My Facebook Advertising Experience
Posted on October 17, 2011 by d3so
In August, there was a case-study contest I decided to participate in. You had to advertise a game offer on Facebook with a $200 budget. The contest ran for 2 weeks. This was my first real attempt at advertising with Facebook Ads.
When I learned about the details of the contest I instantly knew what offer I was going to run. I promoted Wizard 101. I had huge success on this offer with PPV, so I decided to port it over. I targeted both Males and Females 13-17 and targeted 18-25 separately. My ads were very generic. I wanted to test how well they’d do before going at it at an angle.
As for bidding, I kept mine at $0.50 despite the high suggested bid prices.
To fast-forward a bit, those ads didn’t perform well. They received clicks but the conversions were close to none.
I decided to go at an angle with my ads. Since I’m promoting a game about wizards, I thought about what things I could add to my ads.
When people hear wizards, what do they think about? Harry Potter! But if you keep up to date on pop-culture, there’s another celebrity that’s gotten a lot of press and is associated with wizards. Yes, I used Selena Gomez. Funny thing is, is that she actually did promote the game awhile back. So, I searched for images and made new ads to test.
After running those ads, clicks and conversions went up significantly.
Unfortunately, I still was not able to profit despite the changes I’ve made. I kept with those ads because they seemed so promising. I thought I just needed to fine tune them. To start, I paused the ads targeting ages 18-25 because the magic just wasn’t there.
To the existing ads, I targeted by interests, which were Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.
I let the ads run for a few days and paused the ones that weren’t performing well, and I was left with 3 ads.
I let a few days pass and I still was not seeing any profit. I paused all my ads to analyze what was going on. I realized that I needed get my CPCs down lower. To further close the profit/loss margin, I requested and received a pay bump on the offer. Now, I had to figure out how I was going to lower my CPCs. I tried experimenting with daily budgets and lowering my bids after my CPCs drop. Raising my daily budget helped a bit because it allowed my ads to receive more impressions and clicks.
In the end, I was unsuccessful at making my campaign profit. I was nearly at a -50% ROI but I did gain a significant amount of knowledge. I learned that it wasn’t impossible to advertise on Facebook it just takes work. I was also very happy with my ad approval ratio. Only 2 ads I submitted were disapproved. Perhaps my flaw was in not split testing other ad copies because a high CTR (Click Through Ratio) is key to lowering CPCs.
In all, I generated 88 leads, $103.75 in revenue, and spent $200 receiving an ROI of -48%.
In addition to the contest, I was also testing other game offers on Facebook and received similar results. My total Facebook ad spend in August reached over $400. I’m putting off Facebook for awhile and sticking to PPV for now where I have had success.
Don’t let my campaign discourage you. You can find still find success on Facebook. You just need a strong budget, creativity, and patience.
27 Responses to “My Facebook Advertising Experience”
Leave a Comment
Web design New York
- 18th Oct, 11 10:10pm
wow.. 813 clicks from 200 $ only.I have read bad reviews about Facebook advertising because of high cost but from your experience, i think I should try it once just like this and see how much clicks I get.
Reply
Amit
- 20th Oct, 11 09:10am
Man this is really great at least you got experience next time I am sue you will make money ,Best of luck!!
Amit recently posted..Top Keyword research Tools
Reply
Mark
- 20th Oct, 11 10:10am
Nice job. Sucks you didn’t get profit but you sure learned a lot.
Reply
Alan Smith
- 20th Oct, 11 09:10pm
Your experience motivate me to give a try on this. Main feature i like most about facebook ads campaign is that “it allows image in ads”.
Alan Smith recently posted..Race of Mobile Applications – Android Getting Ahead Of Others
Reply
PPV Profits
- 21st Oct, 11 04:10pm
It’s good to know that it’s not that expensive to advertise on Facebook.
I will give it a try!
Reply
Alan Smith
Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 10:53 pm
In my personal experience it is very easy to access.
Alan Smith recently posted..Overview of End To End Mobile Apps Development
Reply
cross bow
- 24th Oct, 11 09:10pm
very motivational experience..you did excellent..keep it up
Reply
PPC Ian
- 25th Oct, 11 11:10am
Great case study, D3so! FB is so much fun. Not easy all the time when it comes to driving a large profit, but especially helpful for branding and driving likes to one’s fan page.
