When you’re not getting good results, it’s easy to blame all of the wrong things. But, sometimes it’s your CPM.
Example
I’ve been running an ad for a Beginner advertiser lead magnet for a few months now. It performed well, but I switched to promote my Cornerstone Tips offer.
After spending a few hundred dollars, my cost per lead was more than double.
I assumed the problem was my ad copy and creative or the offer wasn’t resonating. In fact, I had become resigned to it, assuming that the beginner offer — or the way it was positioned — simply appealed to more people. But then I dug deeper.
The rate at which an impression became a lead (Leads Per Impression Percentage) was higher for the Cornerstone offer. That tells me it’s not a problem with the ad copy, creative, or offer. It resonates just as well as the Beginner offer.
The difference was CPM, which was three times higher.
What This Means
The fact that the CPM was so drastically different is weird since nearly everything about how these campaigns were constructed was the same. But, at least we know that the ads and offer are fine. The CPM is the problem.
What it told me was that I needed to be patient. It was still early in this campaign, and the ad was fine. With time, the CPM should come down.
Or that’s the hope, at least! I’m not doing anything that might restrict the algorithm and drive up CPM. Because of that, there’s not much I can do but wait.
Randomness is one of the factors that we know as advertisers can lead to an inflated CPM. To learn more about how CPM impacts performance, check out my blog post.
