Facebook Advertising Sucks (for me, anyway)

November 27, 2007 by ian

I've been running test campaigns in Facebook, using their pay per click platform.

All I can say is, bleah.

I drove 1000 clicks. I tested 4 different ads, all of which saw a clickthru rate of .09%. I spent $140.

The site's overall conversation rate is 2%. Conversion from paid search ads is over 4%.

Facebook conversion rate? 0%

From those 1000 clicks, I got zero sales. Zero. Nada. Nothing.

Thanks guys. I'll stick with search ads for now...

Technorati Tags: facebook, internet marketing

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michael says:

November 27, 2007 17:56

I apologize, in advance, to your $140 for this. I'm glad you guinea-pigged that for all of us.

Is it just as bad as leaving myspace.com on your Content Network AdWords Campaigns?

(Nah, nothing could be that bad.)

Portent says:

November 27, 2007 19:14

Definitely not THAT bad.

And one very important caveat here - I do think that Facebook ads are a great integrated branding tool. They'll build awareness of an organization very effectively.

But so far I'm not seeing much to like as far as conversions...

Bob says:

November 29, 2007 01:57

Yeah, I tried them. Had no results. I wouldn't even try them!

dave zoekmachine says:

December 3, 2007 14:18

I just think people who are moving and operating in a community doesn’t look for solutions, they just want to hang out with other ‘same minded’ people so they definitely don’t want to see any ads appearing there.

Same here, no results with facebook..just lost some $$$ 

Scott Stiegemeyerr says:

January 21, 2008 07:34

It's hard to say. I've been using Facebook ads to publicize giveaways and other promotions for our grad school. I think it generates WOM.

Ian says:

January 21, 2008 08:31

Hi Scott,

I agree - it IS good for word of mouth. But it's not good for selling. Anything.

Plus, if the targeting I see in my account is any indication, you're better off throwing leaflets from an airplane.

Ian

Chris Furniss says:

January 21, 2008 12:31

Ian - know where I could hire a good pilot?

Justin Chen says:

April 24, 2008 23:10

I think the main problem is that most folks aren't in a shopping mindset when they're on social networking sites. They're either in a reconnecting with friends mode or in a voyeuristically browsing mode. It's not that I don't notice the ads on facebook or that they're not interesting, I just don't feel like buying something.