When Dwerve originally approached me to consult with their Kickstarter's Facebook Ads, they were getting between $0.20 and $0.45 Cost-Per-Click and had no idea how to analyze their conversion rate.
While there wasn't much time to prepare, I was able to quickly reduce the cost-per-click down to an average of 3 pennies, or $0.03. I accomplished this without click-bait copywrite, and instead used Facebook's algorithm to our advantage via best-practices and highly-relevant, compelling copywrite and creatives.
Results of our Ad Campaign
There are a number of parts to this ad system. I won't go into a tutorial-level of detail on how to accomplish certain basics of FB Ads, but you should be able to find those tutorials elsewhere on Google. If you are struggling getting set up with anything in particular, please leave a comment or send me an email at [email protected] ; I am happy to help you move your project forward.
To get a closer look at what our Kickstarter page looks like, for study purposes, you can visit Dwerve's kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/halfhumangames/dwerve-tower-defense-dungeon-crawler-rpg
Moving forward, let's do a brief rundown of the funnel:
Let's go over each part of the system in-depth:
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#1 Facebook Page
---
You can either use your product page, or create a secondary page exclusively for Kickstarter advertisements. I do recommend the latter, for the following reason:
We want people to know this is a Kickstarter, but we want to be subtle. The association with Kickstarter itself can be distasteful to consumers, because they know they are funding development of a product that may not materialize, rather than buying a product outright and receiving it immediately. For this reasoning, it may be more effective to clue viewers in that this is a Kickstarter via the advertiser's page name (such as "Backer Bear", or "Indie Crowdfunded Projects"), rather than putting Kickstarter's brand directly in the ad's creative or main copywrite.
---
#2.1 Ad Campaign
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Graph of the Campaign Structure
I recommend using the "Conversion Objective" when setting up your campaign in Facebook's Ad Manager. This allows us to track the number of conversions per ad inside the Ad Manager, and Facebook can optimize to serve our ads to find those most likely to convert based upon interests, page likes, and demographic.
To have access to this campaign objective, however, we need to create and utilize both the "PageView" and "Purchase" standard events on our Facebook Pixel. Go to the Event Manager in the FB Ad Manager, and create those events.
Another thing you must do, is set the Attribution Window for your pixel to 28 days. Navigate to the Ad Account Settings, click "Edit" under Attribution, and set the Click Window to 28 days.
Once you have that done and set the campaign objective to "Conversions", we want to utilize some best practices for a broad campaign on Facebook:
Let's talk about the Ad Sets next, and best practices here to let Facebook optimize for us:
Before we move into ads, we still have to set up our Audience Targeting.
Assuming that you have a mailing-list (if not, you should definitely have one by now, and you want at least 3000 emails), upload your mailing list and turn that into a Custom Audience, and then create a 1% Look-A-Like Audience from that custom audience. Use your 1% Look-A-Like Audience as the Ad Set audience.
Now add the following interests to your targeting:
Use Post-Linked IDs when duplicating your ads between age-group and country segments (There is a drop-down for "Create Ad" when creating an Ad, but you should instead select "Existing Ad"). Post-Linked IDs will retain the comments, likes, and shares between the ads which use the same creative/copywrite.
Be sure to answer all comments that viewers write on your ads!
---
#2.2 Ad Creative
---
I do not recommend including the words Kickstarter on the creative, however there are certain creatives where this may make sense -- for instance, creatives where you display a collection of physical rewards (t-shirts, physical box, SNES cartridge, etc.), or even just a poster image of concept art + logo.
There are a number of different creative formats that are pretty sure-fire ways to express your game, however every game is different so you may have some unique tricks up your personal sleeve. For instance, with Dwerve, we had a nice screenshot with a Zelda-aesthetic along with a massive closed door. A door entails curiosity. This creative worked very well with click-through rates.
Generally speaking, these creative formats will perform good:
Create an ad for each of these creative types, and duplicate them for each campaign and age group. This will prevent banner-blindness and ad-fatigue, as Facebook will certainly impress your ad campaign to the same person multiple times over the course of your Kickstarter.
