Meta is rolling out a change to buying types, replacing Reach and Frequency with Reservation.
In this post, we’ll cover the basic impact of this change and an overview of how the Reservation buying type works.
What Are Buying Types?
When you create a new campaign, one of the first things you’ll do is select a buying type to determine how you will pay for your ads. The default selection is Auction, which is what advertisers will use 99% of the time.
Up until now, the other option was Reach and Frequency.
If you have the update, you now have Reservation.
What is Reservation?
In most cases, your ads will enter into an auction, which makes your costs variable and unpredictable.
If you selected Reach and Frequency (previously) or Reservation (now), you can plan your campaigns in advance with predictable performance. This is due to a fixed CPM, so that you know what you will pay.
Here are a few ways that Reservation is unique…
1. Reach a minimum of 200,000 people.
2. Fixed CPM means that you know what the cost will be.
3. Only Engagement and Awareness objectives (Traffic was available for Reach and Frequency, but not for Reservation).
4. Optimize for Reach, Ad Recall Lift, or ThruPlay.
5. Options of Frequency Cap or Target Frequency to control how often people see your ads.
6. Ad Sequencing allows you to deliver ads in a series to tell a story over a period of time.
What Changed?
The change from Reach and Frequency to Reservation started rolling out in October of 2023. Beyond the name change, there are three primary changes:
1. Target Frequency is the new default frequency option, though Frequency Cap remains available.
Target Frequency means that you will set an average number of times people will see your ads, instead of setting a hard cap.
2. Traffic objective removed, leaving only Awareness and Engagement.
3. Link Clicks, Impressions, and Post Engagement performance goal options removed, leaving only Reach, Ad Recall Lift, and ThruPlay.
Reservation Estimates
One of the biggest differences you’ll notice with Reservation compared to Auction is the Reservation Estimates section when creating the ad set. You’ll set a Budget or Reach (a budget will lead to a corresponding reach and vice versa).
The minimum reach for the Reservation buying type is 200,000.
We’ll assume a reach of 200,000. Meta provides estimates for Budget, Estimated Audience Size, CPM, and Frequency.
You can influence this by altering the Target Frequency or Frequency Cap.
You will also get predictions for Reach Per Frequency…
Frequency Per Person…
Spend Per Day…
And Placement Distribution…
When Would You Use Reservation?
Reservation is an option to consider when your goal is focused on awareness and not a conversion or specific action. This is also best for bigger budgets when you want to reserve predictable spend and reach.
This isn’t going to be the go-to option for the typical small business, and it’s not the option you’ll want to use to show direct conversion impact from your advertising. This approach is instead about building brand awareness in a predictable way.
There is certainly plenty more that can be discussed on this topic, but we’ll save that for a separate post.
Watch Video
I recorded a video about this, too. Watch it below…
Your Turn
Have you experimented with the Reach and Frequency buying type? Will you use Reservation?
Let me know in the comments below!