Running Engagement campaigns in countries where the cost of advertising is low, like India, to improve the efficacy of your Conversion campaigns in the USA is a tactic that has been tried by advertisers in the past. This approach is sometimes called “boosting engagement” or “warming up the pixel.” Here’s a breakdown of the potential pros and cons:
Pros:
- Lower Costs: Running engagement campaigns in countries with cheaper ad costs can help you accumulate a lot of engagement (likes, shares, comments) without spending a lot.
- Social Proof: If a post has a lot of engagement, it might appear more trustworthy or appealing to people in other countries. High engagement can serve as social proof, potentially leading to higher click-through rates in your target market.
- Algorithm Familiarity: Engaging content can “train” Facebook’s algorithm to recognize your content as valuable, which could, in theory, help with ad delivery.
- Pixel Data: Engagement campaigns can give your Facebook Pixel more data about user interactions, which might help in optimizing conversion campaigns.
Cons:
- Irrelevant Engagement: The engagement you receive from countries you’re not selling to may not be relevant to your target audience. For example, the comments might be in a different language or context, which could confuse your primary audience.
- Misleading Data: Your engagement metrics will be skewed, which can make it hard to judge genuine interest in your primary markets.
- Diluted Lookalike Audiences: If you create Lookalike Audiences based on engagement, they might be diluted by the behaviors of users in countries you don’t sell to.
- Budget Allocation: Money spent on these campaigns could potentially be better invested directly in your target market, improving ad creatives, offers, or other aspects of the campaign.
- Possible Negative Perception: Some users are savvy about this tactic and might view a post with a lot of engagement but irrelevant comments as a sign that the brand is trying to “game” the system.
While there might be some short-term benefits in terms of social proof and lower costs, the long-term efficacy of this tactic is debatable. The best approach is to test and measure. Run a controlled test where you boost engagement in cheaper countries and measure if this genuinely improves the efficacy of your conversion campaigns in the USA. Ensure you’re tracking the right metrics, including cost per conversion, overall return on ad spend, and the quality of the engagement and traffic you receive.