Aim to drive feelings of curiosity, nostalgia, motivation, and social proof in your viewers.
---
#2.3 Ad Copywrite
---
A good rule of thumb is 6 words or less on the Primary Text above the creative, and 3 words or less on the Headline below the creative. While 6 words might be a tough target to hit, the point is that shorter is always better here. You may want to mask the URL by changing the Display Link text, and add a Description below the Headline.
The patterns which we found the best results with for each text type was:
Page Name -> "Backer Bear"
Primary Text -> "A beautifully crafted, Zelda-inspired action RPG with Tower-Defense combat"
Headline -> "Play the demo"
Display Link -> "KICKSTARTER.COM"
Description -> "FINAL CHANCE! | VIDEO GAME PROJECTS WE LOVE | Dwerve | An all-new action RPG inspired by the 16-bit era"
CTA Button -> "Download"
Example of our GIF ad
---
#3 Redirect URL
---
When people click your ad, you want to track them via the FB Pixel. Unfortunately, Kickstarter does not allow us to place a pixel on the Kickstarter page itself, so we must work around that by using a Redirect URL. You can either use a service like Pixelme.me, or your own custom branded site & solution.
For this Redirect URL, use a Pixel script with the standard "PageView" event:
fbq('track', 'PageView');
And ensure that the pixel has fully loaded before redirecting, by putting the pixel script inside the HEAD region of your redirect page's DOM. You will also need to change t.async=!0 in the script to t.async=false;
another method people recommend to make sure page is fully loaded
End Facebook Pixel Code
While there wasn't much time to prepare, I was able to quickly reduce the cost-per-click down to an average of 3 pennies, or $0.03. I accomplished this without click-bait copywrite, and instead used Facebook's algorithm to our advantage via best-practices and highly-relevant, compelling copywrite and creatives.
Results of our Ad Campaign
There are a number of parts to this ad system. I won't go into a tutorial-level of detail on how to accomplish certain basics of FB Ads, but you should be able to find those tutorials elsewhere on Google. If you are struggling getting set up with anything in particular, please leave a comment or send me an email at [email protected] ; I am happy to help you move your project forward.
To get a closer look at what our Kickstarter page looks like, for study purposes, you can visit Dwerve's kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/halfhumangames/dwerve-tower-defense-dungeon-crawler-rpg
Moving forward, let's do a brief rundown of the funnel:
- Facebook Page
- The Ad
- Redirect URL
- Kickstarter Page
- Pledge Checkout
- Automated Kickstarter Messaging
- Survey URL or Value Offer
Let's go over each part of the system in-depth:
---
#1 Facebook Page
---
You can either use your product page, or create a secondary page exclusively for Kickstarter advertisements. I do recommend the latter, for the following reason:
We want people to know this is a Kickstarter, but we want to be subtle. The association with Kickstarter itself can be distasteful to consumers, because they know they are funding development of a product that may not materialize, rather than buying a product outright and receiving it immediately. For this reasoning, it may be more effective to clue viewers in that this is a Kickstarter via the advertiser's page name (such as "Backer Bear", or "Indie Crowdfunded Projects"), rather than putting Kickstarter's brand directly in the ad's creative or main copywrite.
---
#2.1 Ad Campaign
---
Graph of the Campaign Structure
I recommend using the "Conversion Objective" when setting up your campaign in Facebook's Ad Manager. This allows us to track the number of conversions per ad inside the Ad Manager, and Facebook can optimize to serve our ads to find those most likely to convert based upon interests, page likes, and demographic.
To have access to this campaign objective, however, we need to create and utilize both the "PageView" and "Purchase" standard events on our Facebook Pixel. Go to the Event Manager in the FB Ad Manager, and create those events.
Another thing you must do, is set the Attribution Window for your pixel to 28 days. Navigate to the Ad Account Settings, click "Edit" under Attribution, and set the Click Window to 28 days.
