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Why Your Facebook Ads ‘Don’t Work’.

51 points by OoTheNigerian 17y ago

noelchurchill 17y ago
Facebook ads don't work when you don't know how to use them. If you don't understand your audience and try to force them to do something they don't want to do then your advertising efforts are going to have bad returns. Although I've never seen three ads for the same thing at the same time, it is pretty bad that Facebook did that. Not a typical scenario though.
steveplace 17y ago
It's possible that the reason you're being shown an ad multiple times is that there's very little ad inventory for your demographic. Also, fbAds are (in my opinion) in the very early stages and hasn't yet been saturated.
theycallhimtom 17y ago
When you make a Facebook ad you can either do cost per click or cost per impression. If they setup with cost per click then Facebook isn't wasting their money.
- OoTheNigerian 17y ago
  The waste is in CPC is not as much as CPM but the problem is even after I click an ad, it shows me the ad again. If you multiply my experience with millions of people, you will realise the financial impact.
jhuckestein 17y ago
They work for nobody. Facebook ads are a ponzi scheme. Everybody advertises once. (admittedly exaggerated)
ig1 17y ago
I'm testing out FB ads at the moment on a CPM basis and the CPC I'm getting is much better than what I'd get most places. Possibly the ads that are being shown repeatedly are CPC paid ones ?
- blizkreeg 17y ago
  What is your CTR? I just started an ad campaign on FB and it's been only a week so I'm still tweaking my ads. The highest CTR I have gotten is 0.19 for males and about 0.12 for females which is paltry. My ads are in the online dating space so I would have actually expected a higher rate. The ads are not cheesy or shady so I'm a bit puzzled by this actually.
  - noelchurchill 17y ago
    Those are typical CTRs, not paltry.
    - robryan 17y ago
      If your targeting the long tail on Google then those click through rates are terrible in comparison. I guess it depends what your advertising, facebook are always going to be lower because people aren't generally looking for anything.
      - noelchurchill 17y ago
        There is no comparison between search (long tail) and Facebook display ads. Apples to oranges. But how would it be "terrible in comparison" anyway? Say your long tail keyword gets you 50% CTR of 10 impressions a month. And say your Facebook ad gets you .05% of 20,000,000 a month. 5 clicks vs 10,000 clicks. Doesn't look so bad when you think of it that way does it? The CTR has no relation to quality in comparison of Search vs Facebook ads. Granted the long tail search keyword would probably yield better conversion rates but that's not the argument you made.
        robryan 17y ago
        By in comparison I'm more comparing say having 20,000 long tail keywords with having a facebook ad driving people either to one landing page or some key landing pages. It depends on your business, if you can create ads in this long tail way then search will easily return a better ctr, if your are sending people to a small bunch of landing pages from a small group of keywords the result will be a lot closer.
bad_user 17y ago
> Facebook advertising should be very efficient (unlike Google Adwords) since they know everybody who has seen and clicked an ad (you have to be logged in to see ads) Oh, I don't know about that ... Google tracks you through their cookie, and personally I'm logged-in all the time since I use lots of Google services. Facebook does have an advantage ... through their gadgets that get displayed on other websites, they know where you've been. But on the other hand Google knows what you're searching for, and it can also read your personal or work email (I see lots of companies migrating to Google Apps). Personally I think Google has yet to take advantage of all the data they've collected. And I also think Google has a lot more evil-potential, fortunately they are still playing nice.
thesethings 17y ago
Thank you for taking the time to write and screenshot this. I generally see great promise in the ad platform. FB lets you target based on occupation (or likely keyword match in their profile) in a way you can't with Adwords, which for some markets, is pretty cool... in theory. In real life, everybody I know is finding FB too expensive to leverage, and posts like yours are explaining why. As somebody else in this thread pointed out, even if FB cleans this up, they're risking alienating all advertisers away from ever trusting the efficacy of the platform. If low inventory is the problem, they should be giving early advertisers more of a "free ride," with cheap repeats.
catfish 17y ago
FB is not good for ads. Its good for apps. If you build an app you are far more likely to convert than with the ad network. We don't recommend FB ads to clients anymore, and instead promote the FB app approach. People on FB come to socialize not to buy. You have to get under the skin to get that conversion, and as so many of the app providers will tell you, it takes a lot of repeat impressions to get a conversion.
- dmix 17y ago
  How do you promote your apps within Facebook without ads?
  - OoTheNigerian 17y ago
    They should be inherently 'viral'
    - seunosewa 17y ago
      Facebook users will be more open to Facebook app ads.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
stretchwithme 17y ago
definitely something to this. Facebook presents "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" ads to me and I delete them, labeling as offensive (pressures people to buy overpriced courses at his free seminars) and these ads just keep coming back, sometimes 2 on the same page.
apexauk 17y ago
well, for the penny or so that it cost us to display our GroupSpaces ads to you, we've received coverage in a blog post that's hit Hacker News. so I guess I'm not feeling too unhappy with that. ;) Sure it would be nice for some users if FB had a "don't show me this ad again" button. But I guess it's fair to allow them some control over their monetization..
Sam_Odio 17y ago
Thanks Oo Nwoye for bringing this to our attention. I've created an internal bug ticket. A Facebook ads engineer should be investigating this within the next few days. Facebook takes extreme care to make sure advertisers are only paying for ads that are legitimately displayed so this will definitely get attention. Feel free to email me in a day or two if you want an update.
- Sam_Odio 17y ago
  Also, the reason some advertisers don't have success on the network is because they're not using Facebook ads correctly. This is really an education problem on our part. Facebook excels at "brand advertising" while Google excels at converting leads into sales. Think infomercial ad vs superbowl ad. Pepsi is not trying to sell you a soda during the superbowl. They want to sell you on a lifestyle choice: the idea that you should be drinking Pepsi instead of Coke. Those are the kind of ads that work well on Facebook.
  - whopa 17y ago
    Brand advertising efficacy is notoriously hard to measure. Where does the data come from to support the notion that FB excels at it?
    - jraines 17y ago
      Right. The germane thing about the superbowl ad is that you can't put an accurate value on ROI. I've seen a ton of ads for Snorg tees (for example), and while, yes, that has created brand awareness in my head it's not worth anything until I buy a t-shirt. I think because people are measuring CPC/Ms, conversions, and basically using this as a lead generating tool, they should be trying to work on that aspect of it.
- DenisM 17y ago
  This has been going on for months. How come no one noticed?
- OoTheNigerian 17y ago
rogermugs 17y ago
i did a campaign just to get a feeling for it. 18000 impressions and no clicks. it may just be that i suck as an ad writer, but i'm marketing something to a VERY specific crowd that should be interested in what i have (at least i think)
thefool 17y ago
Personally, I seem to notice a bit of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, people are saying that facebook latest changes are all evil and will allow advertisers to make heaps and heaps of money. On the other hand, people are adament about how facebook ads just don't work. I understand how the recent privacy changes are alarming, but you can't have it both ways...
- patio11 17y ago
  One of the dirty secrets of online advertising is how much of the profits accrue to the sleaziest players -- for example, diet pills (snake oil) with a "Pay us $2.99 for a free sample (and we'll continue to bill you $80 per month)." A lot of folks saying that FB ads are not performing -- and I'm in that category -- might be unconsciously scoping their comments to "ads placed by legitimate businesses." (Similarly, they might unconsciously scope their comment to cut Zynga out of the picture. Zynga has very different economics from other advertisers -- it is quite literally made to advertise to Facebookers.)
rogermugs 17y ago
what works better for you?

