This article focuses on sponsored influencer posts, boosts and social ads.
Formula for you TLDRs:
Amount spent / ((Likes*1) + (Comments*1.25) + (Saves *1.5) + (Shares*2))
Typically CPE is calculated taking amount spent and dividing it by total engagements [amount spent / total engagements]
However, various social media platforms have come out and stated that the algorithm ranks engagement metrics differently for pushing content to users. For example:
- Instagram prioritises likes, average watch time and shares
- Tiktok prioritises watch time, completion rate, replays, shares and "not interested" taps
- Facebook prioritises comments, shares and watch time
- Pinterest prioritises saves, comments, zooms and click-throughs
- Linkedin prioritises saves
Furthermore users treat engagements differently too. This is what I like to refer to as 'Level of Interest' as different actions show different levels of involvement.
- Low/Med level of interest - Likes
- Medium level of interest - Comment
- High level of interest - Save
- High level of interest - Share
Essentially, if your future content is based on the engagement metrics of your current content, the algorithm and your users may be telling you a different story than your results. Yes, a particular post may have received higher total engagements - but, your users have shown more interest or resonated with content that has lower engagement.
Let's put it into practice:
- 2 social content around Easter
- Both have been boosted for £200
Easter Content 1
- 250 likes
- 132 comments
- 50 Saves
- 80 Shares
- Total Engagements: 512
- CPE: £0.39
Easter Content 2
- 480 likes
- 60 Comments
- 20 Saves
- 30 Shares
- Total Engagements: 590
- CPE: £0.34
Based on the normal workings you would say that Easter Content 2 performed better and model future posts based on it, right?
But, what if you were to adapt the formula so that each engagement metric was valued differently, like below. Please note the following numbers are derived from the formula at the beginning and ending of this article.
- Likes x 1
- Comments x 1.25
- Saves x 1.5
- Shares x 2
You would get the following results
- Easter Content 1: £0.307
- Easter Content 2: £0.310
As seen above the Easter Content 1 was more cost efficient, despite seeing lower engagement than the other content piece. You could then look into why audiences resonated with it more and model that formula for future content.The formula can always be adapted to include more metrics and the importance you place on metrics.
Formula:
Amount spent / ((Likes*1) + (Comments*1.25) + (Saves *1.5) + (Shares*2))