A simple hack which gets us 10X more social proof on Facebook ads (at no extra cost)
Updated: June 16th, 2019
If you’re an entrepreneur or a marketer, who is constantly on the look for a new hack to improve your campaigns on Facebook — you’ll enjoy this one.
By the time you finish reading this post, you’ll know how to use & deploy this simple hack which our agency uses to get 10X+ more ad engagement (social proof) for our clients, at no extra cost.
Deploying this won’t take you more than a couple of minutes, and results will be visible within 24 hours. You’ll get more engagement (likes, comments, and shares), which will result in even more engagement, which ultimately results in higher CTR, lower CPM, lower CPC, lower CPA & more revenue.
The Social Stacking Method On Facebook
The standard Facebook campaign structure looks something like this;
You have a campaign which is made for a specific offer or a promotion. Inside of the campaign you have 100s of ad sets which are targeting different audiences with 100s of different ads.
As the campaign progresses and you gather more data, you find a winner ad which performs better than any other ad. Then, you’ll make 100s of ad sets again. Each ad set will contain the same winner ad, but instead of having just one ad, you have 100s of copies of that same winner ad. Absurd, right?
By having this kind of campaign structure, all of those 100s of copies of the same ad are going to pick up some engagement.
A couple of likes, comments or shares… But what if you could stack up all that engagement a.k.a. social proof, to one single ad? Luckily, you can.
We call this “The Social Stacking”.
The idea behind the social stacking is very simple — Instead of having 100s of ad sets pointing to 100s of copies of the same ad, you’re going to point all of your ad sets to a single ad.
Here’s what’s different in the campaign structure;
Here’s how the social stacking looks in practice;
How To Deploy The Social Stacking Method?
As I’ve promised, deploying this takes no more than a couple of minutes. This method applies only to the newsfeed placement, on both Facebook (desktop and mobile) and Instagram (mobile only), where engagement can be seen in the form of reactions, comments, and shares.
Open your Facebook Ads Manager and take the following steps:
Step 1 — Select the ad
Select an ad to which you want to point all ad sets (on the ad level of the campaign) and click Edit.
Step 2 — Acquire the ad ID
In the Ad Preview section click on the Share Preview button, then click on the Facebook Post with Comments. If you’re running ads on Instagram, you’ll click on Instagram Post with Comments.
Once the ad loads, take a look at the URL.
On Facebook, you’ll have 2 strings of numbers interrupted by /posts/ in the middle. Select and copy the 2nd string of numbers.
If you’re doing this for Instagram you’ll get only one string, which you’ll select and copy.
Step 3 — Apply the ad ID
In this step, you’ll need to either make a new ad set or duplicate the existing one (duplicating is faster). Change whatever you want (age range, country, gender, interest, etc) and then go to the ad level of this new ad set.
Click on Edit again and then click on Use Existing Post.
Click on Enter Post ID and paste the ad ID you acquired in STEP 2.
Click Submit and then Publish the ad.
Step 4 — Duplicate as many times as you want
The easiest way to point more ad sets to this ad is to duplicate the 2nd ad set you’ve created (because it already uses an existing post from the 1st ad set).
This method is also good because it allows you to add multiple new ad sets in a matter of minutes. This is particularly useful if you’re running robust split testing systems or launching a new product.
Update
With the last change of Facebook Ads Manager interface, Facebook simplified the way you select the Existing Post(s).
For Facebook, click on Select Post and then continue by searching for a post which you want to use by name, keyword or post ID.
For Instagram, the process is pretty much similar, click on Select Post, then select Instagram in the upper menu and then continue by searching for a post which you want to use by name, keyword or post ID.
Also, note that the Existing Post option is not available for all Campaign Objectives on Facebook. It’s available for the following objectives:
- Brand Awareness
- Reach
- Traffic
- Engagement
- Video Views
- Conversions
- Messages
While it’s not available for:
- App Installs
- Lead Generation
- Catalog Sales
- Store Traffic
Exceptions may apply with different optimizations within objectives.
The Next Steps…
Can you believe that something this simple can make a big difference?
BOOM! It can… So, put this method into ACTION now & let me know what kind of results you’re seeing.
Have anything to add? Comment below👇 or connect with me on Facebook.
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