What’s the Cost of Telling 45,000 Users I’m Awesome?
Well, if you use Facebook ads to do it, apparently the answer is: $17.46.
Yes, this is what I do sometimes when I’m bored: I geek out with advertising. I buy ads to promote my own awesomeness.
I mean, c’mon, that ad was pretty freakin’ spectacular:
This ad does not lie. One. Bit.
Let’s look at some of the “Emma is Awesome” campaign facts:
- I ran this campaign from March 24-31 and spent a total of $17.46.
- I got a CTR of 0.066%. If you compare this to the recent Webtrends whitepaper, “Facebook Advertising Performance Benchmarks & Insights“ - the paper indicates that in 2010, Webtrends saw an average campaign performance CTR of 0.051%. Yay! My ad was compelling! [I mean, cough, of course it was.]
- I spent an average CPC of $0.58 – higher than Webtrends overall 2010 campaign performance CPC of $0.49. #EmmaFail
My thoughts on these results:
- For $17 essentially, I got 45,000 impressions. Now, as we all know, impressions don’t really mean much these days. Impressions mean, essentially, there’s a chance that maybe someone saw your ad. And we all know ad blindness is increasing. But still, I’d pay $17 to promote my blog for a fraction of 45,000 users’ attention! In my personal opinion, this is a good deal for my blog.
- AND! I got 30 clicks. That means 30 Facebook users (assuming 100% unique clickers) visited my blog. So how did this impact my traffic? Well, I pulled a graph of my traffic for the week before, the week during and the week after the campaign ran.
Uhhhh. Pretty much no effect on my traffic. So what does this tell me?
Options:
1. Facebook has sucky users!
2. The ad was misleading.
3. My blog wasn’t very interesting.
It’s my expert opinion that the only true answer is clearly Option #1. Because Option #2 and #3 just simply aren’t valid arguments. My ad was amazing and my blog is pure awesomesauce. That said, there may be some bias in those last two statements.
Even with an attempt to filter for the following interests:
- Live in Toronto
- Between 18-40
- Likes advertising, digital media or Publicis Groupe
- College graduate
- Speaks English
Facebook didn’t drive what I would consider quality traffic. Though if I’m to be honest, the ad didn’t set up user expectations well. Anyone who clicks on an ad like the one above probably isn’t looking for the advertising musings of some 25 year old redhead living in Toronto. You know who is? You! (Congrats on having excellent taste, by the way.)
Anyway, it was a fun little experiment to see if I could drive further traffic to my blog. I can tell you I won’t be using Facebook again to create interest in this here blog. But perhaps in the future I’ll play around and see how I can continue to bring additional interest to my sometimes-updated blog.
So, what about you? How do y’all feel about Facebook Ads? Ever tried them, for professional or personal reasons? Success or failure stories to share? Would love to hear in the comments! Cheers.
Ever since I virtually moved to Smeshovo, Tverskaya Oblast’, Russia, all my ads are in Russian, which is GREAT! :D
Oh man, that WOULD be amazing!
Oh man, that WOULD be amazing!
I woulda clicked! But I don’t live in TO… and never click Facebook ads.
I appreciate the thought, Mike :D
So this begs the question: which is the most effective web advertising platform (that normal people can utilize)?
Well, it depends on your objectives, but I would say Google AdWords is probably the most effective and easy to use web advertising platform out there.
Everyone: Feel free to chime in with other suggestions.
Emma– cool experiment!
I’d say that your copy and images are the culprit. These people don’t know you, so you have to not only attract their attention, but give them something that is personalized AND compelling. Yes, that’s hard to do. And that’s why Facebook advertising is not easy. Build up your fan base and then the friend of fan ads can take effect. Tie it into your blog.
Thanks Dennis!
And I would totally agree that the copy and images aren’t, er, exactly optimized. I was more concerned about telling people I was cool, though, than trying to attract attention haha. If I ever think it’s time for me to ramp up the fan base of this blog, I think I’ll start with writing more content and then start trying to spread the word.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
You’re amazing.
You’re sweet!
You’re sweet!
this is awesome. you are awesome. great idea. promoting awesomeness is highly encouraged by me! :D
Thanks Casie! Awesomeness is contagious.
Thanks Casie! Awesomeness is contagious.
Haha, self-fulfilling awesomeness! Yeah, Facebook ads basically told me what we already know – Facebook users don’t pay much attention to them. That said, the targeting is really tight and everyone and their cat has a Facebook account, so i’d do Facebook ads again if the right thing came up. some Facebook eye tracking would be cool, if people notice ads but don’t click then it impressions still have some value for the right cases. Anyway, yeah.
I saw your ad, but I didn’t click. I love this idea though. Totally Awesome (with a capital A)!