Skip to main content

Facebook Ad Experiment

My Facebook Ad experiment has come to a close, with confusing results. I ran a CPC campaign on Monday and a CPM campaign on Tuesday. I used the same ad, the same hours, the same demo. The only difference was the CPM vs the CPC. I bid $0.50 for the CPM which was in the middle of Facebook's suggested bid. And I bid $1.00 max bid per click for the CPC ad, which was in the middle of the .81-1.20 range.

I didn't get any clicks on Monday, so no money spent. The ad had 5,457 impressions. On Tuesday, I got 4 clicks on the ad that got 69,476 impressions and cost me $10.

The numbers looked strange to me. Why did only 5500 people see the ad on Monday? I ran it again on Wednesday. 4,958 impressions, no clicks. I am very confused as to why so few people saw the ad. Wouldn't Facebook show it as much as possible until it got the 10 clicks I budgeted for? Or did someone just bid higher per click so they showed those ads more often and mine didn't get shown enough to get the clicks?

When it is all said and done, my cost per click on the CPM model was $2.50. If $1.00 was all I was willing to spend per click, then the CPC model is the way to go. However, nearly 70,000 impressions and 4 clicks might have been worth $10.

PS - I am going to run the ad one more time and increase my CPC bid to $1.25 to see what happens. It is now telling me the suggested range is .68-.98.

Comments

Sue Anne said…
According to what I've been told, Facebook gives you less slots in the rotation on a CPC campaign vs. a CPM campaign. It doesn't actually matter what your bid price is on the CPC, it's still going to get less views.
May 28, 2010 at 3:16 AM
Liam said…
In my experience, Facebook ads are just not worth the money.. I spent $50 on a campaign for about a week and I think I got a total of around 100 clicks or something? I don't remember the details now but it was seriously dismal.
May 28, 2010 at 12:48 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 Thoughts on #ASAE10

Ok, so I could have spelled out the title, but chose the hashtag - #asae10. Supposedly there were over 8,000 tweets with the hashtag, but probably countless more direct messages of messages that left out the hashtag but were conference related. Two years ago, we were using twitter as a backchannel to talk about speakers. Now, over 800 people sent conference related tweets. If you aren't on Twitter, you are already late to the party. Anyway, on with the post... In no particular order, my thoughts on this years ASAE Annual Conference: 1. LA was a good venue. Lots to do. Hotels close by. Only downside was the rooms were a bit of a hike. 2. I missed Sunday because of family obligations. That really put me behind the 8 ball. Since I led a session, that meant I only got to go to 3 true sessions. Sorry, I don't count Joy Behar and the closing session. Although Marshall Goldsmith was good, I probably wouldn't have gone to see that speech as a Learning Lab. 3. Based on #
11 comments
Read more

Sunk Costs, Marginal Costs and Economics

When I was in college, I hated Economics. Then, several years later, I found myself teaching undergrad Econ and learned an appreciation for it. Now today, I have an even bigger appreciation for it. I have also noticed that not enough people have a solid grasp of some basic econ concepts that can be applied to everyday life. Two of these are cost related. Here are some basic definitions from The Economist website : Sunk Costs - When what is done cannot be undone. Sunk costs are costs that have been incurred and cannot be reversed, for example, spending on ADVERTISING or researching a product idea. They can be a barrier to entry. If potential entrants would have to incur similar costs, which would not be recoverable if the entry failed, they may be scared off. Marginal Costs - The difference made by one extra unit of something. Marginal revenue is the extra revenue earned by selling one more unit of something. The marginal cost (or whatever) can be very different from the AVERAGE c
1 comment
Read more

Do you want your association to be Walmart?

Earlier this week, I had a small Twitter discussion with Kevin Holland ( @associationinc ) regarding aggregation as a value proposition. @associationinc - Deciding your role is to aggregate other people's value is like George Costanza wearing sweatpants. "You're telling the world, 'I give up.'" @cardcat - Interesting comment about aggregating. Don't you think it is a viable option for a small association who can't afford it? @associationinc - Nothng wrong with aggregating content as long as you don't perceive it to be your value proposition. There's no real future in it. @cardcat - Don't think it is THE value proposition, but I think it could be A value to members, a big value. @associationinc - A big value is something you offer that nobody else can or that u can do better. Aggregating content is easy, there4 unsustainable. @cardcat - True, it isn't sustainable. But I almost think if you don't act as an aggregator, you risk folks
3 comments
Read more