Social stacking is a Facebook ninja hack that allows you to build ad campaigns around popular posts (and other ads) to generate cheap traffic and leverage social proof in an attempt to lower your CPA. One way to test a social stacking campaign is to boost a popular post on Facebook.
To get started, post an article to your business page. Then do nothing for a few hours. If the article has good engagement (sharing, clicks, comments) then you may want to boost it. And just in case you’re unsure of which posts to boost, Facebook will usually prompt you with something like this:
Facebook Social Stacking
Once you have an engaging post, click the Boost Post button. You’ll then have options to choose your targeting and set a budget. As long as you have your pixel correctly installed on your website, Facebook will track all engagement and activity. (And this data will help you in future Facebook ad campaigns.)
Because my primary blog revolves around filmmaking, I usually choose “filmmaking” as the broad interest. I then limit the geographical reach of my ad to the United States. And I then set the budget to $20-$100 dollars per day.
Social Stacking Momentum
When your boost comes to an end, go into your Facebook ads manager and look at the data. If the ad performed well, you will have generated traffic, gained subscribers and possibly made some sales. In this example, my $50 dollar boost converted 3 sales for a total of $291 in revenue.
Since your boosted post will also have likes, shares and comments, you can further benefit from social stacking by recycling your ad into a new campaign. This gives you the advantage of social proof. And because Facebook factors the previous ad data, you should have a head start for achieving your marketing objective.
Get Email Subscribers
While there are multiple marketing objectives worth testing, when it doubt, I recommend you choose conversions and then work to get more email subscribers. You’ll then select your targeting, budget and placement… And you’ll simply select your popular post (as the ad) and get started.
Like all things marketing, nothing works all the time for every campaign. So I suggest you keep your budget low until you start seeing results. And with a little luck and persistence, you might some favorable results with social stacking.
