What I’m Seeing: How COVID-19 is Impacting Facebook Ads Right Now

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Facebook ad costs are at the lowest we’ve seen in years. This is because there has been a big spike in usage as people stay home to help curb the spread of Covid-19. At the same time, many advertisers have lowered or removed their Facebook ad spend from their budget. 

What this means for the advertising industry, and for Facebook specifically is this:

More inventory. Less competition. 

In this week’s Marketing Minute we’ll discuss what it means for you and your business. 

A Changed Landscape For Facebook Means Opportunity for You

The research is clear, businesses are pulling back their ad spend. 

Last week I came across an article from the finance & investment publication Barrons that quotes SunTrust financial analyst, Youssef Squali, on why he slashed his estimates for Facebook shares for both 2020 and 2021, predicting lower numbers than he had projected earlier on. 

His reasoning is that his checks find “a clear pullback on ad spend on Facebook from brand marketers in verticals hardest hit by this crisis, including travel, lodging, and autos,” though there’s been “a surge of smaller direct advertisers looking to take advantage of lower ad prices to gain visibility.”

While this may seem negative on the surface, the good news is that there is more inventory right now than any point in recent memory with less competition. 

That means cheaper ads. 

Other sources are seeing the same thing. One article from The Wall Street Journal explains why some big brands may be pulling their budget on social so drastically:

“Unlike national television ads, which are often purchased many months in advance and are harder to cancel, most digital ad buys can be canceled within days," buyers and industry analysts say.

If you’re Marriott, you don’t get to cut your budget to TV,” said Laura Martin, a senior analyst for Needham & Company. "Where you can cut immediately is digital.”

This makes sense; for something like TV advertising, you’re locked into a contract for months at a time, whereas with something like Facebook ads (or most digital ad networks), you can turn that off at any time with a flip of a switch.

So what does Facebook say about all of this? They confirm that while usage is up because people are home, advertising expenditure is down.

Here are some self-reported numbers showing increased Facebook traffic:

• In many of the countries hit hardest by the virus, total messaging has increased more than 50% over the last month.
• Similarly, in places hit hardest by the virus, voice and video calling have more than doubled on Messenger and WhatsApp.  

In Italy, specifically: 

• We’ve seen up to 70% more time spent across our apps since the crisis arrived in the country. 
• Instagram and Facebook Live views doubled in a week. 
• We have also seen messaging increase over 50% and time in group calling (calls with three or more participants) increase by over 1,000% during the last month. 

While it mentions Italy specifically, the same thing is happening in many countries: people are home and Facebook usage is up.

Facebook explains the situation,

“Much of the increased traffic is happening on our messaging services, but we’ve also seen more people using our feed and stories products to get updates from their family and friends. At the same time, our business is being adversely affected like so many others around the world. We don’t monetize many of the services where we’re seeing increased engagement, and we’ve seen a weakening in our ads business in countries taking aggressive actions to reduce the spread of COVID-19.” -Source

Why should you know all this? 

Because it means that there is an opportunity here for you. 

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We can help you take advantage of this new Facebook landscape if you’re at a stage where you can spend at least $500/mo on ad spend. We have multiple options for businesses with different needs or in different stages. Book a call our Director of Client Strategy now to learn about your options: https://linkedselling.com/talk-roi

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I’m excited about this statistic from some new research by Global Web Index released from across 13 markets on how consumers are feeling about brands and how behavior is changing now:

44% of respondents report spending more time on social media because of the coronavirus, meaning social media is an effective way to reach consumers.

This is actually a double-duty opportunity for you right now; more people are using Facebook and because demand for Facebook ads is down, ad costs are also lower.

It’s happened with our ads, too. 

Take a look...

Our Facebook Ad Spend is Currently Going Twice As Far (Literally)

At LinkedSelling we are seeing the results of this first hand. In fact, the numbers across the board show that we’re getting nearly double the results for the SAME cost as before. (Meaning double the number of people who saw our ad, double the requests for white papers/ebooks, and/or double the bookings for appointments, depending on the ad campaign.)

Here are a few examples from some of our own campaigns. Below is a screenshot of all of our ads from March 1st-7th (before U.S. shutdowns started). 

Take notice of the costs in the red boxes, they represent the cost per thousand eyeballs on our ads and the costs per each action taken by a person who saw our ad:

Now, notice the difference between our costs at the end of the month (March 22nd-the 28th):

That means that without changing our ad spend our ads got 20%-45% more results! We got more eyeballs on our ads and more people clicking and opting-in to our offers without any increase in ad spend.

Here’s a view for our LEAD Blueprint Webinar Campaign (an evergreen webinar funnel that we run cold traffic to as a way to get sales appointments for our sales staff) that clearly shows the drop in ad costs:

We’ve seen over 50% reduction in cost per registrant for our L.E.A.D. Blueprint webinar since the “stay-at-home” orders. As you can see, we went from $10.65 per registration to $5.31. That means it cost half as much to get someone to register for the webinar.

We also saw webinar registration numbers increase by 146%...

• 241 Average Weekly Registration Numbers pre-COVID19
• 430 Average Weekly Registration Numbers post-COVID19

Looking at it another way, that means we got twice the results without any change in our ad spend.

This is why now is actually a great time to continue with, or even double down on your ads; you’ll get more traction for less cost. 

