Live data from Hacker News

We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

signnow.com

41–50 of 69 posts

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#41
I don't exactly want to hijack the thread, but let me present an idea of how one could burn $1,000 if one wanted to do it for promotion.

Step 1: Install Wordpress. Good, already done.

Step 2: Create a big ol' list of keywords which you think are relevant to your business. For example, [sign contract online], [sign document online], [sign contract with iPhone], [sign contract with Blackberry], etc etc. This doesn't cost anything more than your time.

Step 3: Design a template which, given a particular keyword, includes a few hundred words of content about the keyword and also acts as a landing page for your service. I'm assuming this is effectively free for most of us on HN. The last time I did it it required copy/pasting one file in Wordpress and then five minutes of hacking the PHP to do what I wanted it to do.

Step 4: Write between 50 and 100 of these, depending on how you get them done. This is what costs the $1,000, since you're probably going to zone out after doing this five times, write up the process, and then hire the rest out to freelancers.

Predicted results: on average, depending on query volumes, you're going to pick up a handful of hits for each page every month for life. So instead of having 1,400 clicks once, you'll get somewhere on the order of 400 clicks a month for forever. And instead of them being someone who was just gawking at a pretty girl in Chemistry class or poking their sheep while farming virtual cabbage, it will be someone who is right now trying to solve a problem which is costing their business money.

And if you have $2,000 to spend? It scales right on up.

And if you're savvy about how you do this? Suffice it to say that the MVP of this project gets you a wee little asset to build a business on, and implementing this strategy in a really effective way can basically carry a business on it's back. This is not limited to bingo card publishing empires, trust me.

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#42
post #13

I took a look at their ads and still do not have a clue as to what SignNow is about. Still scratching my head as to what they were advertising..

Same here. I think the results are very bad. They say it's not about the results but about branding. Well to be honest I can't remember there logo already though I read the article..

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#43
post #41

I don't exactly want to hijack the thread, but let me present an idea of how one could burn $1,000 if one wanted to do it for promotion. Step 1: Install Wordpress. Good, already done. Step 2: Create a big ol' list of keywords which you think are relevant to your business. For example, [sign contract online], [sign document online], [sign contract with iPhone], [sign contract with Blackberry], etc etc. This doesn't co…

Step 1: Outsmart google and beat the billion $ esign industry at seo Step 2: ... Step 3: IPO with Sean Parker and screw the winklevoss twins

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#44
post #24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crap, that's terrible performance. We're probably spending $5.00 a day on Google adverts and pulling in about that many clickthroughs. (checking), yup, we had 83 clickthroughs today and a total cost of $4.09. CTR is at about 1.18% (quickly scratches FB off of list of advertising vehicles)

FB and Google CTR is like comparing apples and unicorns :) Typically with FB, you are doing well if you are finding anything near 0.05% CTR. Remember, these are content ads and not paid search. Paid search you should be hitting 5%+ CTR on your top search keywords (in position 1-2, around 3% for #3 and 2% or less for anything below). On FB, getting an ad with a consistent 0.077% CTR means they are on to something and…

You got it exactly right. You can see how my numbers added up between Google and Facebook (http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2011/04/01/sell-your-google-sto...). Facebook allows you to attract people who don't know they could use your product (in my case, an entrepreneur conference - when is the last time you googled for a founder conference?). So yes, conversion rates are lower.

I call it discovery vs. intent. Google allows you to capture people's intent. Facebook allows you to let your target demographic discover new products.

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#45

Most would agreed that campaign did not performed, instead aim to achieve CTR > 1% and Bid Facebook ads is used widely by affiliate marketers, you could spend some time on blogs like MrGreen ( http://stackthatmoney.com ), or affiliate marketing news aggregator ( http://affbuzz.com ) I would change the following if my objective is to get more likes & users. - Target person, i.e vc, developers, etc instead. - Limit and…

"Facebook ads is used widely by affiliate marketers, you could spend some time on blogs like MrGreen ( http://stackthatmoney.com ), or affiliate marketing news aggregator ( http://affbuzz.com )"

Ack...stackthatmoney just screams affiliate coaching scam. Affbuzz still has the A4D meetup in SD advertised on their site which was back in march and only has links to a few of the decent blogs. Seen way to much of that sort of stuff in my years as a full-time affiliate.