51 points by OoTheNigerian 17y ago

Facebook ads don't work when you don't know how to use them. If you don't understand your audience and try to force them to do something they don't want to do then your advertising efforts are going to have bad returns. Although I've never seen three ads for the same thing at the same time, it is pretty bad that Facebook did that. Not a typical scenario though.

steveplace 17y ago

It's possible that the reason you're being shown an ad multiple times is that there's very little ad inventory for your demographic. Also, fbAds are (in my opinion) in the very early stages and hasn't yet been saturated.

theycallhimtom 17y ago

When you make a Facebook ad you can either do cost per click or cost per impression. If they setup with cost per click then Facebook isn't wasting their money.

OoTheNigerian 17y ago
The waste is in CPC is not as much as CPM but the problem is even after I click an ad, it shows me the ad again. If you multiply my experience with millions of people, you will realise the financial impact.

jhuckestein 17y ago

They work for nobody. Facebook ads are a ponzi scheme. Everybody advertises once. (admittedly exaggerated)

ig1 17y ago

I'm testing out FB ads at the moment on a CPM basis and the CPC I'm getting is much better than what I'd get most places. Possibly the ads that are being shown repeatedly are CPC paid ones ?

blizkreeg 17y ago
What is your CTR? I just started an ad campaign on FB and it's been only a week so I'm still tweaking my ads. The highest CTR I have gotten is 0.19 for males and about 0.12 for females which is paltry. My ads are in the online dating space so I would have actually expected a higher rate. The ads are not cheesy or shady so I'm a bit puzzled by this actually.
- noelchurchill 17y ago
  Those are typical CTRs, not paltry.
  - robryan 17y ago
    If your targeting the long tail on Google then those click through rates are terrible in comparison. I guess it depends what your advertising, facebook are always going to be lower because people aren't generally looking for anything.
    - noelchurchill 17y ago
      There is no comparison between search (long tail) and Facebook display ads. Apples to oranges. But how would it be "terrible in comparison" anyway? Say your long tail keyword gets you 50% CTR of 10 impressions a month. And say your Facebook ad gets you .05% of 20,000,000 a month. 5 clicks vs 10,000 clicks. Doesn't look so bad when you think of it that way does it? The CTR has no relation to quality in comparison of Search vs Facebook ads. Granted the long tail search keyword would probably yield better conversion rates but that's not the argument you made.
      - robryan 17y ago
        By in comparison I'm more comparing say having 20,000 long tail keywords with having a facebook ad driving people either to one landing page or some key landing pages. It depends on your business, if you can create ads in this long tail way then search will easily return a better ctr, if your are sending people to a small bunch of landing pages from a small group of keywords the result will be a lot closer.

