Has anyone had success from Facebook advertising?

[cityxplora]

I have tried several times by running Facebook campaigns from our business page - either to encourage visitors to like the page or more importantly get them to interact to our main website page. We sell sightseeing tours and attraction tickets and are very active with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & Google+.

I seem to find Facebook adds a waste of money compared to Google Adwords since these can target direct searches and product interest where Facebook charge just for the advert display - click or no click.

Maybe I'm missing something fundamental? Any advice greatly received. Thanks

 

[quickfirerob]

Just my two pence, but we ran a Facebook 'Likes' campaign which cost around the £50 mark as a test. It garnered a total of 5 likes, none of which engaged with the page in a meaningful way. No uptick in leads and certainly no uptick in sales. Google Adwords on the other hand, has always been a worthwhile investment -- provided the campaign is well-optimised and maintained.

If I was you I'd go where the smart money is and stick with Adwords, unless your industry is anchored to to social media. Best of luck.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

seem to find Facebook adds a waste of money compared to Google Adwords since these can target direct searches and product interest where Facebook charge just for the advert display - click or no click.

You can do cpc advertising on facebook.

I like facebook ads and have had success with them. And, for many businesses, they can be far more effective than adwords.

Not only are they much cheaper, but you get to target people who aren't searching. One of the downsides to adwords is that someone has to be actively looking before they can see your ad.

(On Google search - obviously not true for the display network.)

Steve

 

[fisicx]

Maybe I'm missing something fundamental?

Unless someone is in the market for a tour or ticket then they won't really be interested in your campaigns. Same with all the other 'social' places you are active on.

If you want to get people to convert you need to be in front of them when they are looking for or researching tours and tickets. So it's back to advertising. People use social networks to socialise and share, very few use them as a commercial startpoint. What they may do is ask for reccomendations but that relies on people knowing about you in order to share. Likes are of almost no value whatsoever as all you get is likes from people who already know about you, they don;t generate new business.

 

[Will Blears]

I've had significant successes with Facebook for a variety of clients past and current, however at the same time I have also had some failures and some non-starters.

The successes generally come from knowing your target audience significantly well, having competitors who are present on Facebook, understanding the complete sales funnel and ensuring that your communication/marketing doesn't just stop as soon as the user has engaged with the Facebook advertisement.

To be honest, I'd of thought a sightseeing company would actually work very well on Facebook a couple of ideas that come to the top of my head are:

1. Targeting competitors Facebook pages.

2. Targeting users who are travelling / going travelling

Obviously the above would be over laid with general targeting settings such as:

Location/Age/Gender/Relationship

And then the campaigns would be split by newsfeed/right side ads - gender - age - mobile/desktop

At the end of the day though, it really depends on what your CPA is, what your sales funnel looks like and how engaging your advertisement is - it is absolutely crucial with Facebook to ensure you are getting a good CTR and to always split-test advertisements. If you do not do this, then you will fail, simple.

 

[BenWells]

Use the graph search feature on Facebook. This will help you do research so you can highly target your ads.

I think facebook ads is a long way away from adwords but I think facebook ads can work really well for certain businesses.

 

[apricot]

I do get likers by advertising on Facebook but I never seen a return on profit.

However, there was a case studies talk the other day in London and one of the marketing manager said they spend £2000 on Facebook ads and they didn't get any customers. So they stopped ads.. but the next days they received 800 buyers from Facebook. They were surprised and continued with the ads but they didn't get the same result ever again.

I guess it was just a luck on that day. Facebook is a not a good place to invest if you are a small company.

 

[Abubaker_g]

Dessert shop used to be a Facebook run business
Lol

 

[Ad Republic]

I have tried several times by running Facebook campaigns from our business page - either to encourage visitors to like the page or more importantly get them to interact to our main website page. We sell sightseeing tours and attraction tickets and are very active with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & Google+.

I seem to find Facebook adds a waste of money compared to Google Adwords since these can target direct searches and product interest where Facebook charge just for the advert display - click or no click.

Maybe I'm missing something fundamental? Any advice greatly received. Thanks

Facebook has become a much better advertising platform since they introduced ads in the news feed. Quite simply, they look like a 'post' therefore people are more inclined to interact with them.