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#46
post #41

I don't exactly want to hijack the thread, but let me present an idea of how one could burn $1,000 if one wanted to do it for promotion. Step 1: Install Wordpress. Good, already done. Step 2: Create a big ol' list of keywords which you think are relevant to your business. For example, [sign contract online], [sign document online], [sign contract with iPhone], [sign contract with Blackberry], etc etc. This doesn't co…

Good advice overall, SEO is something to not be forgotten either.

I think you hit a very important aspect of this: each marketing channel (paid search, Facebook, Mobile, SEO, banners, etc.) is a tool in a toolbox. Go for what works and earns you revenue.

Paid ads yield dividends very quickly and are easily quantifiable. You can figure out what is working, weed out the bad stuff and then capitalize on opportunities. That said, SEO is also really important. While I am less inclined to go with the sparticle approach that many do, I would certainly say that writing up good information about your product in a way that relates to customers is extremely important.

The other part about your SEO content is that it is relevant to your paid ad campaigns. If you have a product that would work well for software developers and will save them money, then by all means write a good article about how awesome it is for them. Make the page a good starting lander for paid ads as well then get it to rank on SEO and drive other paid traffic to it.

In the end, each tool in your toolbox is there to make you money. Find what generates the highest ROI in the period of time you need to make it in. Focus on that and then circle back to each one down the list in turn.

Don't ever leave money on the table - your competitors won't make that mistake.

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#47
post #41

I don't exactly want to hijack the thread, but let me present an idea of how one could burn $1,000 if one wanted to do it for promotion. Step 1: Install Wordpress. Good, already done. Step 2: Create a big ol' list of keywords which you think are relevant to your business. For example, [sign contract online], [sign document online], [sign contract with iPhone], [sign contract with Blackberry], etc etc. This doesn't co…

I know you've answered this before, but where is your go-to place for quality writing? So many of the places that I've looked at seem Very low content.

The last thing I'd want to do is create a bunch of content that would make me look bad in the process. If I'm putting it online behind my company's name, it should be (hopefully) better writing than I could have done myself.

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#48
post #41

I don't exactly want to hijack the thread, but let me present an idea of how one could burn $1,000 if one wanted to do it for promotion. Step 1: Install Wordpress. Good, already done. Step 2: Create a big ol' list of keywords which you think are relevant to your business. For example, [sign contract online], [sign document online], [sign contract with iPhone], [sign contract with Blackberry], etc etc. This doesn't co…

I know you use this strategy with BCC. Did Panda make it less effective?

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#49

Most would agreed that campaign did not performed, instead aim to achieve CTR > 1% and Bid Facebook ads is used widely by affiliate marketers, you could spend some time on blogs like MrGreen ( http://stackthatmoney.com ), or affiliate marketing news aggregator ( http://affbuzz.com ) I would change the following if my objective is to get more likes & users. - Target person, i.e vc, developers, etc instead. - Limit and…

re: the hipmunk video, Are you talking about a GrumoMedia video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6teBPUgz4Y8

ya.. that's the one!

Re: We Spent $1,138 on Facebook in 6 Days: Numbers and Lessons Learned

#50
post #48
post #41

I don't exactly want to hijack the thread, but let me present an idea of how one could burn $1,000 if one wanted to do it for promotion. Step 1: Install Wordpress. Good, already done. Step 2: Create a big ol' list of keywords which you think are relevant to your business. For example, [sign contract online], [sign document online], [sign contract with iPhone], [sign contract with Blackberry], etc etc. This doesn't co…

I know you use this strategy with BCC. Did Panda make it less effective?

Not materially for my scale and strategy. I would suggest not doing it with 100k pages of spun content. If you don't know what that means, Panda is a non-event for you.
Post reply on HN