Today, Facebook released the results of a study commissioned by the company that analyzes the effects of Facebook ads on paid search campaigns.
The study concludes that, businesses can significantly increase the performance of their paid search campaigns while decreasing cost per acquisition by running Facebook ads in conjunction with paid search.
The study was conducted by Kenshoo, a multi-channel digital marketing technology firm. Kenshoo analyzed the effect of adding Facebook advertising to Experian’s paid-search campaigns.
The goal of Experian’s campaigns were designed to generate online credit report applications. The campaigns took place over a two-week test period in the first quarter of 2014.
In order to see what level of Facebook ads would lead to the strongest performance, Experian exposed different groups of people in the United States to different spending levels of Facebook ads in News Feed and the right hand column.
The results of Kenshoo’s study shows that search campaigns work harder when Facebook ads are introduced to the mix.
Key findings of the study include:
- There was a 19% average increase in total conversions among the people who saw Facebook advertising compared with those who saw just paid search advertising (no Facebook ads).
- There was a 10% average decrease in cost per acquisition among people who saw the Facebook ads in addition to the paid search ads. This was due to the increase in conversions.
- Conversions increased as spending on Facebook ads rose, but there was a “sweet spot,” or minimum and maximum spend level on Facebook, to get the strongest performance at the least cost.
Chris Costello, Kenshoo’s director of marketing research, gives his insight into the findings of the study:
There are only so many people searching for things. Running Facebook ads can not only get more people to search but they can make the search ads work better by instilling brand preference in searchers and driving them to convert at higher rates. It means that marketers can get more bang for their search buck.
For more information, here is a PDF of the full study.
