Do you advertise on Facebook?

What type of business? B2B? B2C? What the product and target audience?

Hi Michael,

We are B2C company that is looking to target 18-25 year old students. We figured Facebook would be a perfect target for that specific demographic. I'm curious to know if those 18-25 year old's ever click through on ads in the side column. From my understanding it doesn't have a great conversion rate, but I was hoping for some advice or feedback from others who have tried it and what type of response they got. For the cost of advertising on Facebook, it seems like it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. Do you have any experience with it?

I love Facebook Ads. It's still a lot cheaper to convert than Paid Search in many of the categories I play in (both B2C and B2B).

The biggest hurdle you'll have to get over is clickthrough rate. Facebook will get you a ton of impressions quickly, but if you don't have compelling enough ads to keep the CTR's up, they'll slowly turn off the spigot. So, don't be too bashful with your ad creative.

The demographic targetting is amazing. If you hock auto insurance, you could buy the keyword phrase "new car", narrow it down to high school kids, and even switch up different ads for different genders. Or you could target the age range of identified parents who would have kids getting licenses soon (actually, this is probably a better fit in this example since high school kids can't pay for crap).

It's also really easy to set up ad campaigns, so there is no excuse for not getting super-granular (which also helps boost CTR's....)

Conversion rates are probably comparable to other Push Marketing Channels...but a whoooooooooooooole lot more users at your disposal.

Get in there and start swinging. People have been making a lot of money off Facebook this year, but it's still the Wild West. So get in while the gettin' is good.

We have done some interesting campaigns with Facebook. It has worked to drive conversions- but often these leads, if treated the same as others, fizzle out. What we (a B2B company) have found works better is creating a nurturing campaign just for those that comes from social media that is longer than one of our traditional nurturing programs, giving the lead more touch points.

These touch points are also focused around driving the prospect to our blog or back to our facebook site instead of traditional white papers and webinars (though still do lead scoring on these activities). We than use triggers to move the lead to a more traditional campaign if they start doing activities on our site that may indicate they are ready to buy.

For reference, we published this last year on InsideCRM:

The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools & Tips To Tap The Facebook Customer Base

http://www.insidecrm.com/features/facebook-marketing-toolbox-012308/

Hope that helps, as well.

We are seeing some great results through Facebook advertising. The first two weeks of our first campaign we saw a 10 to 1 return. We had done some organic Facebook contests which yielded results so we pulled the trigger and started doing some minimal advertising. We'll be increasing our spend now.

Yes, I am currently running an ad with little success. Stats support the industry news that Facebook is a bit dismal for advertising right now. Certainly worth a test as I am doing, since I knew this information going into it.

Hi,

In Brazil we tend to use social media differently, more friendly, so, at first in order to be with your public, go through the basics: fan page, group, and then support it by the ad on facebook to have the return on the website or blog.

Looking specially at your target, probably they will look on the ads, but you will need to have the info. in the other main channels, think the ads will be only a support for the campaign.

We are a small privately owned manufacturer of building materials. We would like to advertise on Facebook, but are unsure how to get started. Any advice would be most welcome.

Becky
MFM

I've consulted with a few small businesses looking to engage Facebook to advertise and can say that the yes, you'll get a significant number of impressions but if your creative (as Brian mentioned) isn't good your conversion rates will be dismal - However, based on the cost (super cheap), you can experiment and mix up your content to see what your audience is really interested in.

I also concur with Tatiana - I'd highly recommend creating a 'Fan Page' (probably not a group) and perhaps an 'Event Page' if you can connect the contents of the event to the ad. Basically, find a way to be a part of the community if you want to advertise to it.

You can reach out to Grant Diggles at The Cummings Group for SMB consulting on Social Media and Facebook. He teaches at a few business schools and hosts webinars on a regular basis.

gdiggles@thecummingsgroup.com or http://www.thecummingsgroup.com/

Thanks,
Cody-

As a student, I can tell you that most of us spend a great deal of time on Facebook. I can't speak for every 20 year old's behalf, but we do click on ads we find enticing. And by enticing, I mean more VISUAL than descriptive.