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Hey,
The first time I heard about Big Data, almost twenty years ago, I assumed wrestling was planning to wheel out a juiced-up nerd and flip the script for once; Iâm still disappointed about that.
These days, everyone knows that Big Data is really all about collecting lots of information, crunching the numbers âtil the cybercows come home, and then applying those insights to make lots and lots (and lots) more moolah.
There are endless flavors, but all tend to be scooped into that same cone.
All Things Data is still very much en vogue in 2022, of course, with everyone these days talking about data like it actually is the all-knowing android from Star Trek who draws on his endless reservoir of knowledge to assist you.
Except small-D data can lead you astray just as often as it can guide you to the promised land of loadza lucre â especially if your view is skewed or you make the wrong assumptions.
So, today, Iâm going to show you two important things:
¡ what hidden metrics you need to focus on in the alphabet soup Facebook throws your way (and what the bloody hell they mean).
¡ how you can wrangle that imposing dashboard into something more useful, displaying the buried metrics you really need (and what you need to watch out for in relation to these metrics as your ads run).
Itâs quite the twofer. But before we cannonball into that particular paddling pool, a quick heads-up:
The promised video tutorial on Facebook ad creation will be posted to my YouTube channel once my crack team is done zapping warts in the editing suite. (Note: I am that crack team.)
Iâm sure Iâll mention it here also but to get your grubby mitts on that detailed video guide the second it drops â because why wouldnât you want that? â then make sure to subscribe to said YouTube channel via this super clickable link right here.
Right. Where were we?
The default dashboard on Facebook looks something like this.
Ugh. Not very useful is it? I mean⌠Iâm sure this information is relevant to somebody but that person sure isnât me.
What I really need to know is the following:
The first is straightforward enough. I need my dashboard to display what Facebook calls âUnique outbound clicks.â That distinction is important because you donât want Facebook counting those clicks when readers like, comment, or share your ad. While we definitely like when readers do all those things, we donât want that side-action messing with our critical metrics. And Facebook will count all those clicks in your dashboard unless you get the data-prod out. (Iâll show you how to do that in a minute.) So, get a sheet of paper and make a note of that metric now: Unique outbound clicks.
As for the second, i.e. cost per click or whatâs known in the biz as CPC, you need to be a teeny bit careful here too because Facebook will always present the sunniest possible picture of your adsâ performance. (Obvs, it wants you to spend more money on ads.) But we have different priorities, so we need to remove all those extra clicks I spoke about above â and we do that by avoiding the CPC metric and instead opting for Cost per unique outbound click which will only count clicks which actually lead users over to our books on Amazon and Apple and anywhere else you might be sending them, and which also wonât double count anyone who comes back for more.
Finding out if your ads are hitting the mark or need improvement is more complicated, but one quick-and-dirty way of measuring how ads are resonating with their audience is via the clickthrough rate â or CTR. Again, we need to grapple with Facebook to get a true picture so add this to our growing list of desired metrics: Unique outbound CTR.
Some more metrics which are useful for tracking performance and optimizing our ads include Delivery, Frequency, Budget, Amount Spent, Results, Reach, Impressions, Schedule, and Ends. Add all of those to your list.
You can see from the screenshot up top that very few of those crucial metrics are visible in the default picture we are given. Facebook has several other automatic presets for your dashboard, which you can explore if you wish, but let me save you some time and tell you right away that none of them are quite satisfactory.
Instead, we are going to build our own Fancy Custom Dashboard â which Facebook actually allows you to do. This is a very welcome feature, especially because we can both save it and name it.
Obviously, I call mine âMakeItRaaaaaaain.â
In the words of the philosopher Montell Jordan, this is how we do it.
Go to your Business Manager/Ads Manger â this generic link will usually redirect you to your own account if you have any trouble finding it in Facebookâs cluttered interface: https://www.facebook.com/adsmanagerâ
What you should be faced with now is your ads dashboard, showing all the results of previous campaigns. It might look a little something like the screenshot above (unless you have never run any ads, in which case it will be empty).
And as you can see from that screenshot, this default dashboard isnât very helpful and is missing most of the key metrics I spoke about above. What you need to do is click on the drop-down menu circled back up there, which will trigger this.
You will see a long list of presets there â Facebook offers a variety of different defaults for your dashboard. Feel free to check them out if you like, but none of them are really suitable. So we will build our own, incorporating all the useful metrics we spoke about earlier (you can tweak this for your own needs, as you wish â this is just a suggested serving!).
Click on Customize Columns at the bottom â highlighted by that red arrow above.
A pop-up screen will, well, pop up. Itâs quite impenetrable so take your time with it.
What you need to do is untick everything you donât want, and tick everything you do want, so perhaps clear everything you don't want/need out first⌠and then add all the metrics we spoke about above, and anything else you might want to have a gander at.
Very important: You can always come back and fiddle with this later, but make sure to hit tick that Save As Preset box in the bottom left or else your customized dashboard will not be saved the next time you come back and you will have to go through all this rigmarole again. (Ask me how I know!)
Once you have done that, click the blue Apply button in the bottom right and youâre done.
Well, almost. You might need to fiddle with the width of the columns, and maybe drag some around, so itâs all presented exactly how you like. But when youâre done fussing, you have a brand spanking new dashboard. One that will help you get a clearer picture of how your ads are performing.
Next time, we will look at how you can process all this information, along with your Amazon sales reports, to figure out if you are making any bloody money (and how to change up those ads if you are not!).
But in the meantime, here are some pointers on what I generally monitor regarding the metrics on Facebook itself.
And that, more or less, is that â all the metrics I need to make a success with Facebook Ads. At least, thatâs all the metrics that I can get from Facebook.
The most important metric of all is missing: conversion rate. And itâs missing because Facebook doesnât have that data. Nobody does. (Well, Amazon does but they certainly donât share it with me.)
This is where things get tricky. You can get an idea of how your ads are performing, but you are missing one giant piece of the puzzle â whether all this is turning into sales. (And if those sales are enough to cover the cost of the ads.)
Itâs quite the pickle, and filling the gap is harder than you think â even when you are a self-publisher with 24/7 near-live sales reports in KDP.
We will cover how to handle that in the next episode â itâs such a huge topic it will need an entire email on its own. But itâs worth it because you will learn how to calculate your profits from Facebook ads so that you know if you are torching the kidsâ college fund⌠or going yacht shopping this summer.
Later skater,
Dave
P.S. Soundtrack to my comeback is Black Grape with Shake Your Money.
by David Gaughran
Join 17,000 authors and learn the latest techniques to give your books an edge from advertising, branding, and algorithms, to targeting, engagement, and reader psychology. Get some cool freebies for joining too, like a guide to building your platform and a comprehensive book marketing course. Yes, it's all totally free!
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