DMs Guild Have you had much luck/success with Facebook ads?

[Ath-kethin]

Based on a comment from @Morrus (regarding Kickstarter funds, but still), I took out a Facebook ad for one of my DMSGuild products. The ad ran for a week and the product in question sold reasonably well, but I'm having a hard time evaluating how much impact the ad actually had. Of course Facebook gives me statistics on how many people "engaged" with it and how many people clicked on it, but based on the numbers they gave I had about a 1% conversion rate (actual purchases as a percentage of link clicks).

That seems really low to me. The total number of purchases the week the ad ran was about 50% higher than the previous week, but I'm not sure the ad was the reason for that.

How much luck have others had with these ads? I don't want to keep spending money if it isn't getting me anywhere, but I'm happy to run more ads if it makes sense.

 

[Morrus]

When I do it, I tag a referral onto the URL and then I can measure exactly how much in Kickstarter pledges I have made. I compare that daily to the amount spent per ad. If an ad isn't getting a 1.5 ratio minimum, I switch it out for another one.

I don't know what tracking tools DMsGuild gives you. I've only used the ads for Kickstarters. Without tracking tools, it would be really hard to measure.

FB ads are tricky. You have to target them well, use multiple ads and switch out the ones which don't perform. It's actually quite a time-consuming task, with lots of trial-and-error. For me it's been hit and miss.

Oh, and unfortunately FB ads attract the sort of people who like to post nasty comments on FB ads. I wish you could filter those people out of the targeting somehow. Don't read the comments!

 

[TheSword]

Based on a comment from @Morrus (regarding Kickstarter funds, but still), I took out a Facebook ad for one of my DMSGuild products. The ad ran for a week and the product in question sold reasonably well, but I'm having a hard time evaluating how much impact the ad actually had. Of course Facebook gives me statistics on how many people "engaged" with it and how many people clicked on it, but based on the numbers they gave I had about a 1% conversion rate (actual purchases as a percentage of link clicks).

That seems really low to me. The total number of purchases the week the ad ran was about 50% higher than the previous week, but I'm not sure the ad was the reason for that.

How much luck have others had with these ads? I don't want to keep spending money if it isn't getting me anywhere, but I'm happy to run more ads if it makes sense.

When we email existing customers a 10-15% click through rate would be considered good. That’s for them to click a link just to get information. As I said that’s existing customers using our products.

For new customers I would imagine 5% click through would be considered very good.

1 in a 100 actually buying is a great result. How much does the Facebook promotion cost? Not much? Obviously if the profit on the product you’re selling is very low even this may be too much marketing cost per sale.

 

[Morrus]

Typically you can see what you're paying per click on a FB ad. That can vary a lot.

 

[Ath-kethin]

When I do it, I tag a referral onto the URL and then I can measure exactly how much in Kickstarter pledges I have made. I compare that daily to the amount spent per ad. If an ad isn't getting a 1.5 ratio minimum, I switch it out for another one.

I don't know what tracking tools DMsGuild gives you. I've only used the ads for Kickstarters. Without tracking tools, it would be really hard to measure.

FB ads are tricky. You have to target them well, use multiple ads and switch out the ones which don't perform. It's actually quite a time-consuming task, with lots of trial-and-error. For me it's been hit and miss.

Oh, and unfortunately FB ads attract the sort of people who like to post nasty comments on FB ads. I wish you could filter those people out of the targeting somehow. Don't read the comments!

Shockingly, the comments were mostly very positive!

DMSGuild give very little in the way of tracking or analysis tools. It's kind of frustrating, but I'm using Wizards IP so here I am.

When we email existing customers a 10-15% click through rate would be considered good. That’s for them to click a link just to get information. As I said that’s existing customers using our products.

For new customers I would imagine 5% click through would be considered very good.

1 in a 100 actually buying is a great result. How much does the Facebook promotion cost? Not much? Obviously if the profit on the product you’re selling is very low even this may be too much marketing cost per sale.

I can set a maximum I want to spend, and how many days I want it to run, and their algorithms do the rest. It's hard to tell how profitable the ads are because I'm lucky enough to have people buying more than just the advertised product. I can compare sales of the advertised product week over week (and even day over day if I want, but I find that less useful in this context).

For the week I ran the ad, I made over 2x what I spent on the ads, but that's another proportion that seems pretty low to me. But this is my first time ever really advertising for anything, so I'm in uncharted territory here.

 

[TheSword]

For the week I ran the ad, I made over 2x what I spent on the ads, but that's another proportion that seems pretty low to me. But this is my first time ever really advertising for anything, so I'm in uncharted territory here.

Probably not worth it then. If 50% of revenue has gone on marketing that week, unless you expect to see long term increases in revenue... probably not likely on Facebook.

I’m if you got a 1% purchase rate your revenue wasn’t higher. How many people did you get for your Facebook bucks. It’s usually a few thousand for £30, thought that may be fairly broad and in the Uk.

 

[Ath-kethin]

According to Facebook my ad "reached" an estimated 21,894 people, of whom 255 clicked on the link. Sales for the product in question during that period was 32 units, which netted a little more than 2x what I spent on the ad. Note that this net is my cut only - one of my collaborators also gets royalties, which are not reflected in the numbers I see.

So the ad might have made back what I spent on it and made money besides, which while low seems broadly OK - it's more than breaking even, after all. The real wrinkle is that I don't know how many people would have purchased it without the ad existing - the previous week, the product moved 20 units.

I'm mostly curious about how my experiences line up with others who have run the ads. My results seem pretty dismal, but since it's my first try I don't really have any context.