Since Facebook announced their new ad platform, they were allowing advertisers with existing Flyers campaigns to continue running the campaigns until said campaigns were paused or deleted. Now, those campaigns will be automatically shut off by Facebook on December 3rd. (Edit: This is gaining traction at Sphinn. Please Sphinn it to help it go hot!)Access to Flyers Pro reports (I had no Flyers Basic campaigns … ‘cuz I’m a pro! ) will continue to be available till December 17th.
I’d already been seeing a prompt on the create a flyer page to make the switch for a while. From http://www.facebook.com/flyers/create.php:
“Flyers Pro is no longer available for purchasing ads on Facebook.
Self-service, deeply targeted ads are now available through Facebook Ads.
You can still access any ad campaigns created before November 7, 2007, from this page.
To see Facebook’s new, integrated, self-service solution, check out Facebook Ads.
Now, I’ve just received an email from Facebook saying that the campaigns will be shut down December 3rd, and inviting me to begin new campaigns with Facebook Ads.
“Dear Gabriel Goldenberg,
We want you to know that the Facebook Flyers advertising program ends on December 3, 2007.
On November 6, 2007, we launched Facebook Ads, an ad system for businesses to connect with users and target advertising to the exact audiences they want. Through Facebook Ads, these users can now learn about new businesses, brands and products through the trusted referrals of their friends.
Facebook Ads launched with three parts: a way for businesses to build pages on Facebook to connect with their audiences; an ad system that facilitates the spread of brand messages virally through Facebook Social Ads; and an interface to gather insights into people’s activity on Facebook that marketers care about.
We encourage you to set up Facebook Ads to replace your Flyers. You can learn more here:
http://www.facebook.com/ads/?src=fpe1
All Flyers Pro ads in your account will automatically stop running on December 3, 2007. You can continue to access your Flyers Pro reports and invoices through December 17, 2007 here:
http://www.facebook.com/flyers/
If you have any questions you can contact us here:
On that note, I figured that an update to my Facebook flyer campaign data was due. Since I spoke on Facebook Advertising at FacebookCamp Montreal (speaking of which, who’s going to Yulbiz?) I’ve gotten more impressions, more clicks and at one point had a pretty succesful spurt on one campaign with a sweet click-through-ratio. Here’s my updated data.
Title
Duration
Clicks
Impressions
CTR (%)
Max CPC
Avg CPC
Dly Budget
Total Spent
Want to Make Extra Money?
Active
Started Oct 30
15
20,591
0.073
0.08
0.07
5.00
1.05
Now, there are a few things that should be pointed out. There was a spurt where the newer campaign was getting something like .15 CTR. I actually sent the info to Valleywag as a tip (they have excellent coverage of Facebook and were helpful in preparing my presentation for FacebookCamp), and after showing some initial interest, they didn’t run the story.
Here’s that data from the brief period where CTR jumped. I thought it was due to Social Ads being rolled out and Flyers being shown next to stories (how the transition between the two would function wasn’t made clear by Facebook), but that appears not to have been the case. Another possibility is the news on Facebook ads increased CTR across the network, or that people who knew me and knew I was speaking at FacebookCamp/had spoken clicked, but this is all hypothetical.
Here’s the corresponding time on site data, which again shows some nice interest from visitors. 5/9 didn’t bounce and they all viewed two or more pages. (See last number on right for time spent on site and bounce info.)
SEO ROI Recent Visitors by Visit Details
Detail
Domain Name
Visit Time
Page
Views
Visit Length
1
shawcable.netNov 8 200712:13:14 am10:00
2
aei.ca Nov 7 200710:51:00 pm3 1:24 3 rogers.com9:50:14 pm30:43
For some reason I can't post the second line of data in the campaign table, but here it is:
Make Extra Money
Active
Started Oct 08
Clicks: 6
Impressions: 7,492
CTR: 0.080
Avg CPC: 0.04
Max CPC: 0.04
Daily Budget: 5.00
Total cost: 0.23
Comment by Gabriel Goldenberg - November 27, 2007 @ 12:18am
I'm not sure I am understanding the first line of data and how that relates to the second line, posted in your comments. In the first line are you saying that your ad was shown 20,591 times? Or you received 20,591 clicks? 20591 x 0.073 (CTR) = 1503.143 clicks by my count. So if you spent $1.05 total and got 1503 clicks, then that is a $.1503 CPC. I'd like to figure out the total cost required per customer, based on a sales-conversion rate. Your numbers contradict my test numbers.
It looks like my data says 3015 clicks, but rather, it reads Started October 30, and 15 clicks.
As to the math, the CTR is in %. So it's 20591 x 0.00073 = ~15.3 = 15 clicks. I wish I spent a buck and got 1500 clicks!
As to cost per customer and conversions, I got 2 comments on the site and various comments in person or on Facebook. From that perspective, it was a success. My goal was branding and hopefully getting referrals. I didn't get concrete referrals, but it's still early. I'd venture to say there are some in the pipeline thanks to this campaign.
Good questions!
Comment by Gabriel Goldenberg - November 27, 2007 @ 1:01pm
I sphunn your article and now I think to look deeper into Facebook as I haven't done this before. Thank you for even more marketing ideas!
Comment by Seo Smarty - November 28, 2007 @ 1:40pm
Facebook lost me when they pulled flyers. Now they are just ppc like everyone else. I buy wholesale clicks so Facebook is not offering me a very good deal. I get better hits writing on walls and link baiting in my network.
Comment by Jordan Pearce - November 30, 2007 @ 1:44pm
Thanks for sharing your data with us. I've also tried Facebook ads for one of my sites and had subpar results.
Facebook users just don't want to leave the Facebook site while they're there. This is how Google differs; users are only there so they can find something somewhere else.
Comment by Gyutae Park - December 2, 2007 @ 12:07am
Ann - My pleasure for the ideas, and thanks for sphinning this! You know I'm following your writing too ;)!
Jordan: I'd be interested to see your industry. I think that probably has an effect on it too. In any case, do you mean you buy wholesale ads?
"This is how Google differs; users are only there so they can find something somewhere else." That's an excellent point Gyutae. That said, Google doesn't give you the narrow demographic targeting Facebook does, so Facebook has the edge there. If they figure out how to get people interested in the ads(and not just temporarily not blind, like some expanding ads, pull n peel and other type of ads try for), they'll have much greater success.
Comment by Gabriel Goldenberg - December 2, 2007 @ 11:17pm
) will continue to be available till December 17th.
.
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