Cost Control – What and Why?

What is a Cost Control?

With Conversion Ads you can set a Cost Control at the Ad Set level – this means that FB will aim to achieve that cost per acquisition. You can use this, if you would like to ensure that FB does not exceed what is a profitable CPA for your business / client – however it does come with a number of challenges.

Underspending

If Facebook knows it cannot achieve a sale at the control level you’ve set, it will simply not spend any budget. So it is not uncommon to set a cost control and wonder why your campaign has not spent anything. I would only advise using this, if you/your client doesn’t care if they get no sales at all. In some cases you may be of the view ‘Id rather get no sales, than sales that don’t make me any profit’ – in which case you may choose to use a Cost Control.

Other Troubleshooting

The Cost Control is an AVERAGE – so let’s say your cost control us £8 and for two weeks FB has got you sales for £6-7, then suddenly the sales are coming in at £13-14… and you’re thinking, why??? I set a cost control for £8 so why is FB allowing sales at £13-14? This is because it was UNDER it’s target previously, so as an average it is allowing itself to be over its target now due to the overall average.