Can you do strict CPC advertising on Facebook?

[RosemaryB]

There has been some debate amongst my colleagues that Facebook obscures it's advertising spend options.  This for setting up ads to go directly to a website.

I understand that Facebook offers both CPM & PPC https://www.facebook.com/help/125430440869478.  However lets say that an advertiser hypothetical sets up a campaign and for some reason the ad receives absolutely no clicks (but some impressions).  Will the advertiser still be charged?

[RyanPurkey]

Hi Rosemary. CPC campaigns should only be counting clicks sent from Facebook to your target website.  See: https://www.facebook.com/help/659185130844708  and https://www.facebook.com/help/336724533157327

If they're not you'd be able to report the non-visit charges as fraudulent and likely have them removed from your billing.

[RosemaryB]

Thanks Ryan

However one of my colleagues had this feedback:

This is Interesting. So Ryan says no charge for display as long as you're under the pay-per-click program. That seems contradicted by what Paul found on FB itself, below. See my yellow highlight. My interpretation is that Facebook is cloaking the fact that they don't really have PPC-only advertising.

You have to pay something for your ads to appear, even if you get no clicks. If you do get clicks, FB says you won't pay more than your maximum bid, which is their definition of "optimizing for clicks."

However, the phrase "our system will only charge you the minimum amount required to win that placement..." says to me you pay regardless for your simply to exist on Facebook. I say this due to the most deceptive phrase of all, "required to win that placement." What else can this mean other the advertiser pays even with no clicks? This is what FB means when it says "you'll only be charged for the number of clicks or the number of impressions." You don't really get to choose.

Any other new thoughts?

How am I charged when I pay for ads?

The pricing of Facebook ads is based on an auction system where ads compete for impressions based on bid and performance. When you run your ad, you'll only be charged for the number of clicks or the number of impressions your ad received.

You can estimate the cost before you create your ad by looking at what we recommend you bid for each click(CPC) or thousand impressions (CPM).

To estimate the cost of your ad for clicks or impressions before you create it:

1. Go to ad creation
2. Go through the steps to create an ad and select Show Advanced Options for what you would like to do with your ad
3. In the Campaign Pricing section under Bidding, select Optimize for clicks or Optimize for impressions
4. The bid estimator will appear and show you the range of bids that are currently winning the auction among ads similar to yours

Based on this estimate, you can determine how much you wish to spend per click or per thousand impressions. You can multiply that number by the number of clicks or thousand impressions you wish to receive each day to determine your approximate daily budget. The amount that you're charged each day will never exceed the daily budget that you set.

If you run your ad, our system will only charge you the minimum amount required to win that placement, which may be less than your maximum bid. Because we lower the cost on your behalf, we recommend that you enter your true maximum bid when creating an ad. This will increase the likelihood that don't miss out on the clicks or impressions that you otherwise could have received as the required bid fluctuates.

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Below are the four options for bidding plus a bunch of options to price it out (in this instance, we'd be driving traffic to our website). I think this is a good article that discusses, in part, the changes to the Facebook advertising platform last year.

http://www.jonloomer.com/2014/10/17/facebook-ad-set-structure-changes/

Clicks to Website
Optimize For:

1. Clicks to Website — RECOMMENDED
2. Daily unique reach
3. Clicks (CPC)
4. Impressions (CPM)

Pricing:

• Get the most website clicks at the best price (Clicks to Website)
• Set the target amount you want to pay per website click (Clicks to Website)
• Set the max you are willing to bid per 1,000 impressions (Daily unique reach)
• Get more clicks at the best price (Clicks)
• Set the max you’re willing to bid per click (Clicks)
• Set the max you’re willing to bid per 1,000 impressions (Impressions)

[kylelarson]

Hey Rosemary,

You should be able to run strict CPC only, pay per click campaigns within Facebook. They do their best to steer you away from this model but it can be done. When setting up your campaign you can set this distinction in the "How much do you want to spend?" section. Within the "optimize for" drill down menu select Clicks. From there under pricing you can select max bid per click which will allow you to select how much your willing to pay per each individual click.

Here at Moz pending on the objective of each campaign we utilize different pricing models, but we tend to use the CPM and maximize from impression options when pushing content, which we normally use facebook campaigns for.

Hope this helps

Kyle

[RyanPurkey]

As Kyle says below, CPC isn't Facebook's preferred method, but it is doable.  I think you're confusing the language you reference as meaning payment to be viewed instead of minimum CPC for your ad over a competitors. In other words it sounds like they're saying, "If you set your bid at $10 per click while your next closest competitor is at $1.31 per click, we'll only charge you $1.32 per click, not $10."  Make sense?

Kyle outlines well how to set up a CPC campaign. You might want to split test between CPC and CPM though depending on your content, sales, and marketing needs. Cheers!