Facebook prospecting campaigns offer a massive potential audience for digital marketers. But are your campaigns truly reaching new customers? Or are you just retargeting the same old leads? We’ll show you how to analyze your campaigns, reveal what Facebook’s hiding, and get those prospecting ads dialed in.
For years, many marketers struggled with this issue. They’d launch Facebook prospecting campaigns, see decent in-app ROAS, and think everything was great. But their new customer acquisition cost (NCAC) was through the roof.
The Cold, Hard Truth About Prospecting on Facebook
Facebook’s algorithms are optimized for in-app conversions, not necessarily new customer acquisition. Even if you exclude your existing customer lists and website visitors, Facebook still finds ways to show your ads to people already familiar with your brand.
This might boost your ROAS in the short term, but it kills your long-term growth. Correctly measuring cold traffic for Facebook prospecting campaigns is critical for success on Meta (Facebook and Instagram).
Why Your Facebook Prospecting Campaigns Aren't Prospecting
The culprit? A little checkbox called “Reach people beyond your custom audience.” This seemingly harmless option often leads Facebook to prioritize retargeting over true prospecting, despite your exclusions. For effective lead generation, prioritize accurate cold traffic measurement. Explore various ad formats and campaign types for optimal performance. Refine your targeting audiences and track key metrics such as video views and link clicks for better insights.
Facebook's AI craves those in-app conversions. If your cold traffic isn’t converting quickly, it’ll shift its focus to warmer leads—people who’ve already interacted with your brand. These subtle setting changes can wreck a great Facebook prospecting campaign. Staying on top of these changes and avoiding some automated campaign creation options is often wise.
The Hidden Advantage+ Audience Setting
Even if you avoid the “Reach beyond” option, Facebook may still enable Advantage+ audience targeting without your knowledge. Especially for campaign objectives tied to sales conversions, the system may automate Advantage+ audience targeting as your goal, hindering true cold traffic reach. Properly managing your ad sets within Facebook Ads Manager can help maintain control over your prospecting efforts.
How to Truly Prospect With Facebook Prospecting Campaigns
Effective prospecting on Facebook is still possible. You can take back control with these prospecting tools and settings tweaks. Build effective prospecting audiences that are distinct from retargeting audiences.
- Campaign Objective: Select “Traffic,” “Reach,” or “Landing Page Views.” Don’t focus solely on in-app results at the outset of your Facebook prospecting campaigns. Try to connect with your target audience. Let your broader marketing funnel handle conversions.
- Custom Audiences: Build custom audiences of your existing customers, website visitors, and other warm leads. Exclude these audiences from your prospecting campaigns. Exclude some website visitor traffic lists. These contacts are already in your CRM. They should be nurtured into paying leads through retargeting campaigns and not lumped into prospecting campaigns where they are not efficiently marketed to based on their already-established interaction with your brand.
- Lookalike Audiences: Start from a small lookalike audience (1-2%) to find highly targeted users. Gradually widen your approach as budget allows, increasing the number of quality prospects who see your offers.
- Detailed Targeting Options: Avoid overly specific detailed targeting criteria and stick to a maximum of three interest layers. Focus on broad-interest groups for your Facebook prospecting campaigns. Experiment with different ad creatives, including single image ads, carousel ads, and video ads, to capture audience attention. For optimal results, integrate your email list to further refine your targeting strategy.
Measuring What Matters: New Visit Percentage
Vanity metrics like clicks and impressions don’t tell the whole story for Facebook prospecting campaigns. You need to know how many clicks come from new visitors.
Wicked Reports, a multi-touch marketing attribution software, introduced “New Visit Percentage.” This metric reveals how many clicks are from truly new potential customers for your Facebook prospecting campaigns.
Tracking New Visit Percentage pinpoints which campaigns are truly reaching cold audiences. This allows you to calculate a more accurate cost per new visit for these and other online marketing initiatives. Accurately identifying target prospects and effectively using your sales prospecting budget are vital components for a robust targeting strategy.
Projecting Your True NCAC
Knowing your cost per new visit and historical top-of-funnel conversion rate helps project a realistic NCAC. This data gives you a clearer picture of campaign profitability over time. Consider utilizing video ads for lead generation purposes, or perhaps incorporating carousel ads to diversify your campaign.
| Metric | Example Value |
|---|---|
| Cost per New Visit | $0.50 |
| Conversion Rate | 5% |
| Projected NCAC | $10.00 |
With this insight, you can determine if you're overspending on early interaction metrics with Facebook. You can then begin improving calculations to gain more solid customer acquisition through your prospecting campaigns. Scaling your Facebook prospecting campaigns becomes data-driven instead of guesswork. A combination of single image ads and video ads can be highly effective for driving conversions. Furthermore, leveraging lead generation ads and focusing on specific demographics can significantly enhance the impact of your campaigns.
Conclusion
Effective Facebook prospecting campaigns are essential for sustainable business growth. By understanding Facebook’s algorithms and focusing on the right metrics, you can build profitable, scalable marketing efforts. Avoid relying solely on in-app metrics.
Prioritize accurate cold traffic measurement using tools like New Visit Percentage. With this knowledge and a smarter approach to ad sets and ad formats, your Facebook prospecting campaigns will fuel lasting results and business growth. Effectively segmenting and targeting audiences, understanding your campaign types, and optimizing ad creative are fundamental to maximizing campaign effectiveness and return on investment. Leveraging Facebook Ads Manager to control ad spend and monitoring key metrics like video views, app installs, link clicks, and conversions provides invaluable insights for optimizing future campaigns and driving growth.