PPC Ian recently posted..Protecting Your Brand Name From Link Hijacking
Reply
FeLiXWL
- 27th Oct, 11 04:10am
Is Bad ROI , isn’t it, that so reader blog needs time and hardworking to successed, great article.
Reply
cross bow
- 1st Nov, 11 08:11pm
I m also used Facebook for the advertising and it really helps me to overcome the problems.thanks for the Facebook advertising.
Reply
Html5 Conversion
- 21st Nov, 11 10:11pm
There has to be a way to leverage paid social traffic, especially considering how targeted you can get (today’s post “How to Advertise on Facebook in 10 Minutes or Less”), wouldn’t you agree?
Reply
Linniane
- 24th Nov, 11 05:11am
For the long time , I wanted to use facebook advertising but I was looking for the strong positive response. Now I got more confident on trying facebook advertisement.
Linniane recently posted..Web Design-Simple Ways for Enhancing the Website Appeal
Reply
Latest Landlord News UK
- 29th Nov, 11 05:11am
Now a days Facebook is the best idea to promote your business, because at a time you will find sufficient users from all over the world and from there you can get easily redirect it to your website.
Reply
Alan Smith
Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Yes, you are true. In my knowledge facebook ads is the only ads campaign which allows image with text.
Alan Smith recently posted..Web Design-Barriers To Communication
Reply
radityawirayoga
- 30th Nov, 11 01:11am
Hi Guys
,if you tired,you can download my game on myBlog
HAPPY GAMERSS
Reply
online games
- 30th Nov, 11 03:11pm
thank you, this could be for the try
online games recently posted..Brilliant Swan
Reply
cross bow
- 1st Dec, 11 06:12pm
Facebook is really a good place for marketing as the people are associate with each other.It just like a chain in which every one is connected by some means.So using Facebook for the marketing is a good option.
Reply
sink vanities
- 2nd Dec, 11 10:12am
I truly inspired after seen the great efforts you made on Facebook Advertising.
Will try to do same as you performed.
Reply
Alex Braker
- 5th Dec, 11 11:12pm
The good thing about facebook advertising is its ability to filter the audience that you want to target with different parameter like age group, gender, location and their profile content. If we do it efficiently, we can drive lots of quality just like above.
Reply
sink vanities
- 8th Dec, 11 10:12am
I learn a lot from your experiences.Organize a contest and questioning also handy to get good response from followers. You shared images above are shows that how well you performed.
Reply
sink vanities
- 13th Dec, 11 03:12am
I always concern about security and in big dilemma always that my personal details are in safe place at Facebook.Few days ago i heard news that someone hacked a celebs Facebook account and steal the information,Its bad to a renowned site.I think Facebook should ensure security to all.
Reply
Ladders for sale
- 16th Dec, 11 02:12am
I am thinking about advertising on facebook and would like to know if anyone has had experience with this?
Reply
web design new york
- 15th Jan, 12 12:01am
hi this is very good blog for new web Masters that will help more for newbies… we also web design company,, good blog keep on posting..
Reply
bean bags
- 15th Jan, 12 09:01pm
Nice job. Sucks you didn’t get profit but you sure learned a lot
Reply
sink vanities
- 16th Jan, 12 05:01am
Stats encourage me a lot to work hard for business success with Facebook help.Many people across globe taking the help of Facebook to boost business.
Reply
Ladders for sale
- 13th Feb, 12 03:02am
If I were to advertise through Facebook how exactly does it work? Let’s say I’m trying to advertise for my local business here in the Philippines. How to be yourself or Facebook controls whether or not the people who saw the ad I live in Philippines? Also, is there a difference in price I have to pay to advertise to more people? I mean, I really don’t have a clue how to how Facebook ads work and I want to know everything about it in as much detail as possible, that would be great. Please help if possible.
Reply
cross bow
- 15th Feb, 12 09:02pm
I really enjoyed the post..Thanks for sharing this interesting post.
Reply