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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
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