Facebook Blueprint Live
Will Campbell • 18th Oct 2017
With some of the richest and most sophisticated targeting tools in the digital world, when the invitation came through from the Facebook team to join them at their Blueprint live event in Dublin it was simply a question of ‘which flight am I getting?’.
A bit of context first – I’ve spent the entirety of my digital career working within Paid Search, so with Facebook’s forward-thinking offering and ever growing usage it was truly exciting to be asked along. So I was looking forward to learning a bit more about Facebook as an ad platform and with a programme full of experts on the matter, things were certainly looking promising.
…. And I wasn’t disappointed. The range of speaker sessions took us through the ins and outs of the very latest industry stats and trends relevant to the platform. Here are my top three takeaways from the event.
Trend 1 – Post Engagement ads
Post Engagement ads are becoming more valuable for marketers, with large improvements to both CTR and CPC being recorded over the last two years. Similarly to Google where enhanced ad formats and other technological developments have made for increased engagement, it was interesting to see similar results within Facebook. An estimated increase of 142% in terms of CTR and a reduction of 83% within CPC have proven to be crucial in the growth of Facebook Advertising. Currently, Post Engagement ads are the least expensive Facebook ads and relatively underused – which is great for those looking to take advantage of particularly low levels of competition.
Trend 2 – Video Ads
Video Ads are increasing in popularity and in turn is influencing an increase in CPC. it’s not a trend that’s unique to Facebook as we’ve seen similar patterns within Google and YouTube-based campaigns. Over the last two years, advertisers have increased budget spend on video ads by 150%. As more and more advertisers look to video ads to carry their work, and their popularity increases, the CTR advertisers see will decrease. With growing levels of competition, we reckon that increases to costs will follow. We’ve already noticed a similar trend within paid search. Increased mobile usage has made for ever-growing costs for advertisers here, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on how this trend develops over the coming months.
Trend 3 – Page Like campaigns
My third and final takeaway from the day was that Page Like campaigns are becoming less popular and also less expensive for marketers. This trend has come about thanks to some significant changes to Page Like campaigns. Facebook highlighted a large drop in usage of this campaign type and noted that fewer advertisers were using this format within news feeds and other areas of Facebook. An estimated 70% lower budget spend within this area of the Facebook platform over the last few years tells it’s own story. Only 3% of all ad spend was spent on Page Like ads!
Facebook’s Blueprint event was insightful to say the least. I for one am really looking forward to seeing how the Facebook platform continues to develop throughout the remainder of 2017 and how we can ensure any new formats and campaign types compliment all other active marketing channels.
A big thank you to the Facebook Dublin team for the invite!