Once you have that done and set the campaign objective to "Conversions", we want to utilize some best practices for a broad campaign on Facebook:
- Segment our campaigns by country, continent, or otherwise region
- Use "Campaign Budget Optimization", which will automatically invest the budget in the best-performing Ad Sets
- Start out with a Campaign Budget of $5 x total number of active ads, plus some extra wiggle room
- Use Lowest-Cost Bidding Strategy
Let's talk about the Ad Sets next, and best practices here to let Facebook optimize for us:
- Do not specify the Gender. Allow Facebook to weigh genders per Ad Set on it's own. It will do a better job internally than if you manually try to specify.
- Segment Ad Sets by age group: 18-24, 24-34, 34-45, etc.
- Do not manually specify ad placements or devices. I've always had worse results using manual placements with a broad audience. Facebook optimizes this very well internally, and will spend wisely.
- Set the Minimum Ad Spend per Ad Set to $5, to ensure actionable data.
Before we move into ads, we still have to set up our Audience Targeting.
Assuming that you have a mailing-list (if not, you should definitely have one by now, and you want at least 3000 emails), upload your mailing list and turn that into a Custom Audience, and then create a 1% Look-A-Like Audience from that custom audience. Use your 1% Look-A-Like Audience as the Ad Set audience.
Now add the following interests to your targeting:
- Kickstarter
- IndieGoGo
- Crowdfunding
- GoFundMe
Use Post-Linked IDs when duplicating your ads between age-group and country segments (There is a drop-down for "Create Ad" when creating an Ad, but you should instead select "Existing Ad"). Post-Linked IDs will retain the comments, likes, and shares between the ads which use the same creative/copywrite.
Be sure to answer all comments that viewers write on your ads!
---
#2.2 Ad Creative
---
I do not recommend including the words Kickstarter on the creative, however there are certain creatives where this may make sense -- for instance, creatives where you display a collection of physical rewards (t-shirts, physical box, SNES cartridge, etc.), or even just a poster image of concept art + logo.
There are a number of different creative formats that are pretty sure-fire ways to express your game, however every game is different so you may have some unique tricks up your personal sleeve. For instance, with Dwerve, we had a nice screenshot with a Zelda-aesthetic along with a massive closed door. A door entails curiosity. This creative worked very well with click-through rates.
Generally speaking, these creative formats will perform good:
- Trailer Video
- Gameplay Video
- 3-second GIF
- Poster Image of Logo + Concept Art
- Display Collection of physical rewards
Create an ad for each of these creative types, and duplicate them for each campaign and age group. This will prevent banner-blindness and ad-fatigue, as Facebook will certainly impress your ad campaign to the same person multiple times over the course of your Kickstarter.
Aim to drive feelings of curiosity, nostalgia, motivation, and social proof in your viewers.
---
#2.3 Ad Copywrite
---
A good rule of thumb is 6 words or less on the Primary Text above the creative, and 3 words or less on the Headline below the creative. While 6 words might be a tough target to hit, the point is that shorter is always better here. You may want to mask the URL by changing the Display Link text, and add a Description below the Headline.
The patterns which we found the best results with for each text type was:
Page Name -> "Backer Bear"
Primary Text -> "A beautifully crafted, Zelda-inspired action RPG with Tower-Defense combat"
Headline -> "Play the demo"
Display Link -> "KICKSTARTER.COM"
Description -> "FINAL CHANCE! | VIDEO GAME PROJECTS WE LOVE | Dwerve | An all-new action RPG inspired by the 16-bit era"
CTA Button -> "Download"
Example of our GIF ad
---
#3 Redirect URL
---
When people click your ad, you want to track them via the FB Pixel. Unfortunately, Kickstarter does not allow us to place a pixel on the Kickstarter page itself, so we must work around that by using a Redirect URL. You can either use a service like Pixelme.me, or your own custom branded site & solution.
For this Redirect URL, use a Pixel script with the standard "PageView" event:
fbq('track', 'PageView');
And ensure that the pixel has fully loaded before redirecting, by putting the pixel script inside the HEAD region of your redirect page's DOM. You will also need to change t.async=!0 in the script to t.async=false;
another method people recommend to make sure page is fully loaded
End Facebook Pixel Code