www.kevindohertyonline.com

I admit it.. In the unending pursuit of mastering the lowest Facebook advertising costs possible, I have become mildly obsessed with the Facebook ad platform and have spent a lot of time experimenting with Facebook PPC in this last few months.  I know that some Facebook ad wizards are just killing it right now with .01-.08 cent clicks.  They might have to spend $1-2 for similar clicks using Google Adwords.

In the testing I have done, I have had several campaigns that were .09-.18 cent clicks.  I also use Google Adwords quite a bit, which undoubtedly costs more per click, but still seems to convert better than Facebook traffic.  I think this is largely because people searching on Google are in more of a buying mode than on Facebook.  I have noticed with Facebook that the ROI is more medium to long-term, whereas with Google Adwords people are more willing to buy something right away.  Not that this is a problem.. as the whole point of Facebook is to build relationships.  This has to come first in social media, so it’s expected that the sale would take quite a bit longer.

If you’re spending more than .40 cents per click on average on your Facebook ads, the 3 tips below should help you to immediately  lower your Facebook advertising costs.

#1 ~   Set your ads on CPM instead of CPC

CPM means cost per impression, whereas CPC is cost per click.  I have noticed that as long as I am getting a decent CTR (click through ratio), then I will spend quite a bit less setting most ads on CPM rather than CPC.

#2 ~   Keep your clicks on FacebookFrom what I can tell, Facebook seems to

reward advertisers who send their clicks to a fan page rather than an external website.  In the testing I have done, the CPC is at least 20% cheaper by sending traffic to my fan page.  If you do this, just make sure that you have a fan page set up to generate leads and guide people through the process you want them to follow.

You can check out the  landing page I use for my fan page here (introduce yourself on my wall as well!)

#3 ~  Only run your ads for 48 hours, then pause them. In the testing I have done, the click through rate (CTR)  almost

always decreases after the first 24 hours that the ad goes live.  When the CRT goes down, the CPC goes up.  My thought on this is that your target market is getting repeated exposure to the same ad the longer you run it, which makes it less likely that they will click on it.  Although it’s kind of a pain, I have found that the best way to keep my Facebook advertising costs down is to continually create new ad variations with headlines and images that keep my audience more intrigued by my message.  Instead of deleting your ads, just pause them and consider starting them again a month or two after you initially launch them.

Monitor your ads diligently right after they go live, as you’ll get very clear data within a couple of hours as to whether the ad is a ‘keeper’, meaning the CPC is under .30 cents.

Your Facebook Advertising Costs won’t matter unless….

You have a well-established marketing funnel that you take the prospect through.  I think this is one of the fatal flaws that causes so many marketers to conclude that PPC advertising, whether on Facebook or Google, is a complete waste of money

On Facebook, you often won’t recoup your investment immediately on the front end.  Instead, you need to build a relationship with the prospect by getting them to like your fan page and then get on your email list.  This is the front end of your marketing funnel.  Many Facebook advertisers have the front end set up fine, but they completely lack a back end funnel that they take each and every lead through.  

Along these lines, make sure you have at least 2-3 months of high quality autoresponder messages that share a lot of great content and get your leads to engage with you and your products and services.  On your fan page, ask open-ended questions that keep your fans intrigued by your message and inspired by your guidance. It is very easy to squander money on any sort of paid advertising if you approach it too casually, without the right marketing funnel set up.  A lot of people will just throw up campaigns just to see how they work out of curiosity, and they get excited when they see so many people clicking on their ads in a short period of time.  At least 90% of the time, however, this approach leads to disappointment, as getting someone to click an ad is actually the easiest part of the process.  The challenge is getting your clicks to convert into leads and then sales, which takes quite a bit more marketing skill than just throwing up an ad to see what happens.

Facebook Advertising Costs:  How Do I Know If I Am Making or Losing Money?

Well, if you are asking this question, there’s a 90% chance you are losing money using Facebook advertising.  It’s important to track not only the CPC and CTR,

but also what percentage of your clicks are joining your fan page and/or becoming leads through your website.  Facebook does have conversion tracking where you can install some HTML code to track both leads and sales.  This is a very smart thing to, or else there will be too much guess work involved.  As mentioned, you also want to make sure you have a really good marketing funnel set up, or else you will likely still lose money, even if your CTR, CPC, and lead/sales conversion rates are good.

I for one am a lot more excited about Facebook advertising than Google Adwords.  I think that, for a lot of service-based professionals, the soft-selling approach that works much better in Facebook is generally a better fit than Google PPC.  The cost per click tends to be a lot cheaper, the targeting continues to improve, and you can add that all-important image to your ad which gives it so much more power.

What has your experience with Facebook advertising been?  Feel free to leave me a comment below.

I hope this information helps you avoid some of the early mistakes I made so you can keep your Facebook advertising costs down while enjoying a great ROI!

www.kevindohertyonline.com