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We stopped advertising on Facebook

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Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#71

Post by AJ007 »

mattmanser wrote: post #9
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…

How can it be debatable? Either your sales increased, or they did not increase. If your page views went up but your conversion rate dropped by the same amount, that would be worthless traffic. This is an honest question as why should we believe anything you say if you're not even doing the basic maths? Did you measure anything?

The original link is quite embarrassing as well, "By the way, this may not be the case with advertising for Clicks to Website, Website Conversions, etc. - I don’t have experience with those."

I would assume these individuals know very little about advertising. This is unfortunate because it masks valid criticism about Facebook's platform.

The Facebook "game" is to purchase likes, and then use that as a base to target advertising. At minimum it acts as a filter so that your advertising is reaching people who are active Facebook users (they click like), if done correctly they are both active and have some passion for the topic they are "liking."

One of my friends is a consultant who has done extensive work with Facebook advertising and has to clean up accounts that are basically fucked because a previous employee/vendor/consultant purchased a bunch of un-targeted foreign likes. Once those off topic likes are purchased (someone in Pakistan "liking" Las Vegas) the subsequent ad campaign is ruined.

If you bother to measure your ROI you can make a logical choice as to whether Facebook makes any sense at all to advertise on. Perhaps the ROI is negative, but close to breaking even. You can then take a very tactical approach not just your Facebook campaign, but your site or app, to tailor to those Facebook visits, and get a positive ROI.

Some markets are so competitive, or peculiar, you just will not get a positive ROI. That is not a Facebook unique issue. It applies to all channels.

The discussion so far is one of, this makes me angry, and this doesn't make sense, completely devoid of a analytical approach to the issue. Whether or not I want to personally use Facebook is another matter.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#72

Post by aestra »

yebyen wrote: post #20
jonlucc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure, at least on the beer front. I grew up in St. Louis, home of Budweiser. Everything in the city is named after one of the members or former members of the city, and just about every event in the city is sponsored by Anheuser-Busch (owner of Budweiser). I have since left the city, but if I'm looking for cheap, crappy beer that's available at any bar, I reach for a Bud-something-or-other.

Sorry, I feel compelled by the Holy Spirit of drinkability: This is the famous Budweiser beer. We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age. Our exclusive Beechwood Aging produces a taste, a smoothness, and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any price. Brewed by our original all natural process using the choicest Hops, Rice and Best Barley Malt.

What? Is this a plug for Budweiser? They are a terrible beer that is getting more terrible.

www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/the-plot-to-destroy-americas-beer

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#73

Post by sandieman »

notastartup wrote: post #69
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 at…

People don't watch television to watch commercials.

People don't drive on the freeway to see billboards.

This argument that advertising must be like google "advertise people looking for things" is not the value Facebook is offering advertisers. It's offering something significantly different and in many ways bigger. "Advertise people when not looking for things"

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#74

Post by yebyen »

aestra wrote: post #72
yebyen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I feel compelled by the Holy Spirit of drinkability: This is the famous Budweiser beer. We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age. Our exclusive Beechwood Aging produces a taste, a smoothness, and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any price. Brewed by our original all natural process using the choicest Hops, Rice and Best Barley Malt.

What? Is this a plug for Budweiser? They are a terrible beer that is getting more terrible. www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/the-plot-to-destroy-americas-beer

It's the message printed on the label on every bottle.

Read it carefully. The beer achieves the self-described rating of... drinkable. That's not very high marks!

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#75

Post by coldpie »

bluedino wrote: post #10
regal wrote: post #6

Facebook may be targeting more traditional big brand advertisers than it is small business advertisers (who need ads to convert to sales in a much tighter window). e.g., 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 han…

>> 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…

> Not unlike beer in America (Bud Light vs Miller Lite, etc)

Please don't insult American beer by reducing it down to the very bottom of the barrel.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#76

Post by toomuchtodo »

WaterSponge wrote: post #40
toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this model work when people block ads entirely online? Disclaimer: I'm 31, block all ads online, and don't own a TV. I haven't seen a TV commercial in years.

You are accounted for and not the off the grid. You are influenced by your friends and culture. Brands try to penetrate both. You have just offloaded some of your choice/reference to friends and internet when your ready to look. They they get you.

> You are influenced by your friends and culture. Brands try to penetrate both.

Not so much. I have few friends, and their opinions don't influence my buying decisions. I could care less about brands. Show me the money (cheapest option of greatest quality, based on independent research usually wins).

I understand I'm an outlier. I'm just looking at it as an older millennial who doesn't use the radio or TV (paid pandora, video is all consumed online through mediums with no ads) and who is phasing out the use of Facebook (and rarely, if ever, logs into Twitter).

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#77

Post by netcan »

notastartup wrote: post #69
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 at…

First there is a business model to be had trying to sell car insurance to people while they're checking out someone's profile. Rather, there is a business model to be had trying to slowly change people's association with the brand trying to sell them insurance. It's not high CPC/CPM but Facebook have a lot of inventory and potentially good "demographic" data.

Second, a big part of being native is letting the right advertisers find you. This is what I mean about being patient. It may be hard to picture now, 10 years later but Google initially had the same problem. The real advertising budgets were looking to replace/augment their TV & poster campaigns. Advertisers were FMCGs (detergents, coca cola), cars, movies, etc. Local pilates instructors & 2 man shop insurance resellers didn't have advertising budgets. No one was searching for "what is the most refreshing drink?" so any ad for coca cola would be "non-ative" (BTW I really like this description here - thanks the_watcher).

BTW, buying is not a huge part of adwords. In fact, it's pretty hard to get a positive ROI on a "product" purchase campaign.

To give you an example, if you want to run a one off event that's good for parents with kids, Facebook is awesome. It would probably also work well for showing film trailers, showing stand up or theatre "trailers." etc.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#78

Post by rudyrigot »

There is one use case where Facebook likes are useful, even critical: in online brand protection. Users that actively "like" your page to receive your news have been proven to "like" the page with your company's name that has the highest number of likes (in other words: the most liked page is perceived to be the official page). If there are other pages about your company created by third-parties, and that get enough likes to be mistaken for you, you definitely want to have more likes, to make sure to remain the page that is perceived as official, and keep using Facebook as an information channel.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#79

Post by netcan »

sandieman wrote: post #73
notastartup wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 at…

People don't watch television to watch commercials. People don't drive on the freeway to see billboards. This argument that advertising must be like google "advertise people looking for things" is not the value Facebook is offering advertisers. It's offering something significantly different and in many ways bigger. "Advertise people when not looking for things"

I've discussed this a few times with people and I think I disagree, sort of. People don't watch television to watch commercials but strange as it seems that ad for fairy dishwashing liquid is very natural to what TV does. TV makes culture, especially low brow culture. It decides what is popular, trend, famous, etc.

The laundry detergent on TV is the famous laundry detergent, just like the actor on TV is the famous one. Branding is really trying to turn the thing you're selling into a cultural icon.

Re: We stopped advertising on Facebook

#80

Post by ignostic »

I'm not surprised that the "get more likes" campaigns fail to generate positive ROI. If you goal is to get people to sign up on your site why not create ads that at least drive people to your site?

This is maybe the third or fourth post I've read along the same lines: a lot of people aren't seeing ROI and engagement. FB isn't right for everyone, but there ARE people making money on it. Aside from having the right product and service offerings that do work on FB, you need to make sure you have the right campaign with clear goals and smart targeting. Without auditing their targeting options I can't say whether they got any of this right, but their Facebook content and profile aren't really set up for a liking campaign's ROI either.

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