Facebook Ad’s – great marketing tool or waste of money?

With over 1.2 billion users worldwide, Facebook’s ad network is a major world player. But is it right for your business? This conundrum is plaguing small business owners as well as multinational firms. Fortunately, although the answer has to be ‘it depends’, here at boxChilli Digital we know what makes the difference between Facebook ad success and an expensive mistake.

Below are some key questions to ask yourself as you consider whether to advertise with Facebook. For a more detailed consultation, tailored to your specific business needs, please contact us directly.

Can you get the same effect for free?

Facebook ad’s aren’t the only way to connect with Facebook users. Encouraging users to like, share and follow your page, events and offers are all good ways to promote a product or service without giving the site a penny. Giveaways and competitions have a high success rate in many industries, effectively raising the profile of your site. As an additional benefit, a competition shared in a user’s feed will be shown to their friends, multiplying the number of people who hear about your product.

How much do you know about your customers?

The better targeted an ad is, the more likely the viewer is to click on it. Facebook provides detailed options for you to select the demographic your ad targets, but that will only help if you already know your customers. As an example, if you’re selling children’s dance classes in Bournemouth, it’s easy to select parents, with kids of the right age, in the right area. If you’re selling dance shoes online, and ship globally, you might struggle to create an effective target.

Are you in a busy location?

If you’re competing for views in a popular geographical area, the per click cost of the ad may not provide value for money. As an example, the travel market is highly competitive, so if you’re a small B&B in London, you’ll be competing with the world’s largest hotel chains for the same clicks. Not only do they have deeper pockets, they probably charge higher room rates, so can afford to pay more per lead.

On the other hand, if you’re one of just a few businesses interested in advertising to people in your small town, then you may get a great rate.

Is your follow through strong?

Facebook ad’s lead customers to your site, but they can’t make them shop. If your ecommerce site is weak, or if the ad doesn’t link to a page that delivers exactly what it promises, you may find yourself paying for clicks that don’t convert to sales.

Are you ready to learn the tech?

Facebook is a constantly evolving platform, and it’s ad structure goes through regular overhauls. If you’re not ready to dive in and learn how to manage your ad’s on the site, as well as how to monitor and assess the success of your campaigns, then you can’t optimise your spending or learn from mistakes. Of course, you don’t have to go back to school – you can always call in the experts instead!

Take a look at our portfolio for some recent projects, if you like to find out more how we can help you with social media & digital marketing visit our pages or to find more about our web design and digital marketing team

Anders Bohea – boxChilli Digital

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