I've had great success through only running ads in the news feed, and using the smaller ads on the right hand side for Remarketing.

 

[Will Blears]

I seem to find Facebook adds a waste of money compared to Google Adwords since these can target direct searches and product interest where Facebook charge just for the advert display - click or no click.

If you are finding Google Adwords to be successful, then why not look at Facebook from a remarketing point of view? Simply create a Facebook remarketing pixel add it across your website, segment it via package/service you have and then retarget these visitors via Facebook.

Just thinking, this could be a more effective way for you to utilise the Facebook platform.

 

[fisicx]

Facebook has become a much better advertising platform since they introduced ads in the news feed. Quite simply, they look like a 'post' therefore people are more inclined to interact with them.

Is that true? I normally just ignore them

And even if I do click the changes of converting are miniscule. Unless at that precise moment I want to book a hotel in Mauritius or buy a Burberry scarf.

 

[garyk]

Is that true? I normally just ignore them

And even if I do click the changes of converting are miniscule. Unless at that precise moment I want to book a hotel in Mauritius or buy a Burberry scarf.

Yes they are more effective as they blend in better, other platforms/ad vendors are moving to 'native ads' that look more like the style of the page they are on. Not going to fool someone as savvy as you fisicx but for your average joe....

As for the OP I don't know what sort of activity you post on fb but are you really leveraging the photo opportunities? (and on pinterest) I would have thought putting up decent photos of scenes that your tours pass or rides/events at the attractions you cover would get people interested.

Your challenge is in targeting, what sort of person is interested in sightseeing? Potentially anyone but not all the time and how many people would put that down as their interest?

Are you using re-targeting at all, this is a cheap start. Copy some pixel tracking code from facebook and put it into your website so you can build a custom audience and advertise just to your site visitors. Even better if you have a 'checkout' page you can put one pixel on there and one on your main page and run ads to those who visited your site but didn't buy!


O the possibilities are endless......just all takes time

 

[fisicx]

Yes they are more effective as they blend in better, other platforms/ad vendors are moving to 'native ads' that look more like the style of the page they are on.

I get that and I understand that you will get people clicking - but do they convert? Adwords is very focused and relate to a search so conversions are usually good. But random adverts (as I seem to get) in a facebook feed aren't going to excite me unless I'm in the mood for their message.

Or am I just being ancient and out of touch (again).

 

[EpicWebs]

This might just be my experience, but I ran four tests. One with males and one with females - same interests and likes and same age range. I ran them at the same time of the week, monday to friday.

I got 3 likes from the males and 12 likes from the females. I thought it must of been something I had done different so I ran two tests again to see what would happen.

Same outcome, 5 likes from males and 13 likes from females, it's interesting but after a bit more testing it appears that females engage a lot more than males, might be something to consider for the future if you try facebook ads again.

 

[fisicx]

Unless they converted into new business what value did those likes have? I'm working with someone whose facebook page had over 3 million likes. They have analysed every inch of their business and have worked out that those likes didn't achieve anything. The people doing the liking were already customers. The people who saw the likes didn't become new customers.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

it appears that females engage a lot more than males, might be something to consider for the future if you try facebook ads again.

This has been known for decades.

Men are drawn to pictures of women. Women are drawn to pictures of women and children.

Steve

 

[EpicWebs]

Unless they converted into new business what value did those likes have? I'm working with someone whose facebook page had over 3 million likes. They have analysed every inch of their business and have worked out that those likes didn't achieve anything. The people doing the liking were already customers. The people who saw the likes didn't become new customers.

That's probably why a normal business doesn't achieve a lot unless you start to use those likes. My goal of Facebook ads is to increase my likes to increase my organic reach, which is working so far, I auto post out my content to my facebook page which is seen by people who like it, so it's great for that purpose. You can't just get the likes you have to then use them.

 

[fisicx]

So, how many of those likes and whatever converted into new clients?

 

[EpicWebs]

From just Facebook I have a conversion rate of just under 5% which is pretty good compared to my other traffic. No where near as good as reddit though.

 

[garyk]

I get that and I understand that you will get people clicking - but do they convert? Adwords is very focused and relate to a search so conversions are usually good. But random adverts (as I seem to get) in a facebook feed aren't going to excite me unless I'm in the mood for their message.

