Facebook Ads and the Rising Cost of User Acquisition
One of the most frequent questions we are asked is ‘How much will it cost to acquire users for my Facebook game?’ The answer to this question depends on many factors.
On average, for every 100,000 users you attract to your application via Facebook Ads, you can expect your cost of user acquisition to increase by 10%. Before examining why this happens, we’ll first take a closer look at click-through rates (CTR) and how Facebook makes money on a cost-per-click ad campaign.
CTR and its value to Facebook
If you were to bid and be charged $1 per click with a CTR of 0.01%, you then have an effective cost per thousand users, or CPM, of $0.10 to Facebook. For every 1,000 times Facebook shows your ad, they are only making 10 cents.
If you can double that CTR to 0.02%, your ads will have the same value to Facebook,even if you’re paying only $0.50 per click. By increasing your CTR, your ads can be much more valuable to Facebook, allowing you to significantly drop your bid.
The screenshots below highlight a target market in the US and compare the suggested bid for a new ad versus a proven high CTR ad. In the case of the high CTR ad, we can get a fair amount of clicks even at $0.10!
