Q1 is a crucial time of year for advertising agencies and Facebook marketers alike, as most teams will allocate budgets for offline, digital, and paid marketing. It is vital during this stage to plan for fluctuating costs on advertising platforms such as Facebook – especially as the average price of the platform’s CPM has been anywhere between £9 and £13 in the past twelve months. [1]
The cost of the CPM in 2021 could have been influenced by various factors such as industry type, campaign objective, seasonality, target audience size, and type of budget used. With these factors in mind, we thought it would be helpful to talk through our predictions for Facebook’s CPM in 2022 and start by briefly looking at the social network and its CPM in 2021.
A brief review of 2021
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook continued to be the most popular social media network, with more than 2.89 million monthly active users [2] and reaching 59% of social media users [3]. Facebook also reported in 2021 that more than 200 million businesses worldwide utilise its tools and brought in $27.2 billion in advertising revenue in Q4 of 2020 [4].
The average Facebook CPM cost £9.06 in January 2021 and fluctuated slightly above and below this average before rising to its highest cost of £13.11 in Nov 21 (around Black Friday in the UK/US)[5]. The end of the year saw Facebook’s CPM costing an average of £11.47 per 1000 impressions for advertisers using the platform. If you ran lead generation or conversion-focused campaigns last year, you would have accrued the highest average CPM costs and spent anywhere between £12.65 and £23.10 per 1000 impressions. [6]
Now we covered the CPM and Facebook landscape in 2021. Let’s take a look at our predictions for the advertising metric in 2022.
Digital Playmaker’s predictions
- We expect digital advertising costs to rise across specific industries such as travel and entertainment, as businesses look to capitalise on an eagerness to book holidays, festivals and other adventures following the pandemic and national lockdowns.
- Facebook advertisers will revert to hyper-personalised campaigns instead of using mass targeted advertisements now that restrictions are starting to be lifted and people are spending less time indoors.
- We also imagine we will see a short-term burst of investment in the sports industry as teams and event organisers alike look to encourage people back into stadiums and signing up for their events.
- This year could also see rising CPM costs for online retailers and stores as many high street shops have moved to only selling their products online instead of relying on the footfall in their physical shops.
- The average CPM cost could level out or even decrease in the latter half of the year as offline advertising could receive more budget due to a large majority of people no longer being cooped up indoors.
Keeping your CPM costs low in 2022
On top of our predictions, we also wanted to provide some handy tips for ensuring your Facebook CPM costs stay low all year round.
- We recommend limiting your bids as what an impression represents and is worth to you might not be replicated by Facebook.
- Before your advertising campaign begins, evaluate and decide the correct/actual value of each impression to your business. Taking your time with this stage will help you avoid generating any negative ROI for your ad spend on Facebook.
- You should also consider lowering your maximum CPM / CPC. Facebook will be able to find cheaper impressions, and your ad will continue to be delivered to sections of your target audience.
- We also suggest using a lifetime budget instead of a daily budget. Similar to the above point, Facebook will find a way to discover cheaper impressions or clicks and continue to deliver your ad to your selected audience if you use this budget type.
A potential insight into Facebook’s CPM in 2022
The predictions discussed above may or may not happen. We understand that. But they should give you a glimpse into a few possibilities: fluctuating changes in CPM cost, seasonal decreases and increases in price and advertisers potentially switching from broad, large scale target audiences to hyper-personalised, focused campaigns.
We want you to reduce your ad spend and generate more significant ROI this year. The above suggestions are practical solutions that will ensure you can achieve this going forward. But what if you still need help? The tips for reducing costs are designed to also help you, even if our predictions are right or wrong for Facebook’s CPM in 2022.
Digital Playmakers are digital specialists with advanced knowledge of performance marketing and how to create successful Facebook marketing campaigns with increased ROI and a high number of impressions. We have helped multiple clients achieve this exact objective over the years, from Threshold Trial Series to London Revolution, and we would happily assist you too.
Get in touch with the team today, and let’s get those campaigns set up for success!
References
1)https://revealbot.com/facebook-advertising-costs
2)https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
