Facebook Advertising: Your experience

Colm_purchase

Hi All,
I recently started dipping my toe into facebook advertising and I got to say im quite disappointed with it so far but then again perhaps Im not using it effectively.
The first campaign I ran cost me zero and I think I probably narrowed the demographics a little bit too much. Over a one week period I got 887 impressions but zero hits.
Last week I started a second campaign and kept the demographics more general. So far I have had 322,500 impressions and 103 clicks.
Now I would have assumed that the 103 clicks were from 103 IP addresses and that if they click through to other pages on your site you would not be charged but that it seems is not the case. The truth of the matter it seems is that 1 visitor can blow your daily budget if they click right through many pages on your site.
Facebook are extremely difficult to contact and I have sent 3 emails querying the campaign and have not received a response yet.
What are your experiences with facebook advertising? Do you find google adwords more or less effective? Has any other online advertising proved effective for you?

91011

I initially found facebook advertisuing to be very good, but then the cost per click went way up by multiples and I simply was not prepared to pay €1 + per click.

With google, it went up but seems to have come back down, though on the main product keywords my main site comes up top on nearly all searches.

Recently I have returned to off line advertising as the deals to be had are tremendous particularly with women's magazines, though the response takes longer to materialise.

PaulPinnacle

Colm_purchase wrote: »

I recently started dipping my toe into facebook advertising and I got to say im quite disappointed with it so far but then again perhaps Im not using it effectively....

...What are your experiences with facebook advertising? Do you find google adwords more or less effective? Has any other online advertising proved effective for you?

Facebook advertising is different to your 'normal' google adwords campaigns. Both can/do provide great results, but it all depends on what you're advertising and how you're advertising it. For some, facebook will provide better results than google, for others, the results will be far worse.

In SEM (search engine marketing) you're aiming an ad at a targeted demographic searching for your product (not so much on the content network, which is far more similar to social media advertising where you're trying to attract clicks while users go about their daily activities). In SMM (social media marketing), you're targeting specific demographics which you believe will be interested in your product... but which aren't specifically looking for your product at the time.

Facebook (or any social media advertising campaign) is a great way to interact with people and allow you to learn about your target market while allowing them to learn about you. It's a great opportunity for relationship building and to turn perspective clients in clients.

It doesn't perform as well on direct sales, as the person isn't looking for your service when you engage with them (though some people will achieve high sales, as a general rule it's not what social media is geared towards). The results you obtain will depend on how compelling your ad/offer is (e.g. split test your ad copy), how striking it is to catch the users attention (split test your images, offers, etc), how you decide to use the campaign (e.g. send users to your Facebook business page or direct to your site), the call to action you provide (if you aim for a 'direct sale' you'll probably suffer, if you aim to earn them as a fan or sign up for a newsletter you'll probably find better results), how well optimised your landing pages are (regardless of how much money you throw at an advertising campaign, if the user doesn't see the benefits of a product/service quickly on seeing your information it will be a wasted investment), etc. etc..

If your target market is very specific (e.g. 25 year old males that are graduates of a specific university), then the demographic targeting of Facebook is ideal. You can also get great results by targeting specific websites that aim at your target market. If you're providing a service for a wide variety of businesses, then something like linkedin can provide excellent results due to the number of managerial staff which use it. If you're looking for someone that's actively searching to buy your specific product/service, then SEM targeting will probably give the best results.

In reality, over investing in one and ignoring the benefits of others (e.g. aiming for specific high return niches in each platform can assist to keep costs low and conversions high) can reduce the returns, even if you're focusing on the 'best one' (e.g. there's no such thing as a 'best'). It's just a matter of making sure you're using each platform correctly.

Colm_purchase wrote: »

The first campaign I ran cost me zero and I think I probably narrowed the demographics a little bit too much. Over a one week period I got 887 impressions but zero hits.

Your best bet is to have a number of very specific campaigns. If you find one demographic/campaign isn't performing (e.g. your initial campaign), drop it. If you find one is performing well, tweak it and reinvest funds from the non performing ones to the one(s) providing results.

It's hard to get the balance right between how much to segment your market (e.g. making specific ads, aimed at a specific demographic with a specific landing page) and how much time this requires vs. the results you (can) obtain. The more segmented the more potential for success, but be sure you're getting a positive return for the time you're giving it.

If you find that none are providing results, then consider reinvesting your time/money into alternative forms of advertising. Either find another platform (google, bing, linkedin, offline methods, etc.) or re-access how you're using the platform to begin with and see if you can develop a better strategy.

Colm_purchase wrote: »

Now I would have assumed that the 103 clicks were from 103 IP addresses and that if they click through to other pages on your site you would not be charged but that it seems is not the case. The truth of the matter it seems is that 1 visitor can blow your daily budget if they click right through many pages on your site.

You pay for the click on the ad (or for 1000 impressions of the ad if you opt for CPM rather than CPC). Once the user arrives at your site, you won't (or shouldn't) be charged any further regardless of what they do. The only way you'd be charged more than a single CPC is if the same user was continually clicking through on your ad's as they appear (which would suggest a very strange user or, more likely, click fraud [although Facebook claim to have security measures to limit/remove the risks there]).

If you have data that suggests otherwise, I'd be keen to hear about it. My own experience with Facebook strongly suggests otherwise, where the only cost is in relation to a specific 'ad click'.

Colm_purchase

Thanks Paul for your detailed reply.
Just checked my traffic management system against the facebook campaign and there is a huge difference. Basically the facebook campaign is claiming to have produced over double the number of clicks to my site so far today than the total number of visitors to the site according to the traffic management system. I can also tell that some of the visitors to my site have arrrived from other sources otherside the facebook campaign.
Therefore the only conclusion that seems to make sense to me is that Im being charged per page of the site the facebook visitors go to
I have taken a screen shot of each PM me your email address and I will happily send it on to you.

PaulPinnacle

A difference between your ad click stats (which should be accurate) and your analytics stats is a fairly common problem. It can be down to your website (e.g. if you have a large file that takes a long time to load delaying the analytics code from firing before the user clicks away from the page) or due to the 'referral' turning up in an unexpected manner.

What traffic management system are you using? As an example, here's a discussion of this problem relating to Google Analytics.