Or am I just being ancient and out of touch (again).

Well if they are relevant they do. If you are getting random adverts then the advertiser is not choosing the demographics very well!

 

[JamiePMortimer]

I'm seeing great results from remarketing. I think this could be an option to explore.

I also have seen and experienced success from targeting existing customers and lookalike audiences but I don't think these would work for your business.

 

[StevePoster]

Unless they converted into new business what value did those likes have? I'm working with someone whose facebook page had over 3 million likes. They have analysed every inch of their business and have worked out that those likes didn't achieve anything. The people doing the liking were already customers. The people who saw the likes didn't become new customers.

This proves that "likes" in Facebook is not the basis for conversion

That's probably why a normal business doesn't achieve a lot unless you start to use those likes. My goal of Facebook ads is to increase my likes to increase my organic reach

It seems like you are focused on those likes in Facebook which you believed it really converts well but I'm wondering is there really something on those likes?
I think there is nothing in Facebook likes.
And has nothing to do in organic reach.

 

[EpicWebs]

This proves that "likes" in Facebook is not the basis for conversion



It seems like you are focused on those likes in Facebook which you believed it really converts well but I'm wondering is there really something on those likes?
I think there is nothing in Facebook likes.
And has nothing to do in organic reach.

I track conversions from specific sources, after increasing my likes my referrals have increased as your organic reach increases because more people see your content in their feed because they have liked your page. Whilst my referrals are increasing, my conversion rate is staying the same so for me it works.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

This proves that "likes" in Facebook is not the basis for conversion

It proves - assuming they're measuring things correctly - that their likes are not being turned into conversions.

A sample size of one doesn't create a universal rule.

Steve

 

[Mr Demeda]

It depends entirely on your niche. One of my clients advertises their beauty products on various social media websites and they can manage a profitable ROI. Some of my other clients such as hoteliers and accountancy firms see very little in terms of converting a social visitor.

 

[EpicWebs]

It depends entirely on your niche. One of my clients advertises their beauty products on various social media websites and they can manage a profitable ROI. Some of my other clients such as hoteliers and accountancy firms see very little in terms of converting a social visitor.

That is the key, you have to think is it social, sharing a beauty product with your friends or mother is very likely, sharing an accountant? Not so much.

 

[chrisleadley]

A simple way to get good results from Facebook ads is to send the site visitor to a landing page where you offer a simple freebie in exchange for an email address (maybe a guide about the best attractions to see).

Make sure your ads are targeted well (who normally comes on your tours? Foreign tourists)

You can then email them about offers etc that you may have going on.

It would be wise to also have the Facebook re-marketing pixel on your site as well so even if they don't opt-in for the freebie you can show them offers/more information for less next time you come to advertise.

On another note, building page likes does have some value, although not as much as it used too. Hopefully if you've got targeted likes (people interested in your service) you can show them relevant adverts that they'll probably be interested in. Organic post reach is well down now, so the best way to reach your page likers is to use adverts.

 

[All In One]

I would suggest for your niche/business, create a monthly VIP competition, collect email leads to resell to in the future. FB ads are hit or miss, but once you find a positive ROI, very easy to scale up.

 

[alexdigital]

I've just ran a campaign for an online retail client selling clothing.

By sending traffic to the website rather than the facebook page we were able to get clicks at around 2p each, far cheaper than on Google AdWords.

We ran a test campaign spending £100.

For this we got over £400 of business, 8 new customers and over 700 new likes. Great value!

Going forward I can clearly see which adsets are performing (the majority of the revenue came from 1 adset out of 4, with a spend of around £30), so it's clear to see where future investment should go..

It does work, but like all online advertising you have to test and you have to track! I always tag all my ads using the Google Analytics URL builder..

-Alex

 

[Karl B]

I think this is where landing pages really play an important part. Just like Adwords, you need to have a landing page where you can concentrate more on the product'/service/competition you are promoting because websites often don't have a compelling enough landing page. We've seen some success with Facebook advertising but I see it as more of a brand awareness tool than driving sales.

 

[InFront Digital]

In so far as it is a social media outlet, someone will always benefit from advertising via it.