Just how big is Facebook, really?
According to TechCrunch, big enough to encroach on Yahoo’s position of “third largest Web property in the world”, trailing none other than Google (#1) & Microsoft (#2).
In the U.S., Facebook already has the second highest number of unique visitors per month – surpassing Yahoo for the first time in January. Compete.com also reports that of all time spent online in January, 11.6% was on Facebook, compared to less than 5% on Yahoo and Google each.
What does this mean to you?
Well, I don’t have the answer to that question, but I can tell you what it now means to some of our clients for whom we’ve recently started advertising on Facebook –> more qualified customer leads + a desirable cost = more $$$ for them.
The following story is about a lead generation client (Client A, for anonymity), but Facebook would certainly be worth testing if you’re in an e-commerce space too.
We created Client A’s Facebook account back on January 26. He’s a local advertiser, only seeking clients within a close radius of a heavily populated metro, so we set the Facebook geo-targeting to just 10 miles around his city.
Within 18 days his campaign spent just over $500, generating almost 600 clicks, but these numbers don’t tell the whole story yet:
When we dig into our Google Analytics reporting for Client A’s Facebook PPC traffic, we can see that his $500 in spend produced 11 highly valuable customer leads:
By highly valuable, I mean that Client A knows his customer lifetime value and has been able to determine that each new customer lead is worth $600 to him.
So for a ~$500 cost, with 11 new customer leads worth $6,600 (11 x $600), we’re talking about a superior ROI from Facebook in just 18 days!
It’s important to note here that Facebook is only producing 5.5% of the overall leads from our top 5 traffic sources, so it’s not going to replace Google AdWords anytime soon. Facebook is however, turning out to be a solid supplemental lead source for Client A.
1. Track your conversions with a reporting service like Google Analytics.
2. Utilize Facebook’s demo/geographic targeting to focus on a niche audience.
3. Set your bid price within Facebook’s suggested CPC bid range.
4. Use a captivating image in your ad (you can combine an image with text).
5. If you generate a strong impression share initially, but then it trends downward over time, you should rotate new ad creatives to keep a fresh message in front of your audience’s eyes.
6. If you are unable to generate any substantial impression share at all, then try experimenting with different or fewer demographic segments. You can also try targeting a larger geographic area to boost your ads’ reach.
