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Good for them. Lots of people spend lots of time on Facebook, so ads get a lot of eyeballs, making them valuable. But I wonder what their clickthrough-rate is.

by niftich 10y ago

Good for them. Lots of people spend lots of time on Facebook, so ads get a lot of eyeballs, making them valuable. But I wonder what their clickthrough-rate is. For some types of ads, that's obviously not the point, but I doubt it's very high. At first, I was curious how their drive towards more video, both user- and professionally-produced, will mesh with their real name policy. But since they allow 'pages' for public figures, businesses, content creators, and other more abstract entities, they may be able to strike a happy medium where content creators can broadcast under a well-known pseudonym, while content consumers are all real people with real identities, targetable with ads. With this setup, they can mount a true challenge against established video places like Youtube and Twitch.

jonathanjaeger 10y ago
Click through rate is going to vary dramatically by vertical, but just as a very rough comparison, it's not hard to get >1% CTR on mobile Newsfeed ads while years ago on a right-hand side small ad before Newsfeed ads I was always wishing for a consistent .1% CTR.
adotjdotr 10y ago
Facebook (and Google) have the best ad products on the market without any question. I have so many DR clients printing money via FB ads, CTRs are not the metric we even focus on, it is all about conversions or measurement studies to support even investing in the platform. All my clients (big and small) love the platform, ad formats and service level. Great company, well deserved success.
- continuations 10y ago
  > CTRs are not the metric we even focus on, it is all about conversions If users don't even click on ads how do you measure conversions? Is it more a case of brand advertising where you're not looking for directly measurable sales?
  - coderholic 10y ago
    They do click on the ad, and then they buy something. The parent is saying they don't care how many people click, they only care how many people buy (a subset of those that click).
    - mattmaroon 10y ago
      All advertisers want to maximize ROI. Ad displayers want to maximize CPM. It's a mistake to focus on one specific metric, because they all multiply to form the actual metric you care about.
  - rgbrgb 10y ago
    The point is that you're not looking at CTRs because FB surfaces conversion costs, which is a much more revenue-aligned metric. You can of course still look at CTRs to do micro-optimizations and copy tests with ads if you want, but the FB ad platform pushes you not to make that the focus. An ad for free money may have a high CTR but if the landing page is not actually delivering the value prop, the conversion cost will still be high. Likewise, an ad for, say, real estate services will have a much lower CTR (even if the service gives away "free money" :), but if the page is compelling and the clicks are real you can still have good cost per acquisition.
    - continuations 10y ago
      Ok I'm not familiar with the FB ad platform but how does FB surface conversion costs? Using your example of real estate services there's no way FB can tell whether someone becomes a client after clicking on the ad. And without that information FB cannot calculate conversion costs.
      - rgbrgb 10y ago
        We fire a conversion event back to them when someone becomes a client.
        10y ago
- vadym909 10y ago
  What is DR?
  - cbowal 10y ago
    I'm guessing: Direct Response (Marketing)[0] [0] http://successwise.com/what-is-direct-response-marketing http://successwise.com/what-is-direct-response-marketing
hacknat 10y ago
> But I wonder what their clickthrough-rate is. For some types of ads, that's obviously not the point, but I doubt it's very high. I think you hit the nail on the head. I don't have a facebook account, so I feel like I have gotten a chance to see facebook develop in leaps and bounds (unlike their users who see it changes incrementally). The way I've experienced this is that I peruse my wife's account for family pictures once every few months. I've definitely noticed an increase in both quality and quantity of ads. Facebook ads strike me like TV ads do. While they often offer clickthroughs, I'm astonished by the number of ads that are simple positional or brand ads that don't necessarily want you to do anything, but are there to stick their brand in your mind.
ktamura 10y ago
>But I wonder what their clickthrough-rate is. It's shockingly high, especially on Facebook Audience Network (FAN), Facebook's network of 3rd party publishers. It was so high that I initially thought I was being defrauded. But upon closer inspection, it turns out that if you specify your industry/persona well in your ads, Facebook is incredibly efficient at matching demand with supply. I've never seen such good performance on any other mobile network, Google included. FWIW, I've only done B2B marketing in my life. I have no idea for B2C folks.
- arbuge 10y ago
  How do you go about targeting B2B clients via Facebook? We have good success with consumer since that's a pretty broad audience and affordable for certain products but never managed to target busineses effectively within a reasonable cost.

