Recently I’ve spent a lot of time analysing the benefits and mechanics of Facebook Ads, and I’m impressed…
Facebook ads expertsWhat a neat little game to play. You plug in a few quarters a day and you watch the numbers explode (after all, if you’re not launching a product, or executing a major campaign, you really don’t need that much money to play this game).
You see, I’ve noticed that there are many different types of Facebook Ad users, and most of them don’t count. The ‘get rich by advertising things on your many blogs’ people may be experts at generating many pennies per hour, but all they’re not really selling anything themselves, they’re just making money off the ads on their blogs, websites, etc… So they don’t count, what they do is not really marketing, it’s more like swindling, or playing the system. (Exception made for those excellent bloggers who actually contribute to their industry by providing fantastic content!)
I’ve been exploring the B2B aspects of Facebook Ads and couldn’t be more pleased with my findings. For about 3$ a day, a business can reach more targeted clients, get more exposure than through any other medium. It’s a great thing to have running in the background as it constantly works for you, day and night, worldwide if you so desire.
There are basically 3 things to watch out for:
1: The Facebook Ad Itself
It’s a little thing, inconspicuous, simply hanging out on the right side of Facebook pages, travelling the world, waiting to be clicked. You have four things to figure out. Destination URL, title, picture, body.Destination URL: Where people will end up if they click on the ad.Title: You have 25 characters to write a catchy title.Image: Optimal at 110x80px, use a png-24 format for best results, but any format will do.Body: You have 135 characters to write your message.
2: Targeting your Facebook Ad
Nothing could be more simple. You can literally target Canadian CEO’s between the age of 45-55, on their birthday, between 8PM and 9PM, who work in the cosmetics industry, who like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, puppies, and cheese. I mean, there are no limits to how ‘tight’ you can get. If you want to target only the management of specific businesses in your area, no problem! I mean, it’s an incredibly powerful tool, as long as you don’t flail about randomly…
3: Optimising your Facebook Ad bidding
You have 2 choices, to pay for each click (CPC – Cost per click), or to pay for each 1000 displayed ads (CPM). Hmm… I’m using too many marketing terms again. Let me rephrase: It all depends on what you want to accomplish. If you want to spread the word, there’s a way of doing that, if you want to get people to come to your website or to a specific page on your website (or any other website), there’s a way to accomplish that as well.
Facebook will suggest a minimum bid for you (either per click, or per 1000 impressions of your ad/message), but let’s be honest, when you’re shopping for a car, what the dealer suggests and what you’re willing to pay are two different matters. Same with Facebook Ads, a little digital haggling is involved.
In this example Facebook is suggesting $0.75 to $1.12 USD… Notice that I have mine set at approx 25% of that. I’m paying 20 cents and it’s working just fine for my needs. If I were to bid $1.12 USD, I’m sure I’d be able to blast my message across my targeted profiles like crazy, but then again, that doesn’t fit into my personal strategy, so slow and steady for me, but for others, fast and furious would work better, it all depends on what your goals are.
Here are some real world results that still make me giggle with unbridled glee.
Facebook ads case study
In 3.5 days, for today is still not over, I’ve managed to display my ad 52,393 times for 10.57$!
Where else can you get that kind of exposure? Plus, and a big plus it is, it was shown only to a very specific micro-segment of the population, the absolutely perfect segment of the population for my product, and without Facebook, there would be no way to reach such a remote and specific profile of people.
You might also notice that the average cost per click varies per day.
On the first day, I started at 27cents and made my way down until I found the sweet spot between budget, timing, and efficiency. On the second day, thanks to a little fiddling, I managed to increase clicks and impressions while lowering my cost per click.
On the third day it was even better, think about the math. 12,185 impressions and 9 clicks for 1.38$… As a projection, double the dollar figure (2.72$) and we’re still below the previous day’s cost, and if we would double the results as well, we’d end up with 24,370 impressions and 18 clicks!
So, for B2B marketing, I give Facebook Ads two thumbs up and a Like!
Really, if you have a business, especially a B2B business, this is something you should not ignore or pass up. Think about it… A full page ad in a magazine is, what, 4-5-6 thousand dollars (plus the cost of designing the ad)? And you reach… say… 25 thousand people? I’ve doubled that for 10$.
As part of a complete and integrated marketing strategy, Facebook Ads are a game changer in the B2B industry.
Just wondering. What has your actual conversion rate to filling out a form been. Clicks is one thing.
Well, it’s sad to say that the metrix for this product are slow to arrive. In fact, it will take 3 months to compile that data…
However, I do have some parallel data for you, and keep in mind that this is done on a micro scale (i.e: 10$ in 4 days):
Facebook page visits up by 430% on average.
Facebook page likes up by 230%
Twitter follows up by 83%
The trick is to leverage those figures into sales. That takes a good FB ad, a good landing page, a good social media strategy, etc…
With this post I wanted simply to demonstrate that FB ads do indeed work, that they are inexpensive, and that they reach the target audience.
The rest of the story is still to come.
But as always, it’s not ‘Facebook’ itself that will do everything, I agree that simply placing an ad will not give you the results you expect.
There has to be strategy involved in everything you do. For example: It’s good to write the url in the message, sometimes it’ll save you a click. The image has to be right, the message has to be right, and it all has to homogenize with the ‘overall’ campaign in general.
I will keep you posted with further developments.
Thanks for your comment!
I know that this article is about a year old now, but you’re saying that “Nothing could be more simple” than targeting Facebook Ads for b2b marketing.
You say that it’s absolutely no problem to target ads at “Canadian CEO’s between the age of 45-55 […]”.
Yes, it’s very easy to target people who like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But how would you go about targetting CEOs? That’s the most crucial part of a b2b ads campaign and yet you don’t go into detail about this at all. there’s no filter on facebook that let’s me target specific job positions.
That’s a very astute observation, and you’re not the first to bring it up. You’re absolutely right, there is no ‘field’, per se, where you can select CEO.
Admittedly, that was a slight exaggeration to make a point. However, it is still possible to target specific types of people in other ways.
Let’s say you want to send an ad to CEOs.
First, use a little profiling, like on the show Criminal Minds. I’m assuming you’re not targeting every single CEO in the world, but a specific type in a specific industry, specific country, specific city, etc… Do some research to find out what your type of CEO likes, what he reads (trade mags, books, etc), what groups and fan pages he (or she) engages in, and then plug all those things together and run your ad.
It’ll take a little tweaking, but it’s well worth the trouble. Similar people have similar interests and behaviours. Understanding those behaviours and interest is what allows you go beyond the ‘fields’ provided in Facebook.
And lastly, don’t be afraid to run a whole bunch of ads (with slightly modified targeting)simultaneously. I’ve had up to 50 running in my last campaign. After a while, and with some adjustments, I managed to reach the exact right type of person, but not only that, I discovered a whole new market segment that I didn’t even know was interested in what I was trying to promote.
Thanks for the comment, Marco, and have yourself a great day!
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