Facebook advertising options have quickly evolved from simple desktop ad placements, to mobile ads, to a wide variety of ad types and platforms to choose from. In order to streamline ad placements for advertisers, Facebook recommends using “Automatic Placements”—however selecting this option can cost Teespring sellers more money and result in fewer sales.

1. Paid Advertising
Are you losing money with
automatic ad placements?
Teespring

2. Facebook’s automatic ad placement option
Facebook advertising options have quickly evolved from simple desktop ad placements, to mobile ads, to
a wide variety of ad types and platforms to choose from. In order to streamline ad placements for
advertisers, Facebook recommends using “Automatic Placements”—however selecting this option can
cost Teespring sellers more money and result in fewer sales.
Placement
Edit Placements
Automatic Placements (Recommended)
Your ads will automatically be shown to your audience in the places they're likely to perform best. For
this objective, placements may include Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network.
Removing placements may reduce the number of people you reach and may make it less likely that
you'll meet your goals.

3. Selecting the “Edit Placements” option presents a confusing user interface—which will undoubtedly
become even more complex as Facebook incorporates ad placements in Messenger, Groups, and
possibly Whatsapp in 2017. The main issue here is each of these placements have vastly different
traffic and value.
What about the “Edit Placements” option?
Edit Placements
DeviceTypes
Platforms
All Devices (Recommended)
ADVANCED OPTIONS
Feeds
Facebook
Instant Articles
In-Stream Videos Ineligible
Right Column
Instagram
Audience Network

4. Also, important targeting elements like device type and Operating Systems are hidden under
“Advanced Options”.
Hidden targeting elements

5. So what can
Teespring sellers do?
First, let’s discuss how Facebook is able to streamline
Automatic Placements for a variety of channels. This can
be done by keeping ad inputs static and implementation
dynamic—meaning the ad information you enter stays
the same, but the way it’s used for each ad type is
different. The following slides will demonstrate how these
elements appear for each ad type.

6. Basic elements of a Facebook Ad

7. Desktop ads account for 16% of Facebook’s advertising revenue. News Feed is the largest ad unit,
while Right Column ads acquires the most impressions. These ads provide higher average conversion
percentages and declining CPM rates. Desktop ads are ideal for targeting both older and younger
audiences during the work day.
Desktop Ads: News Feed and Right Column ads

8. Mobile ads account for around 84% of Facebook’s advertising revenue. Because ad quantity is
currently capped, CPMs are the most expensive for mobile ads. However, as Facebook incorporates
Instant Articles and Video Placements this price is expected to balance out. Mobile ad content
produces the highest engagement among older audiences and higher conversions among younger
audiences.
Mobile Ads: News Feed, Feature Phones & Instant Articles

9. Instagram ads are not yet optimized for clicks or e-commerce. Most ad clicks come from younger
audiences who are more engaged on Instagram compared to desktop and news feed ads. In recent
tests, over 95% of our Instagram ad clicks came from new Teespring visitors.
Instagram Ads: News Feed

10. These ads are primarily used by app developers as a competitor to AdMob ads. Facebook allows for
full native customization and sizing, as well as full-page interstitials. For now, Facebook appears to
send low CTR traffic here and we see artificially-high CTR percentages.
Audience Network: Mobile apps and websites

11. Here’s a general example of how traffic tends to play out when choosing Automatic Placement vs.
choosing specific platforms. In this case we’ve used $100 ad spend for each option and for the same
product; Option 1 = Automatic Placement and Option 2 = Mobile and Desktop Feed.
Automatic Placements vs. choosing specific platforms

12. Option 1: As we can see, Facebook’s Algorithm wants to send traffic to places with both
broader inventory and higher CPMs. This means most traffic goes to Instagram and
Audience Network at whatever the going-rate is for that traffic. At the same time the
algorithm only allocates a small amount of traffic to Desktop and Mobile, which means
CPMs stay high because there isn’t enough traffic for the algorithm to adjust down to a
proper CPM/CPC. These ad placements aren’t very useful to Teespring sellers who want
to target high converting audiences.
Option 2: Based on the results in the table, selecting specific platforms gives us lower
CPMs and CPCs for the more valuable mobile/desktop traffic. This opens up a big scaling
opportunity for sellers who know how to optimize these higher-value ad placements.
The Results: Option 1 vs. Option 2

13. Based on these observations, choosing “Edit
Placements” and selecting specific platforms for
advertising can be more valuable to your business
in the long run. Getting your ads in front of the right
audience and in a platform where they are more
likely to convert can help you take your Teespring
sales to the next level in 2017.
Conclusion