Derrick Ly

by Derrick Ly | Social Advertising

Facebook currently offers more than a dozen campaign objectives – 13 to be exact. Have you ever wondered which one will work best for your Facebook needs? I decided to run a test with one of my clients, as we were curious which objective would be best suited for branding purposes. As the off-season approached, we knew that conversion volume would be low, so we ran this test to see what campaign objective would most efficiently generate page engagement and clicks to their website.

With so many options to choose from, determining the best option for your business can be tricky. Image via Pixabay.

With so many options to choose from, determining the best option for your business can be tricky. Image via Pixabay.

Our test consisted of 3 campaign objectives: Clicks to Website, Website Conversions, and Page Post Engagements. Each of these objectives is focused on driving Facebook users to complete a different action:

Clicks to Website: drive clicks from Facebook to the advertiser’s website.

Website Conversion: drive users to complete an on-site objective, such as a purchase or lead-form submission. (For this objective, you will need a conversion pixel in place for tracking purposes)

Page Post Engagement: boost user engagement with your page by increasing likes, shares, etc.

Data shown with 28 day click attribution window.

Data shown with 28 day click attribution window.

We had great findings after 19 days of running the test in three different campaigns, all with the same interest groups, genders, age, and other targeting. We observed similar numbers of link clicks and cost per link click for the Clicks to Website and Website Conversion objectives. However, the Website Conversion objective had the added benefit that the users that clicked were likely to convert upon arriving on the site.

The Page Post Engagement campaign had the most engagement in terms of shares, comments, and likes on the ads, but it had the fewest number of link clicks (and thus traffic to the website). The Website Conversion objective actually was the second best performer in terms of engagement metrics, with more page likes and post shares than the Clicks to Website campaign.

Based on these results, we recommended that our clients use the Website Conversions objective. By doing so, we can drive people directly to the site, convert them when they arrive, and still achieve strong engagement metrics as well. In addition, we can retarget those visitors through Custom Audiences. We also recommended keeping the Page Post Engagement campaign running for engaging high-funnel prospects.

If your goal is primarily to increase engagement with your social assets, you should use the Page Post Engagement objective. However, if your goal is to increase clicks to your website, you’re often better off using the Website Conversion objective than the Clicks to Website objective. Both objectives will drive clicks to your site, but you’ll receive the added bonus of on-site conversions.

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