How Facebook Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) could be your best friend

If there’s one thing that defines the mindset of a successful campaign manager, it’s a test-and-iterate approach. The best online advertisers are those that are constantly testing, looking for new keys to success and making the most of them when they’re discovered.

Focusing specifically on creatives, Facebook has developed an ad feature to help advertisers take their split testing to a new level – it’s called Dynamic Creative Optimization, or DCO for short.

What exactly is DCO?

DCO allows advertisers to identify and dynamically deliver the best-performing combinations of creative to their audiences. Taking each of the different elements of a Facebook ad (image, video, title, description, etc), this super useful Facebook feature will automatically test each combination and start to optimize delivery based on what’s having the greatest success.

Dynamic creative can be a great tool for advertisers with many assets who want to learn what creative resonates with different audiences.

Dynamic creative makes it easy to:

• Find high-performing combinations of creative components for your campaign and drive performance
• Launch ads with multiple combinations of creative assets quickly
• Deliver the best creative for each campaign audience and ad placement.

Case in point

Although we can’t yet share their name, DCO has delivered huge success in a recent conversion campaign for a major Paragone client. Working with our Managed Service team, this advertiser set out to launch a classic multi-placement Facebook and Instagram campaign with regular creatives. While performance started off promising, the decision was made to give DCO a try and see whether performance could be further optimized.

And the results so far speak for themselves! Comparing similar timeframes for both the campaign with DCO and the one without, the Paragone team has been able to reduce the CPA for one market by as much as 58%, with another prominent market seeing an 18% reduction in CPA.

DCO is currently supported with the following campaign objectives: Traffic, Video Views, Reach, Brand Awareness, Conversions and App Install.

Dynamic Creative Best Practices

• Dynamic creative accepts up to 10 images/videos, and 5 of each text asset (body text, title, description, CTA). However, it’s best to prioritise quality over quantity by combining two strong assets, for example, rather than several assets that you’re not as confident about.
• Keep your headlines and descriptions short – as a user, think about how long you look at any given post or ad in your Facebook or Instagram News Feed. The average time is short, so make sure every piece of text is punchy!
• Be creative – try a variety of images, video, headlines and CTAs that are different enough to give yourself the best chance of uncovering a gem!
• Use a range of calls-to-action: What do you want users to do after they see your ad? Trying a few different buttons could be a good ploy – you may find there is one you didn’t expect that actually leads to better performance
• Reach qualified audiences: Give dynamic creative extra power by combining it with the Facebook pixel! The pixel will help you track the results of your ads and understand who’s visiting your website, and you’ll also be able to create retargeting audiences.

Our Guide to the Facebook Pixel

Speaking of the Facebook Pixel, have you read our dedicated eBook yet? Our ‘Ultimate Guide to the Facebook Pixel‘ will give you more information and walk you through the steps to getting it properly installed on your website.

Our guide explains it all – whether this is the first time you’ve heard about the Facebook Pixel or you already have a Pixel set up on your website, it will give you all the information you need to improve the effectiveness of your Facebook and Instagram advertising. Download it today!