Okay, okay, yes, I admit it. I have been slow in getting on the Facebook bandwagon, but with small business clients and friends seeing FANTABULOUS results, I’ve been forced to take another look.
And I’m here to tell you — Facebook advertising is the real deal. You can target demographically and geographically, it’s cheaper than Google, there’s less competition, and small business owners are seeing results. I just ran a little ad myself — I had a simple landing page offering a FREE Report and asked the respondents to fill out a short survey about their current online marketing activities — and got 6 very high-quality business leads in about 36 hours, for less than $100 ($82 to be exact). I’m excited.
Facebook Ads provide two ways to advertise on the pages of Facebook. You can create an ad campaign that links to a landing page within your Web site, or you can advertise something on Facebook, such as your new Business Page or an application you have developed. You can also employ a Social ad. This shows your image and text alongside the social action you take on Facebook pages.
The targeting available for Facebook Ads is awesome. You can choose the location, gender, interests, relationship status and other demographics of your target audience. For my test, I chose to target women, in Ohio, who were business owners and involved with service professions, like attorneys, accountants, insurance sales, etc. And sure enough, every response I got was from a woman, from Ohio, and all but one is in an industry I was targeting. And my guess once I dig a little deeper into her background, I bet I find she is or was connected somehow to a law firm.
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In creating a Facebook Ad campaign you will need to decide which type of ad you want to run and provide the link the ad will lead visitors to. The link does not appear in the ad — it’s behind the scenes. The entire ad is a hotlink to the URL you select. The ad title is restricted to 25 characters while the text (body) must fit in 135 characters. If you choose to include a photo (which I recommend), it needs to be 110 by 80 pixels. And like any good ad test, you should run at least 2 versions, if not 3 or 4 versions, to make sure you are getting the absolutely best response rate you can.
Very similar to the Google model, Facebook Ads can be run on a Pay for Clicks (CPC) or Pay for Views (CPM) model. During the ad creation process, you set your daily ad budget and the maximum bid, which is the most you are willing to pay per click. CPC ads are displayed in Facebook’s Ad Space, Home Page (or both), while CPM ads are shown only in the Ad Space. Facebook selects the best ad to run based on the cost per click or impression and ad performance.
After creating the ads you want to run, Facebook will approve your ads for use and suggest a max bid if you have bid too low. This seems to take anywhere from 4 hours to 24 hours, which is very comparable to Google. Through your Ad Management Page, Facebook provides ad data so you can track your progress, change the audience, or adjust other metrics as the campaign progresses.
And here’s a little tip for the day (you’ll never be able to say I didn’t help you out after this) — do a search for FREE Facebook Ad Credits and you’ll find several companies out there willing to give you $50 to $100 in Facebook advertising credits. I did it — I took a $50 credit to test with — so my $82 campaign only cost $32 — and it would have only cost me $0 if I had shut it down a little earlier.
So go ahead, try it. You just might find a new PPC platform that really performs for your small business. If you need help coming up with a strong headline or ad copy, just ask me. I’ll give you three or four versions for you to test for a very reasonable $80.00 — I’ll even do the set-up for you, if you want. Call me at (614) 753-5979 or email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com and I’ll do what I can to help you succeed.
Here’s to your success,
Trina
P.S. Plans for Speed Networking at being finalized. May 18 is the target. Stay tuned!
P.P.S. 
If you’re in the Columbus Ohio area, make plans to attend the How to WOW! Now seminar on April 29, 2010. Local celebs like Gabe Speigel, Ryan Bauer, Bruce Heinemann, Shelley Moore, and Andrew Catapano are going to talk through the process of going from having a dream about owning a business to starting a business and then promoting your business online. A portion of the proceeds from the night is going directly to Junior Achievement. Make your plans now — it WILL sell out.
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