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Be sure to check out my other (More recent) posts on facebook advertising:
Facebook is a advertising system that I have hated for a while. The number of campaigns I have tried on it are huge while the number of successes are so dismal. To advertise on Facebook really takes a certain type of person and understanding of marketing.
Mindset to make a Successful Facebook Campaign
First off, if you're a big Search Engine Pay per click person such as myself, you have to completely change how you think of structuring campaigns.
With most search pay per click advertisements you are paying for advertisements on things people are actively looking for. With facebook however you're trying to get peoples attention on something they may or may not be looking for.
Instead of aiming your search keywords at a particular thing people are looking for, you now have to dive deep into the mindset of a person who you are wanting to buy from you. Who are the people who GENERALLY buy this product? Who are the people who have general interest in the product you are trying to sell.
The great part about facebook is that you can target your campaigns VERY well. You can make campaigns to 27 year old females in California who like the show family guy. It's all about who you are trying to sell to.
Ads
Now that you are thinking in the terms of what your target demographic, it all comes down to ads. Ads are really the most important thing with Facebook.
If you have a good Ad, then you can really make a good chunk of change. Your Ad's click through rate is almost directly proportional to the amount of traffic you will receive. Ads with a CTR of 0.1% and below are a lot less likely to be shown.
If your ads have less than that, chances are you're going to have to pay a nice chunk of change to supplement that low CTR.
One of the single biggest things you can do to increase your ad CTR is to change the image. The image is what is going to catch the eyes of your viewers and thus has one of the biggest impacts on your CTR.
The next is obviously the headline.
Overall
Overall facebook can result in nice profits but it really does take a good amount of work to discover which ads work. You have to target the right people, test a TON of ads, get the high CTR, and overall probably have your ad copied after a few days.
That being said, I wouldn't consider facebook a long term campaign money maker. It's a short term campaign system unless you either own the offer you are promoting such as a service or store or have an exclusive affiliate campaign that is limited to a few people.
Any more experienced facebook advertisers feel free to chime in here if they have been able to make it a more long term system.
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Thanks for these useful tips, I’m still learning how to make money from facebook
as a beginner in PPC, Facebook was the easiest to get my feet wet with. Too easy in fact. I don’t expect to be profitible with ads with a CTR less than 0.2%. Most of my success has been through direct linking. I haven’t made landing pages work though.
Jonathan,
good article about FB marketing. it can be quite tricky to get something going that’s profitable. as far as dating the market is pretty saturated. although i know there are people making money on facebook its just much harder than it used to be. one thing you can do to make more profit is to figure out what your ad does in ctr. then when its come up with a pretty consistent ctr, is switch it over to CPM. you can get cheap clicks if you’re ctr is high. just another tip for people trying to eke out a profit on facebook.
What kind of ads are working on Facebook at this time? Any hints would be great.
Great Article Jon.
The biggest issue I have with Facebook is obviously the ad approval mechanism. It is so random.
The 2nd thing is, your ads and landing pages will get copied in a after of days. I would not recommend running your search campaigns with the same landing page you use on search on Facebook.
Affiliates on Facebook are not good at search advertising. The sole reason why they only do Facebook because it is easy to copy ads and create campaigns.
-G
We are using it to drive targeted traffic to a user poll for a site redesign we are doing for a local college. I think FB is perfect for this since we can show ads directly to the 16-18 yr old high school student interested in xyz. We are incentivizing with itunes gift cards.
Hey, nice post, very well written. You should write more about this.
A good CTR only last a couple weeks/days. If you switch to CPM watch your ad spend.
I would recommend new marketers stay away from facebook for the time being because of all of the click fraud.
Some are reporting 10/1 click fraud, as the 1 is the real click.
Can’t stand facebook ads. Good on anyone who’s killing with them, but I’ve never managed more than modest success.
Face Book is really a mess. From the Advertisement interface to the high cost per clicks. Moreover when they reject the ad they don’t tell you why. Kind of like we don’t care…go find out yourself. I hate it…no more money from me.
Hi Jonathan, nice article.
My experience with Facebook has been disappointing. Ad rejection seems mysteriously random. Click prices fairly high.
Although as you mention, if you know your target demographic, and can get inside their head, and have an offer which Facebook likes, it works..
On the whole – I’m staying away. There are easier ways!
Congrats on the new home..
Paul.
After reading this I learned some valuable info especially when you were talking about Ads thank you for this post good stuff.
These tips will help me for getting more knowledge about handling the facebook for using it effectively.
[...] Jonathan Volk: Making Successful Facebook Campaigns, [...]
[...] have a simple guide about Making Successful Facebook campaigns as well as Shoemoney has a couple great posts on running a successful Facebook [...]
Thanks for tips. Using facebook ads for about 1 year now but found something new in your post.
[...] Making Successful Facebook Campaigns “Facebook is a advertising system that I have hated for a while. The number of campaigns I have tried on it are huge while the number of successes are so dismal. To advertise on Facebook really takes a certain type of person and understanding of marketing.” [...]
I have about four Facebook ads that I am running at the moment here are the stats from one of them..
ad 1 – 39clicks 38,295impr 0.102%ctr $0.32avg cpc $0.32avg cpm
keep in mind this is a fersh ad about 2-3 days old with 20$ budget.. would u say these are good stats? and its converting at about 14%
[...] Making Successful Facebook Campaigns [...]
Facebook advertising was a flop for me. Plenty of click throughs but very few conversions, much lower than google ppc. Maybe I’ll try again with some of your tips.
[...] Making Successful Facebook Campaigns. [...]
Complete randomness on Facebook ad approval process. Get this: i changed the target audience on the campaign and Facebook disapproved the ad because of an “inappropriate/irrelevant image.” The funny this is that I didn’t change the image, and it was 100% relevant and G rated by any account. Makes no sense Facebook. Who is making this ad approval decisions at Facebook anyway?
[...] Making Successful Facebook Campaigns. [...]
Jonathan, great article. Please, keep writing about facebook. I see a lot of value in your articles. Thank you.
I tested facebook ads for the first time today, spent $47 and made $15, but found some campaigns that look promising. The only hard part is after you find the one’s that do work you now have to break them down so much, age, sex, country, city, state ect… that it could cost even more money until you’re in the black. By that time every other affiliate has copied you anyhow. As for the image thing, I copied my ads to a different age group and they all got rejected, funny because they all got approved for a different age group…. very random they are.