Facebook Ads Journal - From Zero to Hero?

noZaw

noZaw

Banned
Nov 27, 2010
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Hey all,

I have to start making money. No more reading, no more lazying around. I want to keep a journal to keep me motivated and have things on track.

To start things off, I have decided to tackle Facebook Ads. Why? I can set a limited budget, and there are so many different demographics and interests you can target. I have read various blogs such as mrgreen, profitaddiction, and rileypool, and they all offer good advice on facebook ads. From these blogs I learned that in order to get margins, you must use keyword targeting.

I realize that the 3 big niches are:
gaming
dating
mobile

If other people are banking off these niches, why can't I? I understand that you could get super creative and come up with a campaign that has 2000% ROI, but i'm not that creative yet, I'm a noob. So, I want to tackle the stable niches and try to come up with at least 100%-200% ROI.

Goal: $100 a day in profit
Ultimate Goal: $1000 a day in profit

My budget is $1k-$2k. I'm willing to take smart risks because I understand risks are necessary in business.

I will try to update this thread frequently. I already have my credit card added to my FB ads account. I will also create my first campaign today, and I will tackle gaming first. I'll let you know how it goes.

I also want to give big ups to my friend for introducing me to internet marketing, and even though he's not going to spoon feed me, I thank him for giving me wise words such as experience is the best teacher.
 


I set my daily budget to $25 just to test for CTRs and EPCs.

I picked an offer that payed a little over $1.00 that looked like it didn't have much competition.

I picked a demographic that had 800,000 people and set up my campaign 2 hours ago.


Here are the stats for my best performing ads:

ad #1: 10k impressions: 0.160% CTR, 0.28 CPC
ad #2: 10k impressions: 0.130% CTR, 0.38 CPC

i have about 2 more ads that are between a 0.2% - 0.3% CTR, but fb is sending them very little traffic, and in my opinion, these images are superior to the other ones.

My EPC is 0.23

I'm at a loss =[

But if I run these ads longer, shouldn't the CPCs go down? I've only spent about $4-5 for each of these ads.

Does anyone know how long an 800k demographic would last on one offer? I could probably keep changing up images, creatives, and headlines, but is there a point to which the demographic is just "dead" to your offer? Or is the demographic not dead until all 800k are exposed to your offer?

And at this point I'm tempted to switch to CPM. If I can run volume at CPM and get my click costs down 50%, I think I could probably turn out a nice profit. I hear everyone say "if your CTR is above 0.1%, switch to CPM"
 
1) Yes, keep the ads live; after X amount of impressions; the bids should go down naturally. It's best to never force lower bids; as in lowering your CPC bid below your AVG CPC.
2) How long you can hit a demo depends on how hard you're hitting it everyday. If I'm spending $3,000-$4,000 a day on that demo size; and you're spending $50/day; obviously I'll burn it out much quicker. For me though, there is a noticeable decline in CTR and CVR 3-4 weeks in.
3) I personally don't recommend switching to CPM because it's complete crap. right now Ads that run a .15% on CPC will run a .02% CTR on a CPM basis; trust me. Your best bet is working with on a CPC basis.
 
Thanks for the tips mGrunin.

I can see your reasoning in tip #1. If your bid is too low, you'll get really crappy placements, thus lowering your CTR. But would you say it's alright to keep your bids several cents above your average CPC, and just keep lowering your bids slightly as your CPC is lowering?

And as for CPC vs CPM, I am just testing this one out. I hear many people say CPM is the best, and then I hear others say CPC is the best.

Here's what I think.

If you're targeting a broad audience, it would be best to bid CPC because your goal is to grab the attention of your fb user, and you would want the top placements.

However, if you're ultra targeting and using keywords in your ad body, description, and have related images, then I think it would be best to go the CPM route. I mean, think about it. If you have an ad that's targeted, even if it's in the 3rd or 4th position, it's going to be much, much more appealing than the untargetted ads in the 1st or 2nd position.

Since I am targeting, I will try out CPM, and I will let you guys know how the results go.
 
Here are the results for today:

Avg CTR: 0.17% CTR
Avg CPC: 0.09
EPC: 0.15

11/28/10 profits: $35

Feels great to make a profit.

I can't wait till my daily spend limit gets lifted.

I'm going to scale this campaign up. Anyone know how much $$ I can squeeze out of this 800k demo? I feel like if I really ran this demo into the ground... I could probably get 8-12% of them to convert. $80,000 revenue anybody? I think I am looking too far ahead in the future... =P
 
If you are keyword targeting, then you can make it work with CPM. If you are not keyword targeting, then CPC is the way to go.

I'm a big fan of using the suggested bids as a indicator of how I should move my bid. I always want to make sure to keep my bid at the max suggested bid, if not 1/2c above. Like you said, if you force down bids, you get worse placements, which gives you worse CTRs, and this will snowball into a failed ad.

Congrats on your first day of profit. Today is Sunday though, with gaming, you'll notice a difference between weekends and weekdays.
 
Hey, like you i'm going to jump in, and funnily enough one of my first "tests" was going to be Facebook adds, Congrats on making profit, one question though, are you linking direct to the affiliates page, or are you using your own landing page?
 
Sorry I haven't updated this in a while. I had a load of tests in school this week so I didn't have much time at all, so I didn't do anything over the weekdays.

Anyways, I had to change my advertising method. Still using FB.

So yesterday I picked a different gaming offer and decided to try a different approach on advertising it. When I used images not related to the game, I got some insanely high CTRs, but I also got some insanely low EPCs. So, I decided that I had to use ingame images to increase my EPC, but I know it will lower