Advertising on Facebook....

Is anyone advertising on Facebook? By that, I mean actually running a paid ad, not a fan page. Over the past week, I've had an ad running. I know it's too early to know if it's working or not for myself but I would be interested in hearing others experience. It seems the price is pretty steep....while doing some research, I saw articles written a year or more ago thinking it was expensive paying up to 30 cents a click, now I can hardly get listed at 50 cents a click so I've bumped it up to 75 cents (with the suggested price often being well over a dollar).
So, please share your past successes, thoughts or failures using FB advertising. I would also be interested in hearing about Google Adword experiences (I've never tried that).
Please don't suggest to use a fan page or personal page instead because they are free...I'm well aware of that route

I use both Facebook and Google Ads.

Facebook I find very good for exposure of my brand but I use the targeted demographic based options advertising only wedding photography i.e. particular cities, engaged, female and so on. I'm not sure how effective it would be in your fields of work.

If I were you I'd focus on customised ads for each market you are targeting and then base the criteria for which they are being shown based on the demographic that would normally purchase that service.

Facebook ads have been very good for me even though the CTR is not as high as I would like. Comparing it to other forms of advertising it is very cost effective.

I only started with Google ads a few months ago but am having quite a bit of success there too. My CTR is steadily going up and is now sitting at about 6%. It does cost a fair bit more than Facebook per click though.

I advertise on FB, I switch between a CPC ad and a CPM ad. My cost per click is set at $1 per click and the impression ad is set at $.50. So far the CPC ad has been cheaper with click throughs. No bookings yet. May switch to more conventional advertising next month.

As a frequent FB'er I never click on any ads. Mainly worried about viruses, spam etc. *just sayin'*

It doesn't even occur to me to click on FB ads. But then I'm just one person out of millions.

photoguy6405 wrote in post #11801695
It doesn't even occur to me to click on FB ads. But then I'm just one person out of millions.

I'm with ya, I don't think that I've ever clicked on a FB ad....so I figure that anyone that would click on an ad would be really really motivated to buy...or at least that's what I'm hoping

Promoting yourself on web is very sophisticated and yields only if you "How".
The easiest and probably right way is to consult an specialist for the same reason that you know to extract tooth, you must bring it out but then you go to dentist for right and best result.

Talk to an IT in your area, specialized in ecommerce and make sure the person is specialist in that field otherwise every other IT could do what you can do yourself and won't get exactly what you need.

jra wrote in post #11802722
I'm with ya, I don't think that I've ever clicked on a FB ad....so I figure that anyone that would click on an ad would be really really motivated to buy...or at least that's what I'm hoping

I can see where it be more effective for targeted audiences like wedding or portrait photogs, but for someone like me where I just put up website and hope people wanting a landscape print wander by... less so.

photoguy6405 wrote in post #11803198
I can see where it be more effective for targeted audiences like wedding or portrait photogs, but for someone like me where I just put up website and hope people wanting a landscape print wander by... less so.

I agree....I targeted my ad as best I could by targeting parents. My ad only shows to people who have "liked" various parenting topics.

On another note, for those that use FB or Google, how many "clicks" are actually resulting in a sale? So far, 40 clicks in a week but no inquiries from the ad....still very early in the process though.

I tried it. Didn't yield anything other than gain a few "likes" on my FB page. I believe that working locally by word-of-mouth is the best vehicle for building a photography business.

With Google I can't be sure as to conversion rate it is still in the early days.

With Facebook however I set an annual budget for myself of what I will spend on Facebook advertising and then look at how many bookings I get as a result of the ads over the year rather than focusing entirely on the click through conversion rate. I can then compare this to other form of advertising e.g printed media etc.

I have had at least 10 bookings over the last year as a result of Facebook advertising. I have a long term average of about 10 clicks per day. I look at it this was if I were to spend $2,500 on Facebook adverts over a year which resulted in 10 wedding bookings at say $4,500 each I would consider it to have been a successful campaign.

Don't forget to consider that not every person who clicks is always a potential customer. For example in my instance; they could be already have found a photographer, I could already be booked, they might not be within my target market price wise and so on.

Work out from your overall marketing budget what you expect to spend where and what you anticipate the returns from each to be. You can soon see what works and what doesn't and most importantly what the most cost effective and efficient forms of advertising are.

Personally I think Google Ads would probably be better suited to your areas of work as you can target the searches relevant to your services.

Another thing not to forget considering is what the normal conversion rate is from a new visitor to your website is. If people who visit your website don't make enquiries then driving more traffic to the site would not make any difference to enquiry statistics.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #11804674
With Google I can't be sure as to conversion rate it is still in the early days.

With Facebook however I set an annual budget for myself of what I will spend on Facebook advertising and then look at how many bookings I get as a result of the ads over the year rather than focusing entirely on the click through conversion rate. I can then compare this to other form of advertising e.g printed media etc.

I have had at least 10 bookings over the last year as a result of Facebook advertising. I have a long term average of about 10 clicks per day. I look at it this was if I were to spend $2,500 on Facebook adverts over a year which resulted in 10 wedding bookings at say $4,500 each I would consider it to have been a successful campaign.

Don't forget to consider that not every person who clicks is always a potential customer. For example in my instance; they could be already have found a photographer, I could already be booked, they might not be within my target market price wise and so on.

Work out from your overall marketing budget what you expect to spend where and what you anticipate the returns from each to be. You can soon see what works and what doesn't and most importantly what the most cost effective and efficient forms of advertising are.

Personally I think Google Ads would probably be better suited to your areas of work as you can target the searches relevant to your services.

Another thing not to forget considering is what the normal conversion rate is from a new visitor to your website is. If people who visit your website don't make enquiries then driving more traffic to the site would not make any difference to enquiry statistics.

Great advice....thanks for your input

I spent about $200.00 in the last week using facebook ads. Made about 2k.

I ran a few ads on FB. Got a few wedding inquiries, but all for dates I'm already booked. If I set the $ limit to $15 a day, I get about 35-45 clicks, and I set the limit/per click to $1.10 and end up paying $0.19-0.30 per click. Not sure how that works.

If I set the amount I want to spend daily to $10 I get twice as less clicks.

Honestly this is my last week of running this add. I wanted to get my name out there, and targeted specific demographics and age groups, but word of mouth is still #1 for me in terms of new clients.

turbo212003 wrote in post #11805321
I spent about $200.00 in the last week using facebook ads. Made about 2k.

Could you expand on that a bit?