Do Facebook ads make search clicks cheaper?

Didit Editorial

9 years ago

February 11, 2016: A new research paper from Facebook takes a close look at the social network’s ability – through paid posts – to change search behavior. Titled Cross Channel Planning: Making Search Work Harder, the paper summarizes a series of experiments conducted in 2015 using various different consumer sectors, including automotive, financial, and travel verticals.

Measuring the impact
Only 1 in 4 of participating marketers saw any statistically significant increase in search referral traffic attributable to Facebook ads. Unfortunately, the study didn’t supply any details about each marketer’s campaign to determine why this is so. Was the inability to achieve any FB-search synergy due to the nature of the business, the campaigns, the ads themselves, or some other variable? Obviously, some brands possess more social-search synergy than others, but it would have been helpful to know more about the campaigns themselves in order to explain the limited effectiveness.

FB can lower search CPCs in certain instances
Facebook’s data shows that some marketers were able to lower the price of search clicks by engaging in Facebook paid placements:

When Facebook paid media was introduced into the marketing mix, consumers were more likely to search for branded keywords and in some cases less likely to search for unbranded keywords. For (one advertiser) 97% of the incremental paid search visits were in the form of branded keywords. As a result, we saw that Facebook ads make search ads 1.8% more efficient, largely as a result of this change in consumer search behavior.

This finding is a big deal. By showing that it can move searchers from expensive non-brand to cheaper branded clicks, Facebook can make a convincing, metrics-based case to marketers that it should be entitled to a greater share of their wallets:

For brands in Automotive, Financial Services and Retail, we found that Facebook paid media caused statistically significant lift in lower-funnel KPIs these advertisers care about, including online and offline sales. Lift in these KPIs varied widely, ranging from flat to 79%. For one large retailer, the majority of this sales lift came from increased basket size. It seemed people were comfortable spending more after exposure to Facebook paid media.

Mobile search lift stronger than desktop

Facebook’s data also shows that search lift is much stronger on mobile devices than on the desktop:

Among these campaigns, we saw an average 6.3% lift (as seen in Figure II) in mobile search traffic, compared to an average 0.9% lift in desktop search traffic, calculated as a straight average. Based on this analysis, consumers who were exposed to Facebook advertising were more likely to conduct a new search on mobile.”

It’s not clear why mobile users are more prone to clicking on search ads following exposure to paid Facebook ad units. But the data suggests that marketers whose audiences are predominantly mobile can be moved to cheaper clicks far more easily than users on desktops, thus resulting in more savings and efficiencies for the marketer.

Will FB convince search marketers to pony up more budget?

It’s too early to tell whether this new study succeeds in prying loose more budget from search. What it might, however, in the short term is to convince more marketers to experiment with campaigns that use both a search and a social paid component together.

Obviously, each individual marketer will have to find out for him/herself whether spending on Facebook will make search engine spend more efficient. Some may find this difficult because their attribution models aren’t sophisticated enough. But those that get it right may realize material gains in the form of cheaper search clicks from conducting hybrid search/social campaigns.