Facebook ads serve a different sweet spot than Google ads. The latter excels at capturing purchase intent for the obvious reason that people will run a search s

Facebook ads serve a different sweet spot than Google ads. The latter excels at capturing purchase intent for the obvious reason that people will run a search specifically for something they want to buy -- it's a no-brainer. Given that people do not hop onto Facebook to buy things, it is the ad purchaser's fault for expecting great direct sales from their product ad on Facebook. Use the right tool for the right purpose. To be fair, the article doesn't give details on the book promoter example, but given the statement "nobody ever clicks them", I feel safe assuming that they did not use all the social features you can build into ads. I've used FB ads and achieved excellent click-through rates. With FB (unlike Google) the promoter could have made a fan page for the book and attracted users to like the page by a) targeting people who would like the book based on demographics and b) showing "your friend Foo liked this page" sort of teasers. Once someone likes the page, you can get stories into their newsfeed for free, which is a pretty darn good return on your ad investment.