And that’s across the board. 

We’re seeing the similar results for our Connect 365 “Automate LinkedIn” webinar as well. This graph shows a 25% decrease in costs per webinar registrant since the “stay-at-home” orders…

And this graph shows how registrations for this webinar have increased 94% since the “stay-at-home” orders…

And it’s not just us. 

We’ve also seen the same pattern with our clients.

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Interested in having us run your Facebook ads to help you get more leads at a lower ad cost? If you’re ready to spend at least $500 in ad spend, click here to book a call with our Director of Client Strategy. Note that if you’re serious about investing in Facebook ads, this call will not be a good use of your time. 

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Martial Arts Studios Consultancy

One client, Stephen Oliver runs a business that works with martial art studios to grow their monthly enrollments and revenue. As you can imagine, martial arts studios are closed right now, so they’ve had to be creative in order to keep income coming in and are likely very timid with their spending right now.

However, that hasn’t stopped Stephen. The ads we’ve been running for him are to a free ebook. Once they click on the ad, he collects their information on a form. His team then calls qualified leads to sell them on his membership program.

Any guesses as to what results we’ve seen, even though martial arts studios are currently closed? Here’s what we saw:

• The ad has an increased reach of 16k for the same ad spend as before Covid-19
• Stephen is paying $3 less per optin to his ebook! 
• This has resulted in 50 qualified appointments this month alone.

Before:

After:

These are incredible results, even in an industry that’s pretty much had to close their doors. Thankfully, with technology, his clients are able to put martial arts classes online and offer discounts for memberships once they can open their doors again. 

This shows that his clients have hope and that they're preparing for better times. This put Stephen in a great position to help them now - and the numbers show great results!

As a consultant, Stephen also refers clients to us because he knows running ads can help them grow their business. This puts us on the front lines. One such martial arts studio wanted help getting more new student enrollments through Facebook ads. Pre-COVID we ran ads to get folks to come down to their studio in person to try out their first class. 

Those ads ranged from $5-$10 per request depending on location. Together with Stephen’s advice, we helped them make the switch to promote virtual classes as a Covid response and saw leads costs drop hard and volume pick up. See below for the exact results:

March 1st - 7th, still on the regular offer to get students enrolled in classes:

Just turned on these ads on the 30th and already saw 39 class registrations for $0.73 each:

Saas

Another client, Appstractor, sells a SaaS product to IT firms. The ads we run for them encourage their prospects to book Demos of their product. They’ve seen a similar pattern:

• Costs per impressions or eyeballs on their ads have decreased $8 - $54, depending on the campaign. That’s an increase in reach from 6% - 55% for the same ad spend!
• Their cost per demo requests dropped by $17
• The cost per white paper opt-in dropped by $24.

Dental Consultancy

Tom Orent, The Gems Guy, consults with dentists to help them grow their practice. The ads we run for him promote a free book to his prospects and encourage them to book appointments with him.

As you can see below, for the same amount of ad spend, he’s seen:

• Lower costs per impressions, which means increased reach
• And an increase in appointments.

March 1st - 7th:

March 22nd - 28th:

Real Estate Investments

For our clients at Heartland Partners we also run ads to promote a free book, building a list for them of people interested in real estate investing. From there, they are able to stay top of mind by nurturing these new prospects through a 6+ month email sequence.

Again, the results in ad costs and results follow the same pattern we’ve been seeing:

• Cost per 1000 impressions (that’s per 1000 eyeballs on the ads) is down by $7, 
• The number of requests for their free book is up a tick, 
• The cost of each person clicking on their ad is almost down $1, resulting in better ad optimization
• Finally, they’ve seen close to a 50% cost drop per lead. 

Once more, we’re seeing how Facebook ads are able to get in front of more people, getting more people to request a free book (and in the process build a list of prospects) at the same ad spend as before.

Now Is The Time To Run Facebook Campaigns

Nobody wanted a crisis but now that it’s here, we must look for opportunities. 

I hope sharing our results is enough to show you that right now is an excellent opportunity on Facebook as your ad spend goes farther and more people seem to be opting-in to relevant offers (likely also looking for opportunities).

Advertising on Facebook is truly an excellent opportunity for any business right now. If you’re in a position to spend a minimum of at least $500 in ad spend monthly, we highly recommend you take advantage of Facebook’s new landscape.

The costs we are currently seeing are the lowest in years. 

We have different solutions that help businesses of all sizes get more leads, appointments, and sales through paid advertising that range between taking over everything to simply auditing your current efforts. But to help you discover which would be the right solution for your situation, we need to talk. 

If you’d like to speak with us about your options to move forward so that we can help you get more leads and clients, even with everything going on in the world right now, click here to schedule an appointment with our Director of Client Strategy.

***Note: Fortunately, we have been able to maintain a full schedule and as this post will be delivered to over 42K subscribers, I predict spots will fill up quickly. We want to help as many people as we can, so if you’re in a position to move forward, don’t wait. 

Your Turn

Want some help?

Awesome! We’re here to help. We can help you take advantage of low ad costs on Facebook if you're serious about moving forward with at least $500 in monthly ad spend. Click here to book a call with our Director of Client Strategy. 

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Answer this focus question in the comments: How has the business landscape changed for you in the past few weeks?

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