bad_user 17y ago

> Facebook advertising should be very efficient (unlike Google Adwords) since they know everybody who has seen and clicked an ad (you have to be logged in to see ads) Oh, I don't know about that ... Google tracks you through their cookie, and personally I'm logged-in all the time since I use lots of Google services. Facebook does have an advantage ... through their gadgets that get displayed on other websites, they know where you've been. But on the other hand Google knows what you're searching for, and it can also read your personal or work email (I see lots of companies migrating to Google Apps). Personally I think Google has yet to take advantage of all the data they've collected. And I also think Google has a lot more evil-potential, fortunately they are still playing nice.

thesethings 17y ago

Thank you for taking the time to write and screenshot this. I generally see great promise in the ad platform. FB lets you target based on occupation (or likely keyword match in their profile) in a way you can't with Adwords, which for some markets, is pretty cool... in theory. In real life, everybody I know is finding FB too expensive to leverage, and posts like yours are explaining why. As somebody else in this thread pointed out, even if FB cleans this up, they're risking alienating all advertisers away from ever trusting the efficacy of the platform. If low inventory is the problem, they should be giving early advertisers more of a "free ride," with cheap repeats.

catfish 17y ago

FB is not good for ads. Its good for apps. If you build an app you are far more likely to convert than with the ad network. We don't recommend FB ads to clients anymore, and instead promote the FB app approach. People on FB come to socialize not to buy. You have to get under the skin to get that conversion, and as so many of the app providers will tell you, it takes a lot of repeat impressions to get a conversion.

dmix 17y ago
How do you promote your apps within Facebook without ads?
- OoTheNigerian 17y ago
  They should be inherently 'viral'
  - seunosewa 17y ago
    Facebook users will be more open to Facebook app ads.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

stretchwithme 17y ago

definitely something to this. Facebook presents "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" ads to me and I delete them, labeling as offensive (pressures people to buy overpriced courses at his free seminars) and these ads just keep coming back, sometimes 2 on the same page.

apexauk 17y ago

well, for the penny or so that it cost us to display our GroupSpaces ads to you, we've received coverage in a blog post that's hit Hacker News. so I guess I'm not feeling too unhappy with that. ;) Sure it would be nice for some users if FB had a "don't show me this ad again" button. But I guess it's fair to allow them some control over their monetization..

Sam_Odio 17y ago

Thanks Oo Nwoye for bringing this to our attention. I've created an internal bug ticket. A Facebook ads engineer should be investigating this within the next few days. Facebook takes extreme care to make sure advertisers are only paying for ads that are legitimately displayed so this will definitely get attention. Feel free to email me in a day or two if you want an update.

Sam_Odio 17y ago
Also, the reason some advertisers don't have success on the network is because they're not using Facebook ads correctly. This is really an education problem on our part. Facebook excels at "brand advertising" while Google excels at converting leads into sales. Think infomercial ad vs superbowl ad. Pepsi is not trying to sell you a soda during the superbowl. They want to sell you on a lifestyle choice: the idea that you should be drinking Pepsi instead of Coke. Those are the kind of ads that work well on Facebook.
- whopa 17y ago
  Brand advertising efficacy is notoriously hard to measure. Where does the data come from to support the notion that FB excels at it?
  - jraines 17y ago
    Right. The germane thing about the superbowl ad is that you can't put an accurate value on ROI. I've seen a ton of ads for Snorg tees (for example), and while, yes, that has created brand awareness in my head it's not worth anything until I buy a t-shirt. I think because people are measuring CPC/Ms, conversions, and basically using this as a lead generating tool, they should be trying to work on that aspect of it.
DenisM 17y ago
This has been going on for months. How come no one noticed?
OoTheNigerian 17y ago

rogermugs 17y ago

i did a campaign just to get a feeling for it. 18000 impressions and no clicks. it may just be that i suck as an ad writer, but i'm marketing something to a VERY specific crowd that should be interested in what i have (at least i think)

thefool 17y ago

Personally, I seem to notice a bit of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, people are saying that facebook latest changes are all evil and will allow advertisers to make heaps and heaps of money. On the other hand, people are adament about how facebook ads just don't work. I understand how the recent privacy changes are alarming, but you can't have it both ways...

patio11 17y ago
One of the dirty secrets of online advertising is how much of the profits accrue to the sleaziest players -- for example, diet pills (snake oil) with a "Pay us $2.99 for a free sample (and we'll continue to bill you $80 per month)." A lot of folks saying that FB ads are not performing -- and I'm in that category -- might be unconsciously scoping their comments to "ads placed by legitimate businesses." (Similarly, they might unconsciously scope their comment to cut Zynga out of the picture. Zynga has very different economics from other advertisers -- it is quite literally made to advertise to Facebookers.)

rogermugs 17y ago

what works better for you?