One of the freelancers' or digital marketers’ buzzwords in the social media space today is post engagement. When your ads are set up right, this key metric will give your Facebook Ads the results and ROI your business or client aims for.
However, with all the ads thrown to the user’s feeds every day, the struggle nowadays is how to stand out. Every clever marketer’s answer would be optimising your post engagement on Facebook Ads. But how do you effectively do it?
In this article, we’ll go through the ins and outs of post engagement on Facebook Ads and how you can run optimised Facebook ad campaigns that can skyrocket your post engagement rate.
What is post engagement on Facebook Ads?
In simple terms, post engagements on Facebook Ads are the total number of actions that users take on your ads. These actions may include reactions, comments, shares, offer claims, link clicks, etc. Engagements on Facebook are a good measure of how your target audience interacts with your posts and ad campaigns.
The way your audience interacts with your content says everything about their interest in your brand or products. This is why businesses on Facebook treat this metric as one of the building blocks of their social media advertising. Advertisers and digital marketers use engagements to measure an ad campaign’s effectiveness and ensure that their ads yield desired results like conversions (subscriptions, product purchases).
There are different ways to measure your engagement rate based on other metrics such as reach, impressions, views, and others. Here are some of the most common formulas used to determine engagement rate:
Engagement Rate by Reach (ERR)
This measures the percentage of people who interacted with your content after seeing it. ER by reach represents the people who actually saw your content, including the ones who saw your post through shares or hashtags or the viral coefficient. This is in contrast with measuring engagement rate against your follower count, which excludes all metrics caused by virality. The measurement is represented by the following formula:
ERR = total number of engagements per post / reach per post * 100
Average ERR = Total ERR / Total posts
Just keep in mind that your post reach may vary in ways that can make this calculation less accurate. For example, a very low reach can lead to a relatively high engagement rate which would not be a reliable measure of the actual ad success in this case.
Engagement Rate by Impressions
Contrary to Reach, Impressions may include multiple views of your ads by the same people. Still, it can be beneficial to measure your engagement rate by Impressions, especially if you want to check how many times your post has been interacted with out of all the times it was shown on your audience’s feeds. This measurement is represented by the following formula:
ER by impressions = Total engagements on a post / Total impressions * 100
Average ER by impressions = Total ER impressions / Total posts
Like ERR, engagement rate by impression can also be inconsistent because of how Impression is measured on Facebook. For better results, you can calculate this ER by Impressions alongside ERR.
Engagement Rate by Posts
Engagement rate by posts measures how many of your followers interact with a specific post. This is similar to ERR but uses a more stable metric: your follower count. Additionally, this calculation is often preferred when measuring one post’s engagement rate.
You can calculate the Engagement Rate by Posts with the following formula:
ER post = Total engagements on a post / Total followers * 100
Average ER by post = Total ER by post / Total posts
One downside of using this formula is the fact that it doesn’t measure the virality of your post.
Engagement Rate by Views
This ER is a measurement of how many people engage with viewable content such as Facebook vertical videos. Use this formula to calculate this percentage:
ER view = Total engagements on video post / Total video views * 100
Average ER view = Total ER view / Total posts
However, just remember that, like impressions, multiple views from a single user will count as multiple views. And while they may have watched your video a couple of times, they may not have engaged with it the same number of times.
Daily Engagement Rate
Your Average Daily Engagement Rate measures how many of your followers engage with your content on a daily basis. This percentage helps you determine the overall performance of your daily posts if you need to post more content per day or just boost your existing ones. This is calculated by the following formula:
Daily ER = Total engagements in a day / Total followers * 100
Average Daily ER = Total engagements for X days / (X days *followers) * 100
Just like ER by impressions, this formula also doesn’t take into account how one follower can engage with your posts multiple times in one day. Instead, it is recorded the same as when multiple followers engage with your content once. The percentage also depends on the number of posts you publish per day.
What is a good post engagement on Facebook Ads?
Ultimately, post engagement rates vary depending on the industry your business belongs to, as well as your target audience. For example, B2B companies may have a generally lower engagement rate than B2C companies due to a smaller number of audience.
In general, for reach-based measurement, a 1% to 2% Facebook engagement rate is considered the benchmark for well-performing ads. This works best for larger companies whose customers only need to be reminded since their brand is already established and recognizable. For smaller companies, it will be more beneficial to use this as a threshold and aim for a higher rate.
However, if your posts receive less than 0.7% engagement on average, it may mean that your current targeting is ineffective. You can always improve this by following our advertising tips and long-standing strategies on how to get more engagement on Facebook.
How can I improve my Facebook ad engagement?
It's vital for your business to optimise your post engagement to get the most out of your Facebook advertising efforts. Improving your ad engagement will not only help you get a return on your ad spend but also turn your ad campaigns into better-performing ads and achieve your business goals.
To help you build a stronger campaign foundation, we have listed some of the best future-resistant strategies that can boost your Facebook ad engagement.
1. Know and understand the target audience
Your ads will be meaningless and remain a costly liability if they are only shown to irrelevant users who do not have an interest in your products or services. To improve your Facebook Ads, you have to specify who exactly is your target audience. This includes profiling audiences based on demographics or user behaviour.
If you’re new to the digital marketing space, we recommend experimenting with audience targeting to figure out which set of audiences suits your content and business goals best. With effective audience targeting, your Facebook Ads will ideally be shown to more people who are more likely to engage with your content.
2. Create ads that are relevant to this audience
Always tailor your Facebook Ads relevant to your chosen target audience. Understand your audience behaviour and content consumption preferences, so you can make ads that will appeal to them. It is more likely for your audience to consume content that they can relate to. This is where trends or seasons should be considered.
For example, if your goal is to sell Apple products and accessories, it will be more effective to check on users browsing Facebook with Apple devices, timing your ads on release dates or payday sales.
Facebook Ads that resonate with your chosen target audience also include using the appropriate design with messaging that will more likely make the specific audience engage with your content.
3. Ensure ads fulfil the needs of the targeted audience
One way to create Facebook Ads that are relevant to your chosen target audience is to make ads that fulfil their needs. You can also try to predict and recognise what your target audience wants and how it relates to their needs.
Consider how your ads will make your audience feel, amplify their wants and convert them to their needs if possible. Create your ads in a customer-centric approach where you highlight how your product or service will satisfy their needs or make them want to check out more of your brand.
4. Carefully consider ad posting times and frequency
As you might already know, social media platforms have different optimal posting times and frequencies. The rule of thumb for ad posting is to do it when most of your target audience are likely to see it. This may be late in the afternoon or early evening, or on weekends, depending on your established analytics.
Also, figure out how many posts you should be publishing per day (ad frequency). If you don’t figure it out, you might miss the opportunity to reach the most people with a single ad set. This is also one of the reasons why it’s crucial to understand how your target audience behaves.
Remember that you won’t be able to gauge when and how many you should post on the get-go. To ensure that you are publishing the right ads for your audience, you can start by doing ad tests on different frequencies and times of the day. From there, follow the settings with the most engagement.
However, just remember that your audience can also start to experience ad fatigue if you publish too much, too fast.
5. Use multiple ad sets
Users tend to engage with content that has a lot of engagement and social proof. You can use this to your advantage by aggregating all of your social engagement into one post. To do this, you can create an ad and launch it to your audience. Then, use the same Post ID from the first ad and create new ad sets from it. This can be accomplished by selecting “Use Existing Post.”
With this approach, you can consolidate all post engagements into one post. This means that each ad set will share the same likes, comments, and shares. This will then serve as your engagement-rich post that attracts more people to interact with your post and your brand.
6. Include a clear CTA
In today’s digital age, where people are bombarded by a lot of different ads on a daily basis, it’s so important for your Facebook ad copy to include a clear Call-to-Action (CTA). This is to drive the right action from the audience and make sure you get your ad to do what you aim to achieve from a business perspective.
For example, if you want your audience to share the post, tag someone, or sign up for your service, you can talk to your copywriting team to effectively incorporate your CTA where it matters the most. Attention-grabbing, appropriately witty copy is more likely to get your audience’s attention. Of course, it will also depend on your audience and your brand voice.
7. Use visual elements
The right image for your Facebook Ads can increase the chance of invoking a user’s emotion or remind them of a necessity that could make them take action or engage with your content. It’s important to aim to stand out against your competitors when it comes to your ads. Using visual elements will go a long way in fulfilling this, as humans process visual information far more quicker than text.
Some of the visual elements you can use for your Facebook Ads are images, infographics, short-form and long-form videos, and carousels.
8. Engage with comments
Engaging with your audience has always been an effective way to establish and develop relationships and rapport with them. By engaging with comments and building conversations, you will get to know your audience, help establish authenticity, and receive user feedback.
When you respond to your audience’s comments, it will send them the message that you listen to their concerns and care about their needs and preferences. You can resonate better with your audience by simply saying thanks when appropriate or answering their queries.
9. Use ad testing
Ad testing, such as A/B testing, will give you the space you need to approach your Facebook Ads in different ways and see which of them resonates best with your selected target audience. It will also provide you with valuable ad insights that can help increase your overall engagement as you analyse each test phase’s results and figure out exactly what the audience is responding to.
There are many ways to test your ads. This may include posting at varying times, in different styles, and different copy, among others. You must also remember to isolate the variables that you want to test in an ad iteration and leave the rest unchanged. This is so you will not have too many ad variations, which are easier to analyse.
Remember that the end goal is to release ad creatives that will stay compatible with your target audience.
10. Monitor ad performance over time
It’s a no-brainer to monitor ad performance over time since you need to gauge how well your ads are currently performing. This will give you a clear picture of how your brand is perceived by your audience. The data you gather from your existing ads will also give you a benchmark on which to base your future advertising strategies.
It is inevitable to spend money as you establish your brand, boost your content, and run ad campaigns. However, you can avoid inefficient spending and ad campaigns by implementing and applying effective ad reporting tools and strategies. A reliable reporting methodology that provides the insight your business needs will go a long way in assisting your advertising efforts. Some of the benefits of effective ad monitoring and reporting include optimising ad spending, advertising performance, post scheduling, and audience targeting.
By monitoring your ad performance over time, you will also be able to easily stay up-to-date on the ever-changing Facebook ad best practices and algorithm. It will also help you continuously and consciously test and optimise your campaigns so you can stay ahead of the competition and reach your marketing goals on Facebook.
Facebook Post engagement is one of the most important metrics for measuring the success of your advertising efforts on the platform. These interactions humanise your brand and invoke consumer emotions that will benefit your brand in the long run. By understanding post engagement and what makes a good engagement rate, you can better target your audience and create content that helps you connect with them.
With our tips and strategies, you can effectively improve your Facebook ad engagement and drive more traffic, leads, and conversions for your business.
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