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Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

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Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#51

Post by jyu »

People with no idea of how to run ad campaigns should not be bad mouthing X ad platform.

There are so many ways this post is wrong. First, a .4% CTR for a newsfeed ad sucks. That means either your demo targeting sucks, or your ad sucks, or both. Second, if android visits don't convert, change targeting to desktop visitors only. Third, traffic sources behave differently. You can't jump to the conclusion that they're scamming you just because one traffic source worked and another one didn't. Another possibility is that you haven't tried hard enough.

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#52

Post by sanswork »

will_brown wrote: post #35
sanswork wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were your conversion rates like through other sources?

Facebook was the only paid advertising/promotion campaign to date.

Then it's equally likely that the poor conversion rate has to do with the destination instead of the traffic source.

Though I do agree with you that buying likes is useless and a waste of money.

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#54

Post by cmapes »

sanswork wrote: post #31
will_brown wrote: post #30

Within the last week I performed a similar "experiment" for newly created facebook.com/AmeriStartup. I created two FB mobile advertisements to direct traffic to the website, though the website is more eCommerce/service than any type of sign up. Budget $50 over 3 days reach was ~20,000+; the click through rate was .5% and .4% for the 2 ads; just under 100 clicks to the website with none resulting in conversion. More d…

What were your conversion rates like through other sources?

This is the important question. I've seen copy for largely untargeted convert at wildly different rates dependent on the copy quality and the quality of what's being offered.

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#55

Post by gburt »

My very rough and sloppy analysis gives you a credible interval of a conversion rate between 0.28% and 5.61%. At the upper bound of that conversion rate (5.5%), I would handwave and suggest this is comparable to your Google CPC results (depending on the actual cost per click). If I were you, I'd collect more data.

And try different ad text. Acknowledge that this is a different platform than search and you need to advertise differently. Don't be so quick to dismiss it.

Edit: and I was comparing apples to oranges anyway. If I use your Google Analytics data for both measures, we get a range of 0.39%-7.7%. This upper bound actually exceeds your Google CPC result. You don't have enough data.

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#56

Post by bigbugbag »

austenallred wrote: post #20

This is a single campaign, and a single test, with one set of variables. Concluding something overreaching like "Facebook CPC ads don't work" after a test like that is like saying, "I tried mixing two chemicals, and there was no reaction, chemicals must not cause reactions." Think of it like a computer program. If 99% of the program is right but one thing is broken, the entire thing won't work. Marketing is, in a lot…

Please enlighten us about those right circumstances that somehow magically turn facebook ads into successful and profitable campaigns.

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#57

Post by tinco »

gburt wrote: post #55

My very rough and sloppy analysis gives you a credible interval of a conversion rate between 0.28% and 5.61%. At the upper bound of that conversion rate (5.5%), I would handwave and suggest this is comparable to your Google CPC results (depending on the actual cost per click). If I were you, I'd collect more data. And try different ad text. Acknowledge that this is a different platform than search and you need to adv…

How confident?

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#58

Post by gburt »

tinco wrote: post #57
gburt wrote: post #55

My very rough and sloppy analysis gives you a credible interval of a conversion rate between 0.28% and 5.61%. At the upper bound of that conversion rate (5.5%), I would handwave and suggest this is comparable to your Google CPC results (depending on the actual cost per click). If I were you, I'd collect more data. And try different ad text. Acknowledge that this is a different platform than search and you need to adv…

How confident?

sig=0.05, but please don't trust that for anything meaningful. This is sloppy 8am blog post response statistics. My personal confidence is basically 0. I just wanted to communicate the idea that 60 impressions was insufficient to make this judgement.

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#59

Post by mpeg »

mynewwork wrote: post #45
mpeg wrote: post #6

Why would you send mobile FB clicks to your website? Send them to a mobile app on mobile (!!!) You can target only desktop users, if you want to send people to a website

If I click a link on my phone and it tries to get me to install an app, I'm instantly hitting the back button. Do people really install random apps because they saw a one-sentence advertisement on facebook? I really don't know what normal behavior is for the average facebook user.

Yes, they do. CTR and CPI on mobile app ads on FB used is still among the best performing.

Re: Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

#60

Post by bigbugbag »

mpeg wrote: post #6

Why would you send mobile FB clicks to your website? Send them to a mobile app on mobile (!!!) You can target only desktop users, if you want to send people to a website

I assume you are a mobile app developer looking for a job.

I don't know a single user who enjoy being sent to a mobile app instead of the website.

If being hated by your users is not enough of a deterrent, then factor in the cost of building said apps on mobile platforms and maintaining them through time and new smartphones versions while having a website versus simply having a website.

Unless you're a big corp with tons of money to throw out the windows, the wise path is a well thought and designed website.

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