But with search engines like Google and Yahoo people are using them for looking for a specific thing, whatever that might be. Since the only thing Google knows about people is the geographic region they come from (and this isn’t relevant to many searches) the only thing Google can use to match up people with what they want is the keywords they specify in their searches. Consequently, search engines are laser focused on matching up people only with exactly the searches that best fit their keywords. With Google Adwords they allow you to specify the specific keywords and keyword strings that your pay per click ads will be found under. To determine what words people are using to search you can use Google Wordtracker to see how many searches have been done locally and internationally for specific keywords and keyword phrases. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Advanced Facebook Ad Tactics Part 3
So after a few days of having your ads displayed if your average Click Through Rate is above 0.1% then using the cost per impressions method will be cheaper than pay per click. If the Click Through Rate is less than 0.1% then the pay per click payment method will be cheaper. You’ll probably find in most cases your Click Through Rate (CTR) is usually below 0.1%, meaning the Pay Per Click method will be less expensive than paying per thousand impressions. But if you have a very small target audience based on strict parameters you specify when you create your ad you may find the opposite is true. Experiment and see which payment method works best for you while keeping the 0.1% Click Through Rate rule firmly in mind. Continue reading
Advanced Facebook Ad Tactics Part 2
Use Ad Posting Automation Software – posting lots of ads is time consuming and tweaking all of them is very time consuming. So there is third party software available specifically designed for Facebook allowing you to post large numbers of nearly identical ads (eg. the ads only differ by your bid for each click).
The 0.1% Rule – there are two ways you can pay for ads on Facebook: Continue reading
Advanced Facebook Ad Tactics Part 1
Facebook ads can be powerful ways of promoting your business, but things can very easily get out of hand. Sure, you can get your ad displayed to hundreds of thousands of people in a very short amount of time, but it may cost you a small fortune before you realize it and yield dismal results. So this article series is for helping you tweak your Facebook ad campaigns so you get a great return on investment for your advertising budget. Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 8
For instance, you might find that there are 100,000 people in your city and within 10 miles of your city’s boundary, but there may only be 5000 people who are over age 50 in your city, only 1000 who state investing as an interest and only 300 who specifically state real estate investing as an interest. Advertising luxury homes or investment properties to these people using CPM might be very effective because your ad would reach all of them fairly quickly. You may not even have to pay that much per thousand for having this ad since it’s so targeted. Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 7
Let’s say you specify you’ll pay 50 cents maximum per click and the next highest competitor today has a maximum bid per click of 40 cents. Facebook would charge you 41 cents for that click – just enough to beat out the next highest bidder. But if next week you still had your maximum bid at 50 cents and the next highest bidder was only for 20 cents then you’d get that click for 21 cents. So Facebook only charges you what you need to pay to just beat out the next highest bidder for the demographic you’re going after at that particular date and time. So really keep an eye out for particular dates/times when competition for clicks is minimal and offer more campaigns during those periods. Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 6
The best way of testing the effectiveness of your ads is using what’s known as A/B testing with multiple ads. This is where you use one ad and then make a duplicate of that ad that’s identical in every way except that it changes one variable (eg. the ad headline). Pay very close attention to these tests and the results for each ad as this is the real nitty gritty data for understanding what makes your ads effective.
Use Squeeze Pages – you don’t want people clicking your ad, visiting your site, and then leaving. That’s just a waste of money and many people will do this if you don’t capture their contact info on your landing page. What you need to do is capture that person’s interest by having your ad link to a squeeze page. The squeeze page has a single thing to offer (eg. foreclosure properties) and the visitor is either interested or they aren’t. If your Facebook ad clearly states “Toronto Foreclosure Homes” and someone clicks it then you can bet if your squeeze page says the same thing that you’ll have a lot of people following through and providing their email address for receiving updates via email on this type of property. Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 5
Get An Eye Catching Graphic – it’s easy for people to ‘tune out’ any sponsored pay per click ads on Google since most of them are in an unobtrusive spot on the side of the page. Recognizing this, Facebook allows sponsored ads to include a graphic of your choice with your ad. So you should use a graphic that will catch their eye and make them more likely to read your ad. This is another advantage of Facebook ads as Google AdWords don’t allow graphics within their ads. Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 4
Describe Your Target Demographic – since Facebook users usually provide a wealth of information on themselves in their profile the site has a fantastic ability for letting you specify the demographic information of your target prospect and have your ad only displayed to people closely matching that description. Here are the various things you can specify for your target prospects: Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 3
The time to get in on the Facebook advertising platform is now while the pricing is low and the competition is not as fierce as with Google AdWords. It won’t be long before others discover the potential Facebook has to offer. Once attention is turned in this direction, the competitive nature of the site is likely to go up along with the advertising costs.
Meanwhile, here are some insights on making the most of your Facebook ad campaigns: Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 2
As with popular social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace, Facebook helps facilitate viral marketing in a big way. One user becomes a fan and in doing so tells their entire network of friends about a product, service or website. Many people have hundreds of friends on Facebook. These friends, in turn, tell their friends, and those people tell their friends, and so on, providing a tremendous boost with word of mouth advertising. If you are lucky enough to have your ads or information go viral, you can gain a number of instant benefits that money just cannot buy. Since this form of advertising is word-of-mouth, friends of friends tend to see it as genuine and trustworthy. In fact, 78% of people trust product/service referrals from friends, whereas only 14% of people trust conventional advertising.
One of the very best ways of using Facebook is advertising your business on the site with Facebook ads. These ads Continue reading
Facebook Ads: Major Bang For Your Advertising Buck Part 1
Facebook has become one of those rare post-dotcom boom huge internet success stories. In just 5 years it’s become the second most visited site in the world behind Google worldwide. On March 13th 2010, Facebook surpassed Google as
the most visited site in the US. It’s popularity has skyrocketed, going from 100 million to 500 million users in the past 2 years alone. An estimated 50 percent of active users take the time to log into Facebook each and every day. That’s some 200 million people coming to this site daily. The amount of time people typically spend on Facebook is huge: an estimated 500 billion minutes are spent by users on the site each month – far more than Google. More than 150 million active users access Facebook through mobile devices across 200 mobile operators in 60 countries. Facebook currently gets 39 billion views per month – 5 times more than Google. An astounding 96% of Generation Y (those born in the mid 1970’s or later) use Facebook. Continue reading
