Should You Optimize Facebook Ads for “Add to Cart” or “Purchase” Conversions?

When running Facebook ad campaigns for e-commerce businesses, one of the most important decisions is choosing your conversion event. As digital marketing expert Ben Heath explains in his YouTube video, this choice can significantly impact your campaign performance and return on ad spend.

Understanding Conversion Events

Facebook’s conversion optimization allows advertisers to tell the platform exactly what action they want to prioritize. When you select a conversion event, you’re essentially instructing Facebook’s algorithm to:

Show your ads to people most likely to complete that specific action
Prioritize times of day when that action is most common
Choose placements where that action performs best
Optimize delivery for maximum conversions of that type

The two primary options e-commerce advertisers consider are “Add to Cart” and “Purchase” events. While they may seem related, they target different user behaviors with important implications.

The Case for Optimizing for Purchases

Heath strongly recommends optimizing for purchases rather than add-to-cart events in nearly all cases, with only one exception:

“You should optimize for purchases unless you’re generating fewer than 10 purchases per week,” Heath advises. Even if you’re not hitting Facebook’s recommended 50 conversions per week threshold, purchase optimization tends to yield better results.

Why Purchase Optimization Works Better

Better Alignment with Business Goals: Ultimately, you want sales, not just cart additions. Facebook’s algorithm is remarkably good at finding people who will complete the action you specify – so if you ask for add-to-carts, that’s exactly what you’ll get, even if those users rarely complete purchases.
Higher Quality Traffic: Heath’s testing shows that purchase-optimized campaigns typically maintain a healthy 2:1 or 3:1 add-to-cart to purchase ratio. In contrast, add-to-cart optimized campaigns often see ratios as poor as 10:1 or 15:1 – meaning far more window shoppers than actual buyers.
More Efficient Spending: While you might see more total conversions (add-to-carts) with that optimization, you’ll likely spend more to acquire each actual customer when optimizing for the earlier funnel stage.

When to Consider Add-to-Cart Optimization

The only scenario where Heath suggests considering add-to-cart optimization is when you’re generating fewer than 10 purchases per week (less than about 1-2 per day). In these cases of extremely low conversion volume, the algorithm may struggle to find enough data to optimize effectively for purchases.

Even then, Heath notes that “a partially optimized Facebook ad campaign that optimizes for the purchase conversion event… is going to outperform a fully optimized campaign that is optimizing for add-to-cart.”

Testing and Implementation Tips

Heath offers several practical recommendations for advertisers:

Don’t fear the “Learning Limited” warning: This appears when you’re not hitting 50 weekly conversions, but shouldn’t deter you from purchase optimization.
When in doubt, test: Run identical campaigns with both optimization types to see which performs better for your specific products and audience.
Focus on your true goal: “Facebook is so good at getting you what you asked for,” Heath emphasizes, so ask for what you really want – purchases.

Advanced Strategies for Better Results

For advertisers looking to take their Facebook campaigns further, Heath mentions his free webinar covering three advanced strategies and different sales funnels tailored to various business types:

E-commerce businesses need one type of funnel
Local businesses require a different approach
High-end service providers need yet another strategy

Key Takeaways

Prioritize purchase optimization in nearly all cases
Only consider add-to-cart optimization if generating <10 weekly purchases
Partial purchase optimization beats full add-to-cart optimization
Test both approaches if uncertain about what works for your business
Don’t be discouraged by learning phase warnings – they don’t mean your campaign won’t perform

By optimizing for the action that directly impacts your revenue – purchases – you’ll typically see better quality traffic, higher conversion rates, and improved return on your advertising investment.

tutorao.com