Landing Page View Optimization is HERE! Wait… Isn’t that the same thing as optimizing for Clicks? Well, it sure seems like it but, actually, it’s totally different. Aaaand, theoretically, it’s going to really help us further fine-tune our targeting to achieve the outcome we want. So let’s dive in: Landing Page View Optimization!
If you normally run traffic to landing pages, blog posts or your website in general, this new optimization option could be a game changer for you.
Facebook qualifies a landing page view as “when a person lands on your ad’s destination URL after clicking a link in your ad.” This is an important distinction to know if you’re going to be determining if you should choose this optimization or Clicks.
With Click campaigns the goal is for Facebook to show your ad to people who are likely to click on your ad. But when I first started my digital ads agency, that was one of the first slaps in the face I experienced.
Cue story mode: As a young doe-eyed marketer I eagerly spent an hour or so building out my first campaign for this new client. I chose to run a Clicks to Website campaign and after a day or two I happily reported to my client that there had been around 20 click throughs already!!
I was on cloud nine…my eyes glued to the screen waiting for that first conversion.
Waiting….
Still Waiting….
*Sweating….but, still waiting….
Well, it didn’t come. The clicks kept going up but no ROI. My client also had Google Analytics and was comparing data as I was reporting back to him. Our numbers were NOT lining up. I was convinced something had to be wrong with the way he was looking at his GA but nope, I checked it out and our numbers were WAY off.
My face stung as I received the blow…dun, dun, dun…..
(Yes, I know this isn’t a screenshot of a Clicks campaign…I’m trying to give you a visual to make the story better… 😉 )
Everything was looking so good…if only I had used the scroll bar to get ALL the data.
Once I finally realized I didn’t have the whole picture and put that scroll bar to use, it didn’t feel great…
In reality, I hadn’t driven any real Clicks through to the website, only clicks on the ad itself. While that’s nice and all, it brought no ROI and that’s what it’s all about.
Lesson learned. Not all clicks are created equal. TRUTH.
Landing Page Optimization Makes the Difference
So, now I know that a clicks campaign can bring you all sorts of clicks. I personally still haven’t seen the value of the “other” clicks yet, but, it’s whatevs Facebook.
How was one to know that you could garner so many empty clicks via the following methods as well as clicks on the ad itself?:
- A person clicks a link accidentally and closes the page before it gets a chance to load
- A person clicks a link intentionally, but the page takes too long to load and the person closes it before it finishes
With the new Landing Page View Optimization Facebook is saying, “Hey Smart Marketer, I love you so much, I’ve made this new optimization that will make sure that you can track the number of people that ACTUALLY make it all the way to your website…XOXO!”
Ok, so maybe that’s just the way Facebook talks to ME… 😉
So it comes down to QUANTITY vs QUALITY. Landing Page View Optimization seems to promise QUALITY clicks that you can count on to get your content viewed. And as an additional kick back, you might be able to detect if you’re having load time issues. If you’re seeing a big difference in link clicks vs landing page views on an ad then you might want to se if there are other factors contributing to the user not completing the website visit.
Should You Choose Landing Page View Optimization?
If it’s more valuable to you to have someone actually land on the page you’re sending them to than getting clicks on the ad then yes, choose Landing Page View Optimization.
I personally have only tested this optimization once in our agency and it didn’t go very well. I am going to start a split test between a CTW & a LPV campaign this week and will come back and update this blog post with the results.
What’s your experience with the Landing Page View Optimization? Comment below but if you do, tell us what niche you’re running ads in so we can see if there are any results that are niche specific.
Until next time…
Your digital marketing ally,
Stephanie
