How effective are Facebook Ads?

[Juliana25]

How effective are Facebook Ads? Is is prudent enough for a site owner to give Facebook Advertisement?

[laffit]

I guess it depends on what your trying to accomplish. I experimented with some FB advertising about a year ago and concluded that it was too expensive for me. I tried simply getting traffic to my FB page figuring I'd pick up subscribers... I got eyeballs but no subscriptions (I had current relevant content too.) I also tried building a conversion type ad campaign toward a specific event and really targeted the ad toward very specific FB users, but my cost per click was WAY too high.

I mentioned in another thread that I've committed to building my FB presence and I'm going to give the ads another chance, this time focusing solely on getting new subscribers to my page. We'll see how it goes.

[TheGooner]

Facebook visitors go to interact with their friends ... not to look at adverts.

Those notification "adverts" that tell people that their friend have played this game - or have liked that page would probably be far more effetive than traditional advertising formats on facebook.

[F-L-C]

FB ads... from what I have heard (from both sides) are a complete waste of money... feel free to chime in peeps if you have some stats to prove otherwise

[laffit]

I saw this article over the weekend... Gamestop to J.C. Penney Shut Facebook Stores: Retail

I think it adds more support to what everyone else has already said - FB is more about hanging out/catching up with friends than shopping. That being said... I feel like FB is still important enough to MY traffic that I need to spend more time/effort on it.

[justbookies]

Facebook don't allow any gambling ads unless by prior arrangement if you spend over $30,000 a month. However, that said, I did have a run of Facebook ads for quite a while before they "caught up with me" and told me the situation. At that stage they disapproved all my ads (which were to a facebook page and also to an external website). I think as a gambling site you will get away with ads at Facebook for quite a while before they do cotton on as their policing of this is very poor. However, judged on my test, it is a total waste of money anyway.

[Jyotijain]

Facebook ads are not as effective as Google PPC. the reason is very clear on google people are searching and your ads are displaying due to search term relevancy.

On Facbeook you want to talk to your friends, see the latest update, photos and busy with uploading video and so on..

Yet people prefer face book ads due to its traffic. Facebook have highest traffic over any social media sites, i saw a news few days back, facebook have won traffic war against Google.

So if you get at-least 0.5% on facebook ads then i am sure it will be a good conversion. Just make your ads copy more interesting , and gave user a clear indication of your business and interested customer sure will click on your ads.

Best of luck for future.

[DanHorvat]

No ad is ever as effective as organic traffic. In FB, organic traffic comes from people sharing your content.

For free.

[casinoplanet]

No ad is ever as effective as organic traffic. In FB, organic traffic comes from people sharing your content.

For free.

Agree, unlike Twitter, FB followers do convert. It takes time and you have to make them come back. I do this with prizedraws and it works just great. People indeed come back, talk about it with their friends and therefore more likely to convert.

[BenjaminMarketing]

Facebook Ad's can be somewhat effective, depending on your budget and type of ad's you are running. They are a bit subliminal in their format, so they get SOME traffic, and can be very targetted, however I doubt they will trump google for conversions. As a previous individual stated in this thread, most Facebookers are there to interact with their friends....etc.

Best option would be to create business pages, or fanpages and have them promoted within your friendship circles. Offer value of some kind, and let the pieces fall where they may. There are alternatives..

[gergnell]

Its all about the content, some don't perform well while some do.

[Gamb]

Facebook ads are cheap if you target the audiance and effective..

[casinoplanet]

Facebook ads are cheap if you target the audiance and effective..

I started with FB ads last week and like the targeting options and price. I hope they turn out to be effective as well, but time will tell. The number of likes is increasing fast though

[lowrisk]

Depending on what you are doing, and who your targeting, the Facebook adverts can be quite useful. However, always ensure you can cross check traffic from something like Google Analytics. So if Facebook claims you have ten clicks, and analytic says just 5, then of course something is wrong.

I would only say to use ads towards an external URL. I did them to a group page once, and never got many active users from it. Also, I did have something very bizarre happen. I set it to exclude anybody under 18 and anybody from any country besides the UK, and I ended up with about 5 people aged 15 from Italy!!.

However, dn't let me put you off, you can target very easily, and set a daily budget, and stop and start whenever you want. Worth testing the water for sure!!