In case you haven’t been around lately, social networks have been the craze lately and everything that comes out now has some sort of social spin to it. Realizing networks like Facebook are full of millions of people, it would only make sense that advertising in their network would be a great thing. I’m here to disagree.
I setup an ad with Facebook’s “Social Ads” on November 26th to see how it would perform. Not knowing what to expect, I started off slow with a low CPC (cost per click). I cautiously watched, day to day, and was shocked at what I was seeing. I slowly kept increasing my CPC up to $5.00 per click. Impressions were increasing and clicks were nowhere to be found. I decided to hold off and just let it ride on the $5.00 per click.
As of today, here are the stats:
- Impressions: 147,258
- # of Clicks : 11
- CTR
: .01
Some may say, “You aren’t doing something right”. This might be right, but it’s not like I’ve never worked with online advertising before. I’ve tweaked, read information, moved bids and several other things. I think it comes down to something that I’ve thought for quite some time now; social networks are not that great of a place for small businesses to advertise. Looking for a little reassurance, I found this from someone who is fairly knowledgeable in the online space. I usually don’t buy into much he says, but I think he hit the nail on the head with this one.
Have a better result with social ads? Let us know.
8 comments ↓
I feel like such a fuddy duddy. I can’t stand Facebook. Every time I’ve been dragged there, kicking and screaming, I’ve wondered what the buzz is about. I didn’t like people in high school. I didn’t like people in college. (I still don’t like most people these days, for that matter.)
Facebook seems like a glorified online version of my worst days in high school when I wanted popular kids to like me but secretly suspected they were more screwed up and shallow than those of us who just minded our own business.
I have done advertising through Facebook a lot and got very good results out of it. It’s actually good to advertise through Facebook if your website is related to Fun & Entertainment otherwise you will get impressions normal but no clicks because at Facebook mostly people come around for having Fun & Entertainment.
I have had great success so far with Facebook Ads.
Freelance Ad - Targeting people between 18 and 65 who like business or entrepreneurship to come to my Freelance Design site, for logo Design: http://www.coryschop.com
Targeting USA: Impressions(13,541) clicks(12) CTR(0.09%) avg CPC ($0.13)
Targeting Canada: Impressions(151,760) clicks(376) CTR(0.25%) avg CPC($0.11)
With this campaign I have actually had 1 logo sale in the first 3 days the ad was out. Also this potentially resulted in a deal I just landed to do on average 1 full website design package a month for an SEO company. They found me on Facebook!
SEO Ad - Targeting people between 18 and 65 who like business or entrepreneurship to come to an SEO site I run http://www.seobase.net
Targeting Canada: Impressions(42,938) clicks(99) CTR(0.23%) avg CPC($0.10)
Facebook Application Ad - Targeting femails between 18 and 65 to come to my applications webpage: http://www.fbexpressions.com
Targetting Canada: Impressions(4.8million) clicks(3505) CTR(0.07%) avg CPC($0.07)
Targetting Australia: Impressions(890,000) clicks(1025) CTR(0.12%) avg CPC($0.07)
This traffic has lead to a lot of installs of my application
I just wouldn`t have thought that the target audience was there for business sites. To me facebook, myspace, bebo and the like are social places for the young. Are most users likely to be interested in `business` I have to ask? I don`t think so, but I could be wrong.
Anyway, for the time being I won`t be using their services.
Have you tried CPM? It will give you more impressions. I think this will give you more value. I get like 200,000 of impression a day but the click rate is not too much. I ended up paying like 50 cents per click. I stop doing it after 5 days.
I agree there’s not too much value in social sites. I believe they will be better off doing brand marketing, and doing CPM for targeted ads. A lot of them like myspace has the no follow. Making your links without any weight in google.
Cheers!
kip
Update: I just sold another logo package and the client told me that they found me through facebook ads. They will probbaly order a full website package too so in my experience it has been worth every penny.
kip, I find that CPM is not the way to go on social networking sites because the ctr is so low. You are better of to bid on clicks and pay per click. (depending on what you need to bid of course)
Congrats Cory “I LIKE TO” Schop! Glad it’s working for someone. Probably just depends on the product and hitting the right demographic.
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