The object of our focus with this post is optimizing and managing your ad campaigns for ROI.
Your online education ads are finally live!
(Congrats! 😀)
But how do you assess the results? What is it you should be looking at exactly, and how should you manage your campaigns going forward?
You’re likely working with multiple ad sets and campaigns. If you’ve followed our best practices, you should have at least 3 campaigns running:
- a lead generation campaign
- a top of the funnel conversion campaign
- a bottom of the funnel conversion campaign
Online Education Ads Report Setup
It’s important to set up your reporting correctly in your Ads Manager to be able to actually see the impact of your online education ads.
Below is the default reporting view in Ads Manager.
It works, but it lacks the detailed granularity you need to be able to optimize the performance of your ads. We definitely encourage you to customize this table to be a bit more help to you.
Here’s our tried and tested ad reporting template.
Click Columns Performance then Customize Columns.
Go to Conversions, then Standard Events.
Focus on the following key events:
- Checkout Initiated
- Leads
- Purchases
- Purchase ROAS
- CPC (cost per link click)
- CPM (cost per 1000 impressions)
You should now see the above added as columns.
Save and name your report in your Ads Manager so you can easily access it later.
IN-DEPTH AD REPORTING SETUP HERE 👉 ONLINE COURSE ADS ACCELERATOR
Smart Testing for Your Online Education Ads
With online education ads, as with anything, the more you test, the better your chances of success. Test only one variable at a time as changing too much at once makes it hard to know what works.
This is especially true for ad campaigns where you won’t know if it was the copy, audience or the creatives that led to the ad’s success, complicating your ability to make informed decisions going forward.
Your 3 main variables to test are:
- Audience
- Copy
- Creatives
Keep the other two constant when testing one.
How to get started with it? Use your best-performing ad set, duplicate it, and change only one variable at a time.
And make sure to always test using proven variables.
If you want a new audience, for example, use copy and creatives that have already shown good performance. Proven means you’ve run the ad for a few days and it works well.
Take this successful ad and test it by changing one variable.
MORE ON META AUDIENCES 👉 CREATE A META RETARGETING AUDIENCE
Optimizing Performance for Online Education Ads
As much time and sweat as you’ve most likely put into creating and uploading them, your online education ads won’t profitably run forever. Some you’re better off quickly turning off, some adjusting and scaling.
Turn off ad sets if:
1. After 48h, the cost is more than 2x KPI. For example, if your target cost per lead is $2 and it’s over $4, turn it off.
2. An ad set was working but has gone over 2x KPI in the last 48h. Try duplicating it and restarting it. If it still doesn’t perform after another 48h, turn it off.
If your ads are working, don’t turn them off. Instead, optimize and scale them safely:
1. Duplicate the ad set with a higher budget.
2. Duplicate and change the audience to a broader demographic-based audience.
3. Duplicate and slightly adjust the creative, adding small variations or new hooks.
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR ONLINE COURSE OFFERS 👉 UPSELL, DOWN-SELL & CROSS-SELL YOUR ONLINE COURSES
Conclusion
In the long run, let the data guide you, not your opinion. You might be surprised by what’s working so stay open-minded even after finding your winning online education ads.
But follow the data in your Ads Manager and focus your budget on your winning ads. Maximize your return on investment by only allocating a small amount to test new ideas.
Find yourself stuck?
We give a detailed demonstration of how to optimize your ad sets in our Online Course Ads Accelerator.Â
Follow along with us!
Don’t let minor details disrupt your flow! Stay focused and boost your course sales with fully optimized online education ads.