As some of you know I like to play around with Facebook Ads. I’m no expert by any means but I do get interesting results and they never cost me a lot of money. Lately I’m seeing my campaigns get better and better so I thought I’d share my findings here and hopefully help a few of you get more return out of your ads.

I first began using Facebook Ads as a means of generating leads for my offline business. My knowledge at the time was pretty basic and was paying anything between €0.70-€1.00 per click, but still I didn’t mind because the ROI was so high for me. Things have moved on quite a bit since then.

I recently ran a campaign which you can see the results of below. My big time budget of €5 gave me a return of 1,265 Page Likes on a brand new page that I just set-up to test the ad.

FB-stats

Let’s have a deeper look at these numbers and see what can we derive from them. Well first of all that’s a lot of Likes for such a small investment. So small that Facebook reports each Cost per Page Like as €0.00 but if we crunch the numbers we can see it cost about €0.003953 per Like.

I had a Click-Through Rate of 0.320% which was okay, but I know with some testing I can get this a lot higher – maybe even near the 1% rate. But the most impressive metric in my opinion are my CPM prices. These are how much I paid for each thousand impressions of my ad. I set my maximum bid at only 3 cents but my campaign cost only 1 cent CPM.

That is the main reason why the clicks were so cheap. I was able to target my niche and really dig down and only advertise to the die-hard fans who I knew would like my page. That’s why it’s important to do proper research before you blow a load of cash of Facebook ads. Spend a little time targeting the right people, the right market and you’ll be able to pay the absolute minimum for your ads.

After looking at this my next question would be what action did these 1,265 Likes take on my Fan Page? Because simpley growing a massive page is only one part of the equation, it’s the actions that happen afterwards that really determine how good your end results from the campaign will be. To begin to answer this let’s take a look at the Actions Report from my Ads Manager in Facebook.

fbactions

So we can see that the 1,265 Likes actually did result in some good engagement on the page itself. There are lots of Shares, Likes, Comments etc. This bodes well for the future as it shows that people aren’t simply liking a page but are coming back, having a look through the posts and getting involved.

This is very important as it sends positive signals to Facebook and will give future posts more visibility in news feeds of fans. Remember that even if you have a page with 100k fans, at any one time only around 10-15% of them are seeing your posts. The more engagement your page has the more your visibility increases and thus helps your page grow organically. After all Facebook is a giant advertising network and doesn’t want all your fans to see your posts because where is the benefit to them for that to happen? How can they make money from ads in a situation like that?

But by having good engagement on your page with plenty of Likes, Comments, Shares you will maximize the natural reach of your posts and the organic growth of your page will increase.

So what’s next for this page?

Well for the time being I’m going to let the ad run. I’ve set a daily limit of just €1 to keep it growing and I’ll change the ad once the Click-Through Rates begin the fall. After a while ads lose their effectiveness because they have been seen so many times but until that happens I leave it work away on it’s own. So at present with that budget the page is growing my 300 per day. Once it reaches 20k I’ll start monetizing it and build a list that I can email market to.

It’s in a pretty solid niche so I know I’ll have no trouble putting together a 30 day autoresponder series and sit back while it does all the work for me. In the meantime I’ve set-up similar ads in other more mainstream niches and I’m still seeing similar results as to those above.

Overall I think Facebook Ads have proved their worth yet again. I know I’ll continue to learn and improve on what I already know and will post some more case study results here down the line.

If you have any comments or if some of what I’ve said has gone over your head leave your question below and I’ll do my best to answer it!

 

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Noel
Noel

Easy going guy and founder of CunMark.com who enjoys traveling, live music and good coffee - as well as sharing tips and strategies on this blog to help others navigate the world of online marketing!

    11 replies to "Facebook Ads and the Cheapest Clicks on the Planet"

    • Richard

      Hi Noel

      Great bit of research there and thanks for sharing the results.

      I have to say I have very little luck with FaceBook ads, they seem to keep saying no to my ads. I have found it very hard to actually get an answer as to why. I have tried sending to optin pages, with privacy policies etc

      Is it this?

      Would it be better to send them to a facebook page instead?

      I´d be interested in your comments

      thanks

      Richard
      Richard recently posted…Writing a Journal to Improve your businessMy Profile

      • Noel

        Hey Richard,
        Loads of people send ad traffic to external websites so that’s not the problem. It may be the age range the ad is targeting, always set it to 18 and over.
        Anything that advertises to minors takes an age to be approved and may have something to do why the ad was rejected. My ads get approved in around 5 mins every time so it can be done!

        If you send them to a FB Page the clicks will be cheaper because you’re not taking the traffic outside Facebook. But I do send ads to websites all the time and still get good results.

        Hope that helps,
        Noel.

    • Roger Weavers

      Hi Noel,

      That’s pretty impressive. I’ve never tried Facebook ads, I always though they would cost about the same as Adwords but looks like I was wrong!
      Can you divulge which niche this is in?

      Cheers
      Roger
      Roger Weavers recently posted…Improve Conversion Rates & Increase Your Profits Without Increasing Your TrafficMy Profile

      • Noel

        Hey Roger,
        Ya, they can be expensive but the more research and testing you do the cheaper they get! Can’t give the exact niche but I’ll just say it’s sports related. I’ve also done a similar campaign in a very popular diet niche that’s doing very well.
        Cheers,
        Noel.

    • Pat Brosnan

      Noel
      Pretty impressive stuff great info thanks for sharing it

      Pat Brosnan
      Pat Brosnan recently posted…Search Engine Optimization And Why You Gotta Use It!My Profile

      • Noel

        No worries Pat, glad you found it useful 😉

    • Richard

      Thanks for the reply Noel, might try to put up a facebook ad tonight for a page I have, and all my ads were targeted to over 18, nothing that I thought was controversial etc

      Let me have a go and tell you how it goes

      richard
      Richard recently posted…Managing your time more effectivelyMy Profile

    • Mary Martin
      • Noel

        That’s great, I hope you can get some good results with them too!

        Thanks,

        Noel.

    • Ricky Dawn

      I’ve run a lot of Facebook campaigns and although I’ve managed to build a lot of likes, and interaction on my pages. I find the traffic doesn’t convert very well.

      Have you generated any sales from it?

      Ricky
      Ricky Dawn recently posted…Facebook Page Tips For Small BusinessesMy Profile

      • Noel

        Hi Ricky,

        I have but getting sales from FB is an art-form all in itself.

        You can make direct sales but the clicks you send have to be very, very targeted.
        The easier way would be to warm up the traffic, so build your page with lots of Likes.

        Get good interaction on you page and then get them onto an email list. Then you can
        begin the process of email marketing and promote any relevant products you find.

        But obviously the devil is in the detail with this type of thing…

        Cheers,

        Noel.

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