
Using cost-per-click data to debunk advert design myths - edmack
http://www.sketchdeck.com/blog/we-tested-48-facebook-ads-to-bust-6-marketing-myths/
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ssharp
> It is important to note that we only measured who clicked through our ads.
> That means the irrelevant images could have lower conversion rates on the
> site. The people who ended up on the SketchDeck site may not need or care
> about design.

I was really looking forward to this until I saw they were using CPC as their
barometer. Bad traffic at $0.87 / click is far costlier than good traffic at
multiples of that.

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nieksand
Exactly.

The article is an exercise in optimizing for the wrong metric.

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marcus_holmes
So they discovered that people click slightly more on unbranded images of
happy women with no relevance to a product. Good work guys!

But the total difference from best to worst was < 5%. If you're doing a vast
ad campaign then sure that totals up. But what's the opportunity cost of the
brand awareness? Spending ~5% more per click to use a relevant, branded, image
seems like a good deal.

I think it's great that they published this, but it doesn't really bear out
the conclusion. Of course, given the nature of the author the conclusion was
always going to be: "design is really really important and you should totally
spend more money on it".

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20years
Focusing solely on CPC is a mistake. Conversions are far more important IMO.

As an example for using irrelevant images - sure cute cat pics are going to
get clicked way more resulting in a lower CPC but those are not going to
convert.

Same thing with the text on images. Without text on the image that explains
what it is about, users might click more out of curiosity. Those are not going
to convert well though.

I would much rather have a lower CPL or lower cost per conversion over a lower
CPC.

To sum it up, the ending summary of "To have a successful Facebook ad:" should
really be "Focus on what drives in the lowest cost per conversion and highest
ROI"

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adamredwoods
Their methodology is bad. The most effective CPCs are the ones that do not
look like ads, therefore, are not representing accurately what a person is
clicking on. A better approach would be to compare the different designs that
LOOK LIKE ADS, and test which one is most effective.

>The small logo set also included the most popular ad from this entire
experiment. Which is one of my favorite pieces of stock photography and can be
seen below...

The above statement confirms that choice in creative can have a tremendous
impact. Each of their "myths" can be adjusted using effective creative.

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ericclemmons
I think most of the commenters are missing the point of the tests.

Having sat through a few meetings about "the best way to design FB ads", I've
actually heard a few of these "myths" as converting best.

And they meant CPC. Because the goal for lots of ads is to get the foot in the
door, then optimize the rest of the funnel.

The initial click is often the hardest, which is why this article is testing
the myths against the CPC, since the overall conversation differs greatly once
past that.

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ssharp
All feet in the door are not the same. When you're iterating on ad concepts,
maybe CPC is an okay metric, or at least an early indicator. But these ads
weren't really interations. Without a baseline CPA and running ads related to
the ad that generated that baseline, CPC has no context.

Also, if all traffic is going through that to-be-optimized funnel, how does
that justify ignoring the CPA of any individual lead source?

The only explanation that makes sense is that conversions aren't frequent
enough to find significance. That makes more sense given how many variations
were run. In that case, it doesn't make sense to run so many variations. That,
or maybe find an in between metric that at least indicates some greater level
of lead quality.

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DiabloD3
This entire study makes no sense to me.

I've never heard of Sketchdeck, but CPC is meaningless. If they are selling a
product, it should be cost per sale or cost per dollar or something in this
vein. This is the only metric that means a damn, I could care less who clicks
my ad if I can't convert them.

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woolinsilver
> could _not_ care less

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cuchoi
From the confidence intervals you can tell that there was no statistically
significative difference between the different alternatives.

