My 1st facebook AD campaign.

[ffp504]

I have a buddy who is a contractor. He has been in the roofing niche for the past year. We sat drinking coffee, talking about how he gets his leads. I asked him why he doesnt just use facebook ads. I unconscienclly sold him on the idea. During our convo I sold myself as well. So we decided to do an experiment. I would build a simple sales page and run a shoestring budget facebook campaign using my own money since I was so confident in this stratgy. He would pay me $250 for each sold lead. Seemed like a good risk for only 2 hours work and 25 bucks. And if It works, this could be scaled or just a good side hustle to get capital for my true fast lane project.

Here is how it went down.

I used instapage (free trial) to build a simple sales page to gather contact info. He gave me some simple guidelines of how the whole process of getting a new roof from your insurance company and I wrote some copy along side of it.

Here is the landing page:

There was a toranado and a lot of heavy rain in the city. So my idea was to run the FB Ads in those zipcodes affected. I than started googling some images of toranados. I found a image that looked like it could have been taken in a suberb of my city. It was a pretty nasty looking toranado. I doubt the real toranado looked anything like this but I figured this would sensationalize the ad thus draw some eye balls. Plus the photo looked like a someone took it on there phone so it should blend in to the user stream and no look so much like a Ad.

Here is the ad

Setting the demo:
Homeowners

Household income - 75k plus

Age 30 plus

Spread it over 5 zipcodes

Potential audience: 34k

I ran the standard one image Ad with light copy since it didnt allow space for much. I think that was my first mistake. The ad ran for two days: (fri & sat) at a $25 ad buy budget.

Here are the results:

Only 11 visits logged on instapage and one was a test. lol

Not one lead. I am wondering if I should keep gambling with this. Is $25 way too little to pull a lead?
I know my ad could be a lot better and so can some of the copy on my sales page.

Any feedback would be awesome.

 

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[LateStarter]

Use all the tools they give you. Don't run a one image ad...use all the images you can load in there. ie. Start with a Tornado pic. Show a pic of an inspection or a close up of damage that may not be visible from the ground. Do an ad like a testimonial with a happy customer exhaulting the $0 cost of her new roof.

Frequency is what's going to sell this, not reach. It's not an impulse decision. So $25 and two days isn't enough time or money.

Also make sure you don't list it as a sidebar ad. You want front and center only...high impact...whether on desktop or mobile. If it's a free roof, why limit your audience to $75k+ and 30+? What makes them more desirable for this campaign? If anything target lower household income groups who will be looking for a deal and a way to get insurance to pay for the roof they need but can't afford themselves. I'd also check to see if your zip codes are largely areas with newer homes or older ones. Roofs typically last 10-15 years so find an area with homes of that age and flood them!

Landing pages - Sometimes you want to minimize the amount of effort needed by a prospect on your landing page. Too many fields can look daunting and too much like paperwork...no one likes paperwork. I'm not an expert but I'd simplify it. Name, email, then a big "OR", phone number. Let your salesman do the rest. Testimonials are also key for this kind of work. People usually get referrals from friends/neighbours etc rather than cold calling any roofer to do a job. Put a bunch of testimonials or reviews on the landing page. Built up the strengths of the company (quality, cleanliness, courtesy, etc) and make this decision a no brainer.

 

[ffp504]

Thanks for the feedback.

I do want to try the carousel fb ads with a bunch of pics.

The reason I set the income level a bit high is because the insurance company does require the homeowner to pay a deductible so it is technically not free.

I never considered the older house angle. Most zipcodes are of older homes but some more research should be done.

I guess from here I should get with my friend and get him to pitch into the ad budget.

Thanks again!

 

[mikekob]

Dang. You did a great job! We do B2B and I tried facebook mostly to get some low level support. I think we spent about 50 bucks and knew going into it this wasn't a very good medium to attract customers.

 

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[ffp504]

Dang. You did a great job! We do B2B and I tried facebook mostly to get some low level support. I think we spent about 50 bucks and knew going into it this wasn't a very good medium to attract customers.

Thanks but I missed the goal of getting leads but latestarter gave some good feedback so I'm going to give it another try.
Did you generate any leads?

 

[mikekob]

I generated a few likes, but I'm pretty sure I did it wrong. I basically had a couple posts and just boosted them. It's pretty far from the ideal marketing method for our model, but for a B2C I could see the benefit. Not many hospital administrators buy based off facebook ads unfortunately.

 

[Boo Blizzi]

First thing - change "get your free quote" over the form and on the button to "get your free no-obligation roof inspection" (that is what you told them in the ad and I think it is a good angle)
Also - if budget is a concern, then I would use sidebar ads until I find the right value proposition and targeting - look at this thread for how to set it up step by step: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/does-anyone-use-facebook-ads.60821/
The form - only 3 fields (full name, email, phone number)
Everything else looks cool. Maybe a few copy tweaks, but it's good for another test

 

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[Silverhawk851]

Anytime I see someone playing the "Hope Game",
where you throw up a campaign and expect it to do well but it never does then you quit,
it's always trouble.

The "Hope Game" only leads to frustration,
feeling like a failure,
and no results.

The right way to go about it,
is mathematical.

First formula you need to know is :

Customer Lifetime Value - Cost Per Acquisition = Profit

So for you, each sold lead lead is worth $250.
Lets say 1 in 10 get sold.
That makes each lead worth $25.
Great.

Your Customer Lifetime Value,
I.e how much you make from each customer over the lifetime,
is $25 on average.

Total earnings / number of customers = CLV
(there are more complex formulas, but for simplicity sake)

So basically,
You can spend upto $25 in traffic, and still be breakeven/small profit.

Now you establish your Cost Per Acquisition.

Once you figure out what it cost you for 1 lead,
Let's say you got your first lead at $35.

total leads / total spent = Cost Per Acquisition

25 - 35 = $-10.

Your losing money.

Now you being OPTIMIZING,

Testing different ads, angles, landing pages, headlines, etc

Until you have a winner that is producing leads

BELOW your CLV ($25).

Now that you can make more than $25

for every $25 that you spend,

you scale

Congratulations you now have a money making machine,

Put in $25 and get more than $25 back.

Hope that helps.

 

[LateStarter]

The reason I set the income level a bit high is because the insurance company does require the homeowner to pay a deductible so it is technically not free.

Can you make it free? Can the roofer either pay for the deductible from his profits or jack up his rate to the insurance company so that he can reimburse the home owner the cost of the deductible to make it free? Look into doing something like the auto glass guys do where they cover the deductible. Now THAT'S adding value to the home owner.

 

[Andy Black]

1) Why Facebook first and not paid search?

Who's more likely to need their roof repaired? A home-owner catching up with news and friends on Facebook, or someone searching for "roof repairs <location>"?


2) Why draw eyeballs with a sensationalized image?

Does an image designed to attract clicks make it more or less likely that your visitors need their roof repaired?


3) 11 clicks is very low volume

... but I'd already worry that 1) and 2) above means you're not targeting the people most likely to convert into enquiries in the first place.

 

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[Andy Black]

Further reading:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/newbie-mistake-2-our-landing-pages-dont-convert.52617

And this is a video version of what @Silverhawk851 said:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/online-direct-response-metrics.52781