4 ms·

I like the acquisition success story, people bash on Facebook ads but they're probably the best online channel when you have a very specific audience you want t

by mpeg 11y ago

I like the acquisition success story, people bash on Facebook ads but they're probably the best online channel when you have a very specific audience you want to target with high reach (dog owners, UK&I) Just doesn't work as well for retail products / subscriptions when your audience is not necessarily ready to buy, and you just end up with worthless likes and no conversions. For instance, FB targeting women 25-35 for online clothes shopping probably results in lower conversion rates than Google, even though the audience demographics could be the same, because search translates to buying intent.

niallharbison 11y ago
We wouldn't have had the growth we have had without Facebook. Its the most targeted and cost effective ad platform the world has ever seen. Not suited to every business of course but I do think a lot of people underestimate just how effective it can be.
- Avalaxy 11y ago
  Don't you get tons of fake likes? Because my experience is that the majority of the likes I got were fake.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    I suspect the number, and the very presence, of likes on your company's page is inconsequential. What matters is the percent of conversions (that is, purchases) for ad impressions. FB can target ads very narrowly.
    - johnward 11y ago
      I've ran campaigns that targeted likes and I feel like many of them are phony but I've also ran target campaigns to lead pages as an affiliate and had success in the past.
  - shostack 11y ago
    If you are still running page like ads and not driving traffic offsite to your own pages, you are doing it wrong :)
andyakb 11y ago
I don't think its fair to say FB ads dont work as well when your audience is not ready to buy. If you try to run an Adwords style campaign on FB, then you are right, that isn't very likely to work but that isnt because of FB. The problem is the ads don't match where the prospects are in the buying cycle. Where FB excels is driving leads into a nurturing campaign that gets them ready for the sale down the line. These campaigns work wonderfully across a wide variety of industries.
- shostack 11y ago
  Spot on. If you want to get a better view of this and have Google Analytics conversion tracking setup, you can look at the Attribution reports and Path reports to understand where/how FB and social in general contributes to your conversions. Google has a decent overview of the high-level topic [1] with a tool to see the change across various verticals/categories, but you can actually calculate a similar chart for your own business quite easily by doing the math on assisted conversions/last click conversions. The higher the number, the more that channel plays a role towards the beginning of the "intent funnel" (defined as awareness >> consideration >> purchase). Obviously that doesn't mean that channel ALWAYS plays that role (as can be seen in the path reports in GA) but generally speaking, it is not uncommon for display and social to be very high on the assist side of things, and channels like direct, email, paid search, etc. to be stronger on the last touch side. If you discount the value of an early touch channel, you might find that the demand it generates drops off resulting in a loss of volume and/or efficiency for later touch channels. There are some scenarios where FB and social can drive strong last click performance, but more often it is an assist channel. Being able to measure and manage it as such can easily mean the difference between perceptions of "yes this was a smart investment" vs. "what a waste of cash, FB sucks." [1] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/customer-journey-to-online-purchase.html#!/the-us/arts-and-entertainment/large/generic-paid-search https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/customer-journey-to-on...

by mpeg 11y ago

niallharbison 11y ago

We wouldn't have had the growth we have had without Facebook. Its the most targeted and cost effective ad platform the world has ever seen. Not suited to every business of course but I do think a lot of people underestimate just how effective it can be.

Avalaxy 11y ago
Don't you get tons of fake likes? Because my experience is that the majority of the likes I got were fake.
- nine_k 11y ago
  I suspect the number, and the very presence, of likes on your company's page is inconsequential. What matters is the percent of conversions (that is, purchases) for ad impressions. FB can target ads very narrowly.
  - johnward 11y ago
    I've ran campaigns that targeted likes and I feel like many of them are phony but I've also ran target campaigns to lead pages as an affiliate and had success in the past.
- shostack 11y ago
  If you are still running page like ads and not driving traffic offsite to your own pages, you are doing it wrong :)

andyakb 11y ago

I don't think its fair to say FB ads dont work as well when your audience is not ready to buy. If you try to run an Adwords style campaign on FB, then you are right, that isn't very likely to work but that isnt because of FB. The problem is the ads don't match where the prospects are in the buying cycle. Where FB excels is driving leads into a nurturing campaign that gets them ready for the sale down the line. These campaigns work wonderfully across a wide variety of industries.

shostack 11y ago
Spot on. If you want to get a better view of this and have Google Analytics conversion tracking setup, you can look at the Attribution reports and Path reports to understand where/how FB and social in general contributes to your conversions. Google has a decent overview of the high-level topic [1] with a tool to see the change across various verticals/categories, but you can actually calculate a similar chart for your own business quite easily by doing the math on assisted conversions/last click conversions. The higher the number, the more that channel plays a role towards the beginning of the "intent funnel" (defined as awareness >> consideration >> purchase). Obviously that doesn't mean that channel ALWAYS plays that role (as can be seen in the path reports in GA) but generally speaking, it is not uncommon for display and social to be very high on the assist side of things, and channels like direct, email, paid search, etc. to be stronger on the last touch side. If you discount the value of an early touch channel, you might find that the demand it generates drops off resulting in a loss of volume and/or efficiency for later touch channels. There are some scenarios where FB and social can drive strong last click performance, but more often it is an assist channel. Being able to measure and manage it as such can easily mean the difference between perceptions of "yes this was a smart investment" vs. "what a waste of cash, FB sucks." [1] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/customer-journey-to-online-purchase.html#!/the-us/arts-and-entertainment/large/generic-paid-search https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/customer-journey-to-on...