For better or for worse, engagement as a performance metric has always been tightly associated with Facebook advertising. The importance of such a metric has been hotly debated amongst marketers for years now, and although the verdict is still out, it remains a KPI that brands and agencies routinely report on.
For brands that embrace a comprehensive marketing approach to Facebook and use different ad types for various objectives, building accurate, valid reports can be tricky. Reporting an average engagement rate or some other overarching metric and applying it to a month’s worth of diverse content (e.g. page photo posts, link page posts, video posts) compares apples to oranges and fails to provide any useful performance insight. When it comes to Facebook ad reporting, segmentation is crucial.
Consider the Objectives
The infatuation with engagement as an overarching KPI spawns from Facebook’s reputation of being a brand awareness/trust builder rather than a direct response revenue driver. Since accurately attributing revenue to the channel can be difficult for some brands, looking at engagement as the ROI seems like a reasonable alternative. However, since many brands don’t pigeonhole their Facebook marketing strategy to just one objective, engagement in the traditional sense (reactions, comments, and shares) only relates to a portion of the advertising effort. In a given month, a brand can simultaneously prospect new consumers and retarget returning ones as it aims to direct users down the path to conversion. Influencing these consumers who exist in different levels of the sales funnel involves different types of content that incite different kinds of engagement at entirely different rates.
Unfortunately for marketers, the true classification of “engagement” on Facebook has become blurry and inconsistent. Aside from vanity metrics like reactions, comments, and shares, behind-the-scenes metrics like impressions and website clicks speak towards different engagement objectives. For a link-page post, website clicks are the most desired form of engagement. In contrast, view times should be the focus for video. While an engagement rate based on clicks can be calculated regardless of objective, comparing such rates holistically undermines the value of each content type’s distinct strengths.
Let’s take a look at the two ads below:
1.
2.
Although neither piece of content directly pushes a sale (and thus would be considered top/mid-funnel brand awareness material), they are both intended to be engaged with differently. One is optimized for Facebook page engagement, while the other is optimized for website clicks. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the page photo (1.) has a significantly higher engagement rate — a photo can be consumed in a matter of seconds without leaving one’s newsfeed. Meanwhile, the link post requires a conscious commitment of a click to go offsite. Since this requires more time and action from the user, it can be expected that engagement may happen at a lower rate.
In this comparison, more engagement does not necessarily equate to more business value. A marketing professional should wonder what’s more valuable to the brand here: reactions on a Facebook post, or clicks toward a landing page. Generally speaking, website clicks are earned at a much lower rate than post likes, but often result in longer engagement periods as consumers spend several minutes on the content teased in the ad. The point here is not that one ad is better than the other. After all, both engagement types represent trust-building touch points that can predispose a user to a sale in the future. The point is that comparing performance metrics for posts with different objectives ignores the inherent difference in how the content is intended to be consumed.
The Objective Caveat: Videos
Videos pose the biggest issue when it comes to analyzing the engagement rates that Facebook reports. While Facebook understandably wants to present itself as an optimal performance marketing channel, counting a 3 second view on a video that autoplays in the feed as an “engagement” seems akin to counting a breath mint as a meal. This reporting standard inflates engagement rates for videos and makes the comparison between the other most common ad types practically useless. To emphasize the discrepancy, think about this: I work with a client whose average engagement rate for videos is 20 percentage points higher (an increase of 400%!) than that for page photos. Looking at an aggregate statistic such as “views up to 50 percent” provides a better indicator of a video post’s performance over time.
Segment for Success
Since most brands don’t limit their Facebook marketing strategy to one objective, engagement in the traditional sense (reactions, comments, shares) only relates to a portion of their advertising effort. To measure engagement success on the channel, brands need to segment reporting by objective (or ad type in the case of videos) and establish their own averages and standards for comparative purposes.
Bottom line: don’t place all ad types under the same reporting umbrella. Only compare analogous campaigns (link-page posts to link-page posts, videos to videos, etc.) and avoid lumping data from different ad types into a deceptive average. The right mix of content types will vary from brand to brand, but it’s worth taking the time to build a compelling strategy and understand the metrics at hand.