest to advertise to (Florida vs Oregon in the CDL Training example)
- Find out which times and days work best for publishing new content, then schedule content to be published at those times.
- Monitor the best content from similar pages, and use it to make a big list of ideas for future posts
- Set engagement benchmarks on a monthly or weekly basis, and see if you can hit them
- Identify which ad positions (News Feed Desktop, Mobile, Right Sidebar etc) are most effective, and use them more frequently
- Find the most effective ads, and scale them up (if you can get traffic for under $0.10 per visitor, then you should be able to make money quite easily from that!)
What Do You Think?
Got a question? Got feedback?
I’d LOVE to hear from you!
Leave a comment below. All comments get published, and I read them all!
Thanks for reading,
Until next time!
Aidan
P.S. If we’re not already connected on Facebook, head over to my page and click the ‘Like’ button. 🙂
Amazing post Aidan, I’m going to have to spend some time going through this bit by bit!
Glad you like it Martin! Comment again if you have any questions 🙂
Hi Aidan, I’m working through the 100k Factory program, so this has come at the perfect time for me.
Thanks Jerry!!
In your example at the top for your CDL campaign under Facebook Campaign Data it shows 2560 WEBSITE clicks. I thought the click would go to your facebook page and then they would have to click to your website. Does website really mean FB page?
Thanks – great post!
Hi Nancy, the ‘click’ is from Facebook to http://www.cdltraininghub.com 🙂
Hi Aidan. Do you recommend using the Power Editor? Also, what is the difference between this type of boost, and just clicking the ‘Boost’ button? Thanks, CJ
Hi CJ, you can definitely use the Power Editor. It really depends on what your goals are though, and how many ads you’re running/monitoring at once. I like the regular ad menu for it’s simplicity, and for simple post boosts it’s more than good enough.
Love the vacation pics Aidan. My new 100k Factory sites are going well. RPM is still a bit lower than the target, but I am running at a profit now – thanks for everything.
AWESOME to hear that Janet!!! The RPM will increase, it normally takes a few weeks to get to it’s ‘natural position’. Let me know how things go!
Hi Aidan, great video. That’s exactly what I’m doing. What I supposedly did wrong was what came after. I clicked on create similar ads and make 4-5 more boost posts with different interests. I just found out that they will all have the same interest in the same ad campaign. So in it there was usually a winner that cost the least. What is that about? Since it’s the same boost post?
So from now on I should create 4-5 post boost ad campaigns with each only one interest at only $2 to test so each test will be about $10. Is this correct?
Hi Mia, you can boost the same post but target multiple interests at the same time. I’ll make a video for you in the next few days to show you exactly how it goes and publish it in the members area. Yes, you should boost the same post and target multiple interests at the same time, each with just a couple of dollars. If you don’t create new Ad Sets, then the interest gets overwritten, so you need to be sure you are creating new AD SETS in the same ad campaign. Hope this clears it up – I know it’s a little confusing to begin with, but the video I do for you in the next few days will help 🙂
Thank you so much Aiden. I would love a video on that. I just edited all my posts to reflect the insights and what kind of people are responding to my posts. Yay. That was really cool.
Great stuff Mia!
Hi Aidan!
I just watched your last video on creating similar ad sets in the member area. I got it! Yay it makes total sense now. Thank you so much for doing this. This helped me so much!
You’re welcome Mia!! Glad it’s now working for you 🙂
Hi Aidan,
Thanks for the in-depth explanation. I tried to boost a post the other day and was denied because I was sending the visitors to a landing page detailing a cash-back shopping opportunity I’m trying to promote.
So my question is, How does a person get around the “make money from home” rule that FB has-like, how do you get them to your opportunity, get the sign up while following FB’s rules?
Thanks!
Hi Lance, you need to give your audience something that isn’t just ‘make money’. There must be some kind of training angle that you can use instead… FB are very strict with not allowing make money style ads…
Hi Aidan. Greetings from NZ. I am working my way through the 100K factory and only just at module 3. A bit slow but so much to take in 😉 Just creating my first FB ad from NZ. Now what is the time frame for a campaign at a time? 4 days, 1 week…longer?? I focus on the US market only for now, right? Many thanks
Yvonne
Hi Yvonne! It’s absolutely fine to progress at your own pace, so don’t worry about being in module 3 🙂 A ‘Like Campaign’ could last anywhere from a few days, to a few weeks… depends how far you want to take it, a good average would be 7 days. The for the Post Boosts, it varies… when one starts making money, just keep it going forever, until it no longer makes money. Hope this helps!
Hi Aidan,
Thanks for sharing this detailed post!
