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We stopped advertising on Facebook

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Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#61

Post by the_watcher »

sharkweek wrote: post #55

Their overall monetization plan with pages seems terribly short sighted. I've been pitching how to limit reliance on FB to clients for a while now, as we turn to other sources for social acquisition. I think this could be damaging in the long term for FB as this will likely become the trend. A bit unrelated but if Facebook wants to make truckloads of money... I am still trying to figure out what the holdup is for an…

"Their overall monetization plan with pages seems terribly short sighted."

The problem here is that promoted posts from your page isn't the best way to use Facebook. Use it occasionally, but Facebook is much more similar to TV or print advertising than search ads. Think about it: Google, you use keywords to judge intent. Facebook, you use demographic information to introduce yourself to those in the demographic you thrive in.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#62

Post by the_watcher »

sharkweek wrote: post #59
the_watcher wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook wants you on Facebook as often as possible. They are taking the opposite path to monetizing the same data. I'm noticing now that their FBX retargeting has gone beyond just sites I visit to sites similar to those that I have recently visited. I'm also noticing really improved cross-device consistency, as they are using my UID to link my devices when I am logged in to Facebook (across the web, as you said).

Valid point -- I suppose the functions of Google and FB are different. But even then, still seems like a great revenue stream

I agree, I'm an online marketer too and I'd pay a fortune for a Facebook informed AdSense. Just don't think it's in their roadmap, as it fights against their world domination goal.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#63

Post by guelo »

Facebook has trained a lot of people to be afraid of Like-ing anything, installing any apps, associating anything with Facebook, etc. It's like they're searching for every possible gold-laying goose and killing it.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#64

Post by cummerbund »

Promoted Likes have always made me nervous on FB. One of the Pages I help manage ran a Like campaign. The page is very niche specific and appeals to people living in a certain area. Even though the campaign was targeted, an abnormal (around half) amount of new Likes came from Bangladesh (not targeted, not even close to a target market). We complained but it didn't help. That was 2 years ago and I've seen similar stories since then. Haven't trusted this sort of campaign since that experience and would advise anyone to stay clear of it. Unless of course you want to get Likes for vanity. In that sense, this campaign will help populate your Page, but expect low quality "fans", which could hurt your reach and engagement levels and screw you over with Edgerank.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#65

Post by tednash »

From first hand experience I absolutely agree with this.

Using Facebook's own PPC channels we are getting fraudulent clicks and fake profiles come via Facebook as a legitimate cost.

'Fraudulent' being the most important word.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#66

Post by trustfundbaby »

PS: this is wrt to "likes" vs the facebook ad part of the post

Not to mention that Facebook has drastically throttled updates pushed from pages to a users timeline, making the whole concept pretty useless unless you pay them (I know, I know, capitalism at its finest).

About a year or two ago, each update that came from our page (auto update from an rss feed) would be seen by 100 - 300 people, now we're lucky if 30 people see an update, usually its more like 7 - 15.

Whats the point?

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#67

Post by patmcc »

wpietri wrote: post #32
bluedino wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the Coca-Cola commercial you see on TV probably doesn't make a single person get up out of his chair, go grab his car keys, and drive to the store and buy a Coke. >> Yet, over time, get exposed to enough of those ads, and when it's time to buy, your hand instinctively goes for the one your brain is bombarded with ads for all day. I don't really think that has anything to do with it. At work we having both Coke and…

> I don't really think [brand advertising] has anything to do with it. [...] Soft drink choices come down to availability most of the time. Coca Coca spends about $3 billion a year on advertising. [1] I couldn't find a breakdown for how much is brand-building versus other goals, but I think we can agree it's a lot. That suggests two hypotheses: A) People in charge of a $3 billion budget for an incredibly profitable a…

Related to A - there's an old quote from John Wanamaker, father of advertising: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." It may not be clear to anyone (even Coke themselves) whether facebook advertising, or any other channel, is effective; they just know their total efforts are working very well.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#68

Post by rhizome »

samsolomon wrote: post #12
joelrunyon wrote: post #2

I've spend quite a bit of money on facebook ads for various of my own businesses & clients & I've basically stopped everything for a few reasons. I can't rationalize playing FB's game anymore. With the recent decrease in page reach, you're basically paying double time for FB. Once to "get" the fans and then again to "reach" them. Sure, we saw an increase in site activity, but it was debatable whether or not that actu…

Today you have to spend money to get any of your posts shown on Facebook. I estimate that 2 percent of my audience ever see a post without paying to promote it. If you don't pay for it, posts have to be "engaging," which is why link bait titles from BuzzFeed and Business insider always make it onto my news feed, but not posts from cool projects that I care about.

The upside is that I see very few sponsored posts in my timeline.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#69

Post by notastartup »

netcan wrote: post #44

I think Facebook is making mistakes. Adwords grew explosively, but relative to the expectations of Facebook, Google looks patient. Adwords didn't start off with ten million customers with endless budgets. They started off letting people buy $20 worth of ads at 5¢-50¢ per click. Some people figured out ways of selling ebooks or whatnot at a profit and figured out things like split testing, conversion tracking and such…

Overall, it's a sinking ship. People don't go checking out someone's profile looking to buy car insurance, people don't check the news status looking to read more about plumbing in the local hood. Hardly on Google's level imho. Facebook is used like a yearbook you check everyday but only a couple of pages in your interest. Unless they start watermarking profiles with ads it's hardly going to even get most people's attention even if it was plastered all over the page.

It's only a matter of time before they realize they can't beat google and the sad reality hits, they can't monetize. There's no way to monetize hundred millions of people around the world who don't have wallet or credit card. Likes is a good example of this. Even if people who use facebook have a credit card they are probably not in the buying mood. Friend tells me a product is good, one still uses Google to verify, unless he's a real bro and I trust his tastes. Likes is a good example of people 'paying' their useless attention which has no price. It's free anyone can give out 'likes' as many or as senselessly as they want. Instead of credit card, you get people's clicking action that supposedly builds you street cred but like this article highlights, it's mostly comprised of no significant value to the advertiser.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#70

Post by nhangen »

netcan wrote: post #44

I think Facebook is making mistakes. Adwords grew explosively, but relative to the expectations of Facebook, Google looks patient. Adwords didn't start off with ten million customers with endless budgets. They started off letting people buy $20 worth of ads at 5¢-50¢ per click. Some people figured out ways of selling ebooks or whatnot at a profit and figured out things like split testing, conversion tracking and such…

The mistakes that FB are making have more to do with them going back on their word and constantly moving the goalposts.

First, you could easily get likes and share with them. Then, you had to essentially buy likes to speak to everyone. Now, you have to buy likes and then buy the right to speak to everyone.

It's not right, and it's a horrible experience, both as a user and an advertiser. When I like a page, it means I want to see everything they send me unless I click to hide it or content like it.

As an advertiser, the double taxation is brutally distasteful. Stock might be up, but I'm with the OP.

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