by niftich 10y ago

jonathanjaeger 10y ago

Click through rate is going to vary dramatically by vertical, but just as a very rough comparison, it's not hard to get >1% CTR on mobile Newsfeed ads while years ago on a right-hand side small ad before Newsfeed ads I was always wishing for a consistent .1% CTR.

adotjdotr 10y ago

Facebook (and Google) have the best ad products on the market without any question. I have so many DR clients printing money via FB ads, CTRs are not the metric we even focus on, it is all about conversions or measurement studies to support even investing in the platform. All my clients (big and small) love the platform, ad formats and service level. Great company, well deserved success.

continuations 10y ago
> CTRs are not the metric we even focus on, it is all about conversions If users don't even click on ads how do you measure conversions? Is it more a case of brand advertising where you're not looking for directly measurable sales?
- coderholic 10y ago
  They do click on the ad, and then they buy something. The parent is saying they don't care how many people click, they only care how many people buy (a subset of those that click).
  - mattmaroon 10y ago
    All advertisers want to maximize ROI. Ad displayers want to maximize CPM. It's a mistake to focus on one specific metric, because they all multiply to form the actual metric you care about.
- rgbrgb 10y ago
  The point is that you're not looking at CTRs because FB surfaces conversion costs, which is a much more revenue-aligned metric. You can of course still look at CTRs to do micro-optimizations and copy tests with ads if you want, but the FB ad platform pushes you not to make that the focus. An ad for free money may have a high CTR but if the landing page is not actually delivering the value prop, the conversion cost will still be high. Likewise, an ad for, say, real estate services will have a much lower CTR (even if the service gives away "free money" :), but if the page is compelling and the clicks are real you can still have good cost per acquisition.
  - continuations 10y ago
    Ok I'm not familiar with the FB ad platform but how does FB surface conversion costs? Using your example of real estate services there's no way FB can tell whether someone becomes a client after clicking on the ad. And without that information FB cannot calculate conversion costs.
    - rgbrgb 10y ago
      We fire a conversion event back to them when someone becomes a client.
      - 10y ago
vadym909 10y ago
What is DR?
- cbowal 10y ago
  I'm guessing: Direct Response (Marketing)[0] [0] http://successwise.com/what-is-direct-response-marketing http://successwise.com/what-is-direct-response-marketing

hacknat 10y ago

> But I wonder what their clickthrough-rate is. For some types of ads, that's obviously not the point, but I doubt it's very high. I think you hit the nail on the head. I don't have a facebook account, so I feel like I have gotten a chance to see facebook develop in leaps and bounds (unlike their users who see it changes incrementally). The way I've experienced this is that I peruse my wife's account for family pictures once every few months. I've definitely noticed an increase in both quality and quantity of ads. Facebook ads strike me like TV ads do. While they often offer clickthroughs, I'm astonished by the number of ads that are simple positional or brand ads that don't necessarily want you to do anything, but are there to stick their brand in your mind.

ktamura 10y ago

>But I wonder what their clickthrough-rate is. It's shockingly high, especially on Facebook Audience Network (FAN), Facebook's network of 3rd party publishers. It was so high that I initially thought I was being defrauded. But upon closer inspection, it turns out that if you specify your industry/persona well in your ads, Facebook is incredibly efficient at matching demand with supply. I've never seen such good performance on any other mobile network, Google included. FWIW, I've only done B2B marketing in my life. I have no idea for B2C folks.

arbuge 10y ago
How do you go about targeting B2B clients via Facebook? We have good success with consumer since that's a pretty broad audience and affordable for certain products but never managed to target busineses effectively within a reasonable cost.