Most of the campaigns on Facebook are bought in an auction i.,e using real-time bidding wherein multiple advertisers bid on each impression. However, there is another infamous way of buying media on Facebook i.,e “Reach and Frequency” buying. Without further ado, let us get started on answering some of your questions on the R&F buying model.
What is Reach and Frequency Buying?
Let us say your manager has allocated $ 20,000 towards an awareness campaign for your brand that sells baby clothes. You need to spend the budget efficiently to get the word out there for your target audience say: Parents with kids aging from 0-5 years. You devise a strategy being that you need to reach at least 70% of your target audience with the brand contact of at least once per week. You see the estimated CPM as $10 on Ads Manager.
What would be your first thought? Well, like most of the advertisers you would go to the ads manager and set up an auction campaign. Hold your horses!
This is where the reach and frequency buying model would come to your rescue. Using this, you would be paying a fixed CPM and the Facebook algorithm would optimize towards your desired frequency of 3/week. All you need to do is select the right target audience and Facebook will provide an estimated CPM and you can reserve the campaign for the duration of 1-90 days. However, as you can see from the image above, not all the options that would be available with the auction buying model are available for Reach and Frequency.
Is This Buying Model Suitable for Your Campaigns?
This buying model may not be suitable for all instances. Here is when the R&F Buying Model is Extremely Useful:
Your Goal is Awareness
If your objective is to reach the desired number of people with x times within a defined time frame, then the reach and frequency buying model would be a cost-effective way of working towards your objective.
You have a big Target Audience
To book a reach and frequency campaign, your target audience must be at least 200,000 people.
You like Control
If you would like to have transparency and control upfront, then R&F is right for you.
Expectations Set Right
As you pay a fixed CPM, there wouldn’t be many surprises.
When You Shouldn’t Book Reach and Frequency Campaigns
Conversion
With conversion as the campaign objective, it is not recommended to use reach and frequency as the machine does not optimize towards it.
Smaller audience
If you do not have an audience size of at least 200K, it is not possible to reserve/purchase a reach and frequency campaign.
Hope this post helped you deepen your understanding of reach and frequency campaigns. If you still unsure which buying model you need to use, then run a small test campaign to test your hypothesis. Please have a look at the official Facebook page on R&F.
Curious about all the targeting options available on Facebook? Read our 2020 guide here.
