Facebook Ad Discussion

[Blaise84]

I've been spending some time scrolling through Facebook and looking at how the various ads are constructed. There are so many.

I'm noticing my internal reactions as I look at the different ads, and I seem to be most drawn to the ones that begin with a clear, simple question that elicits an emotional response. "Wondering if your marketing is working?" for example. These usually follow with a few lines of copy, and then there is more to read if you actually click and view the website.

On the other hand, ads that simply tell what the product is don't seem to have as much pulling power. "In this guide, we'll walk through 7 conversion-sabotaging words you need to replace in your email, ads, and landing pages ASAP." ...meh. It seems like there's potential there, but the phrasing makes it a dud. Of course, I'm basing this on my own internal responses.

Has anybody had any successes or failures/learning experiences with Facebook ads and want to share a bit about your experience?

 

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[Inuc]

What i can tell you from Facebook ads is it is an experience you gain while testing out. There is no perfect ads out there. An ad that may work for service A may turn out to be a fail for service B. Also with the different choices Facebook keep churning out consistently, you just have to test and see which work well for your type of business

 

[millerad]

I've been spending some time scrolling through Facebook and looking at how the various ads are constructed. There are so many.

I'm noticing my internal reactions as I look at the different ads, and I seem to be most drawn to the ones that begin with a clear, simple question that elicits an emotional response. "Wondering if your marketing is working?" for example. These usually follow with a few lines of copy, and then there is more to read if you actually click and view the website.

On the other hand, ads that simply tell what the product is don't seem to have as much pulling power. "In this guide, we'll walk through 7 conversion-sabotaging words you need to replace in your email, ads, and landing pages ASAP." ...meh. It seems like there's potential there, but the phrasing makes it a dud. Of course, I'm basing this on my own internal responses.

Has anybody had any successes or failures/learning experiences with Facebook ads and want to share a bit about your experience?

I have been testing some of my own facebook ads lately. Some for ad content, some for audience. I really do think that there is a science behind what your ad says. I do think that it depends on your audience. My thing I'm testing now, is how does the first line effect the clicks per impression and how does it effect the conversions that I get from that. Facebook is really powerful if you know how to use it.

 

[GuestUser450]

Has anybody had any successes or failures/learning experiences with Facebook ads and want to share a bit about your experience?

Yes. I've run all the fb ad there ever was in history. Like, many. Most fail. Some don't. Much eye waters.

 

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[The-J]

All of my successes caught me by surprise... and didn't last long. Not like Adwords where I can run campaigns for months without changing a thing and it just keeps printing money.

It's pure trial and error. You gotta test. Anyone who sells you anything different is lying to you to make a buck.

I'm not nearly as experienced with FB ads as some people here, but I have enough experience to know this to be the case.

Some people have successful campaigns that last for quite a long time. Ride those puppies until they crash, but never stop testing.

The most general rules I've come across are:

1) FB's algorithm is self learning, so it evolves in real time. Sometimes, it makes major changes without you knowing. This is normal... and on purpose.

2) Both CPMs and ROIs tend to go down over time, with spikes in either direction. (looking for input on this, I don't know if this is true for all but it's been true for me; again I'm not very experienced compared to some of you guys)

3) If you win on video, you win FB. Video is so damn powerful, but it's so hard to make a good one. That is more of an art than a science.

4) Whenever FB releases something new, it usually sucks; but it's worth trying out anyway if you think it may have an application (I ran a 'click to Messenger' ad campaign once with a CPL of like $26 lmao, for that niche though it was cheaper than Adwords but the leads were shittier)

Don't get caught into the guru trap. Your money is best spent on ad spend because you're probably not gonna lose every penny, and you might find something that is only a couple tweaks away from profitability.

 

[Inuc]

As you can see from all response on the thread so far - test, test , test more test

 

[The-J]

It's also possible to be profitable right out of the gate. It's rare though, and again doesn't tend to last long.

 

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[Aaron T]

For one of my brand blog sites I purely use FB Ads for my marketing. That is it. Nothing more. I have had great success with it, but only by testing, and everything I learned is fairly generic.

The reality is here is what I do that helps:

• Make sure the ad has picture/pictures that illicit some visual emotion but is not displeasing (FB doesn't like that)
• The Ad copy is key after and usually not providing all of the information but enough for it to NOT be click bait is gold
• Spend 1-5 dollars a day on the Ad and see how it does and if it does well increase spend
• Super target using using lots of different groups.. I limit my target audience a lot and then edit placements to very specific devices
• Understand your metrics, what it means, and how to use it to further optimize your FB Ad
• Realize the FB changes things all the time and sometimes does a better job optimizing for you than you do and sometimes just makes things worse
• Always be paying attention as even the good ads devalue over time
• Test everything as nothing seems to be always on point outside of the graphics / ad copy for me
• Know your niche really really well

I can consistently make ad revenue this way for a blog and even sell products no problem, but it is not super easy. It does take work. I haven't found a golden formulae that always works and I spend thousands a week on this now. Not a guru, and haven't found a reliable one in FB Ad space.

 

[Blaise84]

Yes. I've run all the fb ad there ever was in history. Like, many. Most fail. Some don't. Much eye waters.

Haha. And did you find any patterns that seemed to be involved in the ones that didn't fail?

 

[Blaise84]

What i can tell you from Facebook ads is it is an experience you gain while testing out. There is no perfect ads out there. An ad that may work for service A may turn out to be a fail for service B. Also with the different choices Facebook keep churning out consistently, you just have to test and see which work well for your type of business

Yeah, that seems to be the consensus.

My thing I'm testing now, is how does the first line effect the clicks per impression and how does it effect the conversions that I get from that.

How is this going? Any insights about the first line?

All of my successes caught me by surprise...

It's really interesting that you said the successes caught you by surprise. Do you have any examples of an ad that surprised you with success?

Spend 1-5 dollars a day on the Ad and see how it does and if it does well increase spend

Helpful! Thank you. This sounds like a practical way to test a variety of ads.

Not like Adwords where I can run campaigns for months without changing a thing and it just keeps printing money.

With AdWords, do you feel it's harder to get your ads in front of a target audience than with Facebook ads?

 

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[The-J]

It's really interesting that you said the successes caught you by surprise. Do you have any examples of an ad that surprised you with success?

It wasn't about the ad, although the ad wasn't great. That ad surprised me because it was high CPC, low relevance score, kind of shit CTR... but the conversion rate made up for it.

I got lucky. Haven't seen anything like that since. Another success I had was with a video with horrid engagement but again: conversion rate made it work. Everything else I've done has failed. I've had ads that perform quite well on the ad response side (10-11% CTR) but the profit isn't there. I've had ads that do OK but CPMs are through the roof, killing profit.

I'm not quite good at FB ads. Haven't gotten the hang of it even though I've been doing it on and off since 2013. The key seems to be, having the willingness to spend on data + use that data to move forward; however, my ads are for clients rather than for myself.

Adwords is much easier. You mentioned target audience? Adwords isn't like that. You're not targeting for demographics, you're targeting for a search query. Super simple if you know what people are searching for. Much harder if people aren't actively searching, but still doable.

 

[ddzc]

Solid advice in the thread but just like the others mentioned, test. I can give you a winning formula for my business but that doesn't mean it will work for you. A lot of people crush on video ads, but when I launched 4-5 different video ads, they did nothing. Carousel ads converted the most for me. You need to create 10-15-20 ad sets with multiple ads with in and test, monitor, test. I sometimes have good ad sets which die after 2-3 weeks and I have to cut them loose, create new ad sets, monitor again...always tweaking and testing.