I actually came to a conclusion on some of these things as well, but for some reason, the theory is different from the result for me.
I used the Facebook Breakdwon to find the cheapest subsection of the audience with regards to location, age, gender, etc.
And then I created ads targeted to just those cheap audience and demographics segments with high CTR, but it seems that Facebook is charging me even more for these specific targeting ads. Almost double.
Would you happen to know why? 🙁
Are you getting different results with this? Perhaps I’m doing it wrong…
Hi Daniel, thanks for commenting 🙂 The flip side of specifically targeting sub-sections of people is that Facebook charges more. The more specific you get, the more they seem to charge. So instead of being laser focused on a very very narrow audience, I recommend you target on a country level at the narrowest… so, if you see visitors from Australia are much cheaper than the USA, then run ads for Australia, but don’t focus in on a per state level. The super targeted ads work well for very specific local campaigns, but are generally not as effective for affiliate sites etc, as they cost more. Hope this makes sense!
Ah… I see. I thought I was doing something wrong. Lol.
Ok. Thanks Aidan! I will give that a try.
Other than that, I will try experimenting. And seeing how specific I can go with my ads without incurring the Facebook penalty…
For example, does Facebook charge more if you only specify age? Or is there a bigger penalty if select a smaller range of age as opposed to a larger range of age? Or is the penalty only there if you specify a combination of age and gender? Or if you only specify gender, etc?
I will try to experiment and find out so I can take advantage of the specification that yields the least or no increase in cost.
Hey Daniel, specifying age and gender should be fine. The higher costs happen when you get really granular, like “only show ads to people who have kids aged 0 – 3”. We’ll have lots more info about this in the 100k Factory workshop tomorrow, and things you can do to improve costs etc, so maybe it’s best to wait for that 🙂
Hi Aidan,
Thanks for this wonderful post. I am at step 6/7 in 100k factory. I started boosting posts with Optimized CPM as BID type and with a objective of Post Engagement. Now as per your post, you have optimized it for CPC and with a objective of optimizing website clicks. What should we follow? Also, $0.04 should be the cost per engagement or visitor as per 100k?
Also should we target New Audience to boost a post or limit this to fans only?
Hope to hear from you.
Regrds,
Saswati
Hi Saswati, follow the 100k Factory instructions. This post was just an example of what’s possible, with help for people who don’t have the amount of training you have. Since you’re a 100k Factory member, follow the guidelines we have in place in that program 🙂 For the kind of site you’re doing, you should optimize for ‘Engagements’ not ‘Website Clicks’. Definitely target new audiences to boost posts!
Hi Aidan,
Great post and more ideas for me for post engagements! I’m working through the 100k Factory program, but very low to get likes enough Likes for my 4 FB pages. Nevertheless keep running ads! Working hard to have some day same lifestyle you have!
Muchas gracias,
Edwin
Hola Edwin! Great stuff! Thanks for commenting, let me know how your sites progress 🙂
Hi Aidan! I really enjoyed going through this, it has very valuable information and it is so easy to digest, thank you so much for posting such great content!!!
Hola Marisa! Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it, let me know if you have any Q’s 🙂
Hi Aidan,
I’m following the 100k factory and a week ago we had 2 “hits” so we started boosting them. We found one audience that got 0.03 PPE (I guess!… since I’m in Argentina and don’t know how FB calculates it, it’s 0,36 pesos). Then I tried to send more traffic by raising the daily budget to 25 dollars so adsense would optimize faster and got to 19 RPM in just 5 days. But then in day 6 even with more traffic RPM started droping and today RPM is around 8 with 70% of the traffic. I installed google analytics but forgot to link it to adsense (did it today). Can you guess what happened? and, do you know if the data prior to linking is going to show up to analyze de eCPM?
Thank you for 100k Factory , it is the best course I ‘ve ever taken, can’t wait for white label and affiliate modules! Also blueprint pro is amazing!
My best
Andres
Hola Andres! I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I also live in Argentina (in Buenos Aires). Great decision to build an online business, more people in Argentina should do it…
RPM will fluctuate. It’ll go up and down a lot until your site gets more age, but overall, the trend you’ll see is that it increases.
You’ve got good metrics, so I’m SURE you’ll make great money from this. In fact, even with an RPM of $8, I think you could make good money, you just need to focus on making sure you’re getting good cheap traffic to make that work (check the new video I put in the members area today). Once you’ve got Analytics connected to your Adsense account, everything will get much clearer. The data prior to linking will not show up… but don’t worry, you’ll soon have plenty of data to look at.
I’m really glad you’re enjoying the program Andres, let me know how you go!!!
Thanks Aidan! It is amazing that you live in Bs As! I am from Cordoba! I just quit my job 2 month ago and I am fulltime now with this business, I really want (& need) to make it big for that reason and also because me and my wife love travelling. Besides she is from Brazil so we also need to travel to see her family there.
I just watched the new boosting videos and I was doing the different interests part wrong!!, I will try to do it right and see what happens. Analytics is fully working, I can see the picture now (eCPM)! I would really love to thank you, Steve and the 100k team in person some day! Sos un grande Aidan!! Saludos
Glad you got it all working Andres 🙂
Me alegro que estes disfrutando el training!! Tal vez nos vemos un día por Buenos Aires o Córdoba!
Hi Guys! Sorry to jump in but just wanted to let you know that my sister-in-law is from Buenos Aires! She’s the absolute best and I love her! She’s a tango dancer. If you like tango you might have heard of her. Alejandra Gutty.
Wow! Small world! Seems everyone has a connection down here. I’m not really involved with the tango scene, otherwise I’m sure I wold have met her!
Oh and yes…I totally agree with Andres! This is the best course I’ve ever taken!
THANK YOU! This means a lot to us Mia!!!
Hi Aidan, Andres here again… Amazing training today!
My wife was a little skeptical with all this until today that our website hit 3600 visitors two days in row!
I just used the info on this page, I am using the UK (the cheapest), New Zealand and Canada, way cheaper than the US (only one interest is kind of cheap). RPM got to $11. I will be using all the new FB information of workshop 9 and let you know how it went.
I have two question.
1.We are working on 2 websites now. The one I told that is crashing it, and the other is doing bad. It has 2000 likes and we are following the two interests we chose to buy the likes and it is not responding. What can we read or watch in the training to try to turn things around?
2.We want to choose one more sub-niche to start working on but we don’t want to make the same mistake with this website that we can’t make succeed. Is as simple as the training about picking a niche? We chose food as a niche and sub-niches organic food (not working), gluten-free food (working) and the 2 others are comfort food and raw food.
Thanks
Andres
Hi Andres, great to hear about your results!
For Question #1, I would look at trying to use different interests as targets, see if that helps.
For #2, it’s really just as simple as we said in the training, and the vast majority of niches will work. If you have more questions about this, submit a support email and we can give you more specific details 🙂
As always, insights to change the way I do things! Thanks again, Aidan!
🙂
Hey Aidan, great information as usual. Had a question is the 100K Formula course still open?
It’s not unfortunately Bryant… thanks for commenting!
Aidan, in your images your Reach is for Website Clicks rather than Post Engagement. How do you get that figure to show? Do you select the “Clicks” option instead of the “Post Engagement” option when setting up your Boost Post ad? Which is the better option to use if you’re trying to drive traffic from FB to your website?
Hi Gary, Facebook shows the data based on your campaign type, so for that there, I must have chosen ‘Website Clicks’ as the campaign goal.
Hi Aidan:
Great post. Where did you get the authoritize wordpress theme you use for your CDL training website? I can’t seem to find out where to get it anywhere.
Hey Scott, I got that theme a LOOOOONG time ago… I doubt it’s even available nowadays!
Hey Adien, do you still have a replay of Kindle children’s books software producer up and if so, what is the URL? Thanks
Sorry Bruce, this was removed quite a while ago…
Hi Aiden
Not sure if you get this. I have fallen of the wagon and need to get back onto it. Is the info we got from the 100k formula still good to go and work with. I wish there would be a virtual class room and we could do it all together 🙂
Cheers Yvonne
ps. Do you ever come to NZ and teach here?
Hi Yvonne, YES, both 100k Factory programs (2015 and 2016) are still very effective! I do get to NZ often, but have never done a mastermind/class/meeting there… I’ll consider it for the next trip 🙂 Where are you located in NZ?
Hi Aidan. Thank for your reply. I am in Waiuku. 45 min south of Auckland. I renewed my site ground account for the 4 websites I had registered last year. I got started with one and done quite a bit of work and then stopped due to death of my best friend, moving house and life in general. Now I need a kick up my bum to get going again. The only on FB page I kept going is https://www.facebook.com/Paleo-LaVida-839167979505123/?ref=bookmarks, that’s were I am at. Many thanks for your time. Cheers Yvonne
I recommend you do two things:
1. Re-start your like campaign, you probably need an injection of about 1000 new fans to gain momentum again
2. Start working the system… go back through the training, and just start testing different blog posts
Lots of other people are doing very well from this, so there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t be able to as well. Hope this helps!
Thanks for that. All give it a go and look forward to success 😉