5 Top Ways To Beat The Facebook Ad Algorithms
In this article, I’m going to reveal the 5 top ways to beat Facebook ad algorithms and by the end, you will be armed with the knowledge of understanding everything you need to know to advertise with confidence so you can get purchases and leads at the lowest cost.
Most advertisers understand that Facebook Machine learning is designed to use the data points that it has on me, you, and all of its users.
So they can serve the best ads to get the highest conversions, but here’s something you should know…
What most advertisers don’t fully understand are the important rules about using machine learning in the right way.
And that’s knowing how to use all the signals that are put into its algorithms.
Doing this correctly is the difference between making lots of sales and leads or none.
What You Need To Know About Facebook's Machine Learning
So before jumping into it, let’s just go into a few specifics about machine learning as it evolves faster than it’s ever done.
A.I technology over the past year or so has become more available and is being used and applied in most social platforms.
Especially with Facebook’s competition using new A.I solutions.
Such as Tiktok, Google paid ads, youtube ads, and we now have A.I tools such as chatGPT.
Facebook is even advancing its A.I and they’ve announced its new machine learning language mode Lamal which they claim will be a game-changing research tool.
Now these A.I advances can show us, advertisers, how advanced and serious A.I is leading the way for some BIG changes in advertising.
And as Facebook stays above the trend so will their advertising in so many ways.
And that’s why it’s crucial for you as an advertiser to stay ahead of the trends so you can outperform your competitors.
What Facebook Engineers Say
Now let's go a bit deeper into what machine learning really is and what Facebook engineers are saying about it.
They say…
Machine learning (ML) can be thought of as a way to recognize and draw conclusions from connections among data.
So what this means for advertising is that for every penny we spend in their advertising machine, we’re essentially teaching it with data to learn more about you, your offer, and who best fits your product or service.
Just like every time you interact with your customers or research them you get to better know who they are.
So for every 1000 impressions you buy from Facebook, you allow them to receive more data back to better understand your offer, your avatar, and your business objective.
This leads to the first way to beat Facebook machine learning and that’s…
#1 Un-Restrict Audiences To Leverage Machine Learning
Now before I go into this I want you to know there is still merit to targeting specific audiences…
But first, when you don't restrict audience targeting Facebook will start to make their own audiences by using all the data points they collect on us.
And when you start spending money on their advertising machine, they’ll monitor all the interactions from all the impressions you spend, look at your ad copy, monitor the scroll, whose taking you up on your offer and so much more.
So really, by un-restricting audience targeting, you're essentially letting the machine learning get to work and find the best audiences to create itself.
Why You Shouldn't Restrict Your Audiences
However, let's say you restrict the audiences where you tell Facebook which interest or custom audience it should target…
You could potentially be blocking the machine learning from creating its own audience from all the inputs you put in.
So basically, by inputting to the machine to focus on a type of audience…
You’ll restrict and limit its abilities as it misses out on the opportunity of gathering a better audience.
Basically, you could end up forcing your ad on people who don’t want to see the ad.
This will cost you more in the long term wasting ad spend where it’s not needed I mean if you think about this.
Let’s say you create an audience with multiple interests.
Some of those interest groups might not be in the buying market and for whatever we know they might not even be interested in the subject you’ve targeted.
From what we know they could have selected that interest many years ago and not even bothered about it anymore.
And since Facebook has a far bigger edge of knowing more about its users than us, it’s a no-brainer to have at least one ad set with zero restrictions.
And saying that…Facebook barely focuses on interest targeting as it used to anymore but again there are some reasons you should still use interest targeting.
#2 Help Enhance the Facebook user experience.
You see, Facebook’s primary goal is to make sure that their users have a good experience on their platform.
Because the longer someone stays on the platform the more they can show different ads to them and make advertisers spend more money so they get more.
So what Facebook‘s looking for are multiple things that make a good user experience such as:
- The length of time a user stays on its platform.
- What people are saying when they ask people to leave feedback.
- How and why they scroll past certain ads.
Avoid Getting Your Account Banned
And something else to mention here…
Another BIG factor behind the user experience is that Facebook measures compliance, mess this up and you could literally get your ad account banned.
So make sure to read the entire ad policy from top to bottom before you write an ad.
But saying that a good way to serve your ads to make a good user experience is to obviously understand the avatar you're serving your ad to.
However, a way to measure it is when you can keep an eye on your ad relevance score.
Make sure to keep your quality, engagement, and conversion rate ranking at average or above average and doing this will also make sure your ad is being delivered over your competitors.
Because the ad relevance score is facebook’s way of measuring feedback to you on the quality of the ad.
#3 Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns
Now, this is a new feature that’s rolling out across many ad accounts.
And it’s a feature that uses the algorithms in a different way than when you set up your ad manually, it's used on the sales objective.
So when you select sales it will ask you to select the advantage+ setup or do it manually only for those who have this feature available.
Now, if you don’t know what this feature does…
Then, as Facebook states this feature requires fewer inputs to give to its ad creation which basically means it’s a simplified way of setting up an ad.
And they say the big advantage of using this type of campaign is that you're taking advantage of machine learning at the highest level.
Only Do This With A Large budget
They state the benefits are that you can test up to 150 creative combinations and deliver the highest-performing ads.
And you can use machine learning to identify and aim for your highest-value customers across all of Meta’s family of apps and services, with minimal input.
Now before you try this feature out, it isn’t for everyone but I've seen it work best if you’re an e-commerce store and have a BIG budget.
So if you spend less than 20 or 50k a month then it might not be good for you as there are many variations you have to test, and a bigger budget will be needed.
Especially if the algorithms don’t know much about you or your customers.
So let’s say you don’t have any data such as past creatives or many sales or leads, or if your ad account is new, then taking advantage of this type of algorithm might not be best for you.
#4 Optimize Your Ad Objective
By optimizing your ad object you can input the best signal for machine learning to work most efficiently.
Because now more than ever it’s important to structure your campaigns in a way that aligns with the correct objective.
When you choose the right campaign structure for your ad campaigns, you can utilize the Facebook algorithm to help make selling easy, and get high-quality leads.
You’ll give the right input that gets specific with your goals on Facebook this can feed the algorithm to work best to its ability.
Because you’re essentially telling Facebook what to go and do specifically so make sure to choose the exact objective that’s right for your offer.
#5 Connect Your Message And Brand
Remember you’re not only feeding a machine, but your using psychology and words to convey your message & build a relationship with your audience.
You see, it’s easy to get all technical about algorithms and look for the ninja way to stay ahead of your competitors.
But the truth is…
The way you use words to convey your message.
And how you deliver content through ads that focus on branding your business to create real emotional connections is the most important part of advertising on Facebook or any platform you ever use.
I mean you can get success being a direct response marketer going straight to your offer.
However, if you're not branding your business and positioning your prospects to be all in on you your offer on an emotional level.
You’ll be missing out on the highest conversions possible because a study done by Harvard business school shows a fully connected customer can grow your business on a higher level, and even increase the lifetime value.
Getting people to recommend your business and increasing even more sales.
I mean that’s what a real business does, it builds real relationships with customers and over-delivers on its promises.
If you found this useful I also recommend looking into my top 5 Facebook ads targeting hacks.
Rick Khan is a Marketing, advertising, and Copywriting expert, content creator, and the Founder of zillaclick.com Marketing Consultant Agency