Facebook Advertising

[caravan]

I was wondering what other peoples experiences are with Facebook Advertising. Does it work as long as you can narrow down the demographic of your target audience? Or is it best only used for certain types of target audience such as local businesses or those targeting specific age groups especially the younger end?

I have been asked to look into the effectiveness of it for someone selling high end luxury holiday rentals.

[morestar]

My recent experience involved a complete lack of control on my end, however, watching the data accumulate, I found there was a huge increase in clicks and landings but no conversions, the lack of conversions was due to the landing page not being optimal for conversions.

With that said, I believe if you add a few days of Facebook advertising priming, put together a great ad and ensure you've covered the basics of a great converting landing page, you'll probably do well - the impressions and click-throughs were quite impressive.

[Tubby]

I played with some adverts

I targeted 'California' and 'classic car' members, and the same in New York.
I used a very low budget of $1 per day - and I received around 5 visits per day of good targeted traffic.

I have all my setting in the OFF position at the moment. . But the moment I feel the need to Boost a section of my site. . I will select facebook first. . (very effective )

[caravan]

Would you say that Facebook advertising works for any market as long as you can narrow down your demographic?

How would you say the results compare to say running an adwords campaign. From the experiences of morestar and tubby it sounds like it might be initially a more preferable alternative.

[Tubby]

No. .
I would say I can target people in New York that have an expressed interest in classic cars with word press for around 22 cents a click (last price I paid) I can not match that with AdWords.
to be truthful there is great value to be had from logo recognition even if they do not click. Facebook is an excellent place for brand recognition. It is easier to sell to people that feel comfortable with your logo.

I posted the style of image I use when I advertise on facebook because I think the right presentation on the facebook page is important.

I suspect the secret with face book is not to make everyone click. . just the ones you are targeting.

I have no Idea about High end Luxury rentals market. You will need to test for yourself, Adsense is good in this regard you can test a campaign starting very slowly $1 per day . . and experiment with different text and images to find the right combinations and offers.

All advertising works! . . but only when you present the right offer to the right people. . Present the wrong offer and it will not matter where you place your adverts.

[DonOmite]

Problem with Facebook is they don't have any click fraud protection in place yet. They haven't been sued like Google, MSN, and Yahoo have so they see no need. I have filed a complaint with them about click fraud but so far nothing.
I was able to track clicks back to competitors. So competitors are clicking on the ads like crazy driving costs up. This happened with the others and it cost them. I'm surprised FB hasn't fixed this yet.

[betterlanguages]

We've run Facebook ads and have stopped the campaign very quickly. We found that it had nothing like the sophistication of adwords, and the cost per click was extremely expensive. Running a campaign to raise awareness of our Facebook page, worked well but was prohibitively expensive. A campaign to try to encourage users to visit our B2B website was expensive and ineffective. I imagine it would work much better B2C, especially if you engage with customers via Facebook, and I know a couple of businesses that have benefited from this approach.

[morestar]

Problem with Facebook is they don't have any click fraud protection in place yet. They haven't been sued like Google, MSN, and Yahoo have so they see no need. I have filed a complaint with them about click fraud but so far nothing.
I was able to track clicks back to competitors. So competitors are clicking on the ads like crazy driving costs up. This happened with the others and it cost them. I'm surprised FB hasn't fixed this yet.

I'm personally shocked as well. I do hope this changes soon as it should because Facebook ads are huge now, someone needs to take responsibility for this click-fraud problem most definitely.

[Rick Noel]

An article in the LA Times recently cited a Minneapolis-based wedding photographer used smart targeting — aimed “college graduates, aged 24 to 30, who had just gotten engaged and lived within a 50-mile radius of Minneapolis” — to turn a $1,700 ad buy into $110,000 in sales. Sounds like it was working out for him. For niche markets where supply exceeds domain mixed with creativity and laser targeted, ROI on Facebook can be found.

[morestar]

An article in the LA Times recently cited a Minneapolis-based wedding photographer used smart targeting — aimed “college graduates, aged 24 to 30, who had just gotten engaged and lived within a 50-mile radius of Minneapolis” — to turn a $1,700 ad buy into $110,000 in sales. Sounds like it was working out for him. For niche markets where supply exceeds domain mixed with creativity and laser targeted, ROI on Facebook can be found.

With those parameters, there's probably a lower chance that competitors would see the ads as well and fraudulently click.

I'll venture that the rate of click-fraud on Facebook depends on your targets as well...