Want to be able to measure whether your Facebook campaigns are successful?
Then you have to understand how to set up your Facebook Ad KPIs.
So if you want to learn why your metrics are so key, how to decide on your Facebook ads metrics, and the common mistakes entrepreneurs make with their Facebook KPIs…keep reading!
The topic of Facebook metrics is on my mind because we just recently onboarded a new agency client at ScaleDriven, my performance-driven marketing agency. We specialize in Facebook advertising, but help our clients with Google ads, YouTube ads, and even their funnels!
This client came highly recommended and was ready to scale their advertising.
They’re a local business in New York and their primary goal was to increase their number of appointments booked.
The Biggest Problem Entrepreneurs Have With Facebook Metrics
Their biggest issue?
They didn’t quite know how much they were willing to pay per appointment.
They have several divisions or verticals, so they offer a variety of appointment types.
And while they’d been running ads for a bit, they weren’t really seeing any results from them. Most of their traffic and appointments were coming from referrals, word of mouth, Google searches or just walk-ins.
They’d been in the game for a while and had a lot of brand equity (which I noted we’d leverage in our campaigns). They just hadn’t cracked the code on paid ads yet.
They didn’t know what their KPIs were. They didn’t know how much they were willing to pay per appointment.
How We Help Our Clients Develop Their Facebook KPIs
And they’re not alone. In fact, when a lot of clients come to us, they don’t really know what they should be paying.
So at ScaleDriven, we always help our clients develop their KPIs and metrics, especially their Facebook Ads KPIs.
And the only way to actually get clear on those numbers is to start running campaigns!
It’s impossible to know your Facebook KPIs without first getting some data under your belt.
We can’t know:
- What you’ll pay per appointment
- What you’ll pay per lead
- What you’ll pay per click
Until we start running campaigns and collecting data.
If you speak to a Facebook marketing agency, and they’re able to tell you right off the bat on your initial call – “You’re going to pay [$X] per appointment!” – run.
There’s no way your agency can know without getting under the hood and into your Facebook ads manager.
Before getting some campaigns going, there’s so much we don’t know:
- We don’t how much it’s going to cost to run ads in your local area
- We don’t know how effective you are at closing sales on the phone
- We don’t know exactly how competitive your niche is
When we’re on that initial consultation call, there are still a lot of question marks.
At ScaleDriven, here’s what we do to really get clear on your Facebook metrics.
We’ll run your first campaigns for 30-45 days, and then we’ll decide, “Are we hitting our KPIs or not?”
The reason why is that once you run ads for a little bit, the market TELLS you your metrics.
They’ll tell you:
- How much you’ll pay per click
- How much you’ll pay per appointment
- And how much you’ll pay per lead
It’s easy to say “I want to pay $10 per booked appointment!”.
But if you’re advertising in a really competitive area, the math might just not work out for you.
Sometimes we arbitrarily set up these metrics without really understanding the market.
You can say you don’t want to spend more than $50 per appointment, or $100 to acquire a customer.
But at the end of the day, the market decides how much you’ll pay – based on your area, your niche, how effective your ads are, and more factors.
Facebook Ads Metrics, Explained
A better way to think about your Facebook KPIs is like this:
Basically, when you’re running ads on Facebook, you’re essentially buying data.
You’re saying “Hey Facebook. Here’s $3,000. Give me some data. Tell me how much I’ll be paying per click, per lead, per booked appointment, per call”
Whatever metrics are important to your business.
Once you understand that, you’re able to work backward.
Let me explain in a little more detail.
Say you’re like my client and you have a bunch of different services.
You need to get clear on how much a customer is worth to you.
For example, let’s say that for every client that comes your way for a particular service, you make $500.
If you want to run a healthy Facebook ad campaign, you need to have a two-to-one ROI – meaning that for every dollar you put into the campaign, you take $2 out of the campaign.
In that case, at MOST you want to be paying $250 per client.
Ideally, you will be paying less, but at most, initially, you will be paying $250.
Why?
Because that client is worth $500 and you’re trying to achieve a 2-1 ROI.
Now let’s say that only one out of 10 appointments tend to show up.
Let’s see how that variable would affect our campaign.
You could try SMS follow-ups, train your team so they’re more effective on the phone, or other strategies. But for the example’s sake, let’s say 1 in 10 show up.
That means that AT MOST, you want to pay $25 per appointment.
Because of every $250 spent, only one person will actually show up to the appointment and become a client.
And you’ll still be hitting a 2-1 ROI.
Let’s talk about cost per click, now.
Say that one out of every ten people who visit your website will book an appointment.
That means you can afford to pay $2.50/click.
Why $2.50?
Well $2.50 times ten equals $25, which equates to one booked appointment.
And because only one in ten people will show up, we times that investment by ten so we get $250.
That means you’re still paying $250 per customer and getting $500 back, giving us the 2-1 ROI.
So once you understand how much a customer is worth to you, you can work backward to determine your Facebook ads KPIs.
But initially, you might not have these metrics.
Factors That Affect Your Facebook Ads KPIs
Your marketing KPIs are influenced by a variety of factors, and sometimes you might need expert support to determine the metrics that make sense for your brand.
For example, the other day we were onboarding an Australian client.
They’re already well known in the Australian market, but they’re now launching in the U.S.
They know their KPIs for the Australian market…but their KPIs in the states are going to be totally different!
So one of our goals or duties as an agency is to partner with our clients to find out how much they’re going to pay per booked call.
It’s highly likely that they’ll be paying more in the U.S. due to increased competition.
So they could combat this by doing one of two things:
- Keep the prices the same as in Australia, but compensate by doing more volume
- Or increase their prices to their American customers
It’s time for you to see advertising as a tool to understand the metrics in your funnel.
Location is just ONE factor that could affect your Facebook metrics.
So does:
- Your funnel conversion rate
- Your sales skills
- Your email sequences
- Your follow-up
The list goes on and on.
And when you think about it…that’s a GOOD thing.
It means there are a lot of levers you could use to increase your bottom line.
You could give your sales team better training.
You could have more consistent follow-up.
You could hire a copywriter to improve your email sequences.
But you know what’s a lot harder to do?
Is to try and decrease your advertising costs.
(Which is what so many businesses try to do).
When you focus exclusively on trying to lower your cost per click, your cost per lead, your cost per appointment…that’s the hardest thing to do.
Why?
Because when you focus on improving your funnel, or your conversion rate, or your show rate – you’re competing against yourself.
Your future self is competing against your past self and trying to improve upon prior results.
But when you try to decrease metrics like your cost-per-lead or cost-per-click, it’s a lot harder. After all, you’re competing against millions of other advertisers!
And sometimes, things are simply out of our control – unless something like a recession or a pandemic comes along. In that case, we might see a decreasing cost per acquisition, but that’s not something that we can control.
So again, if you still feel unsure about your Facebook metrics…just try to achieve a two-to-one ROI.
It’s usually a great, healthy starting point for your campaigns!
And if you want to learn how to take your campaigns to the next level, I recommend watching our FREE class on the 100 Million Method.
We’ll show you the three main pitfalls that prevent people from being successful with Facebook apps.
(Hint: One of them is not knowing their metrics and not knowing their strategy!)
There are two more that you need to know, so head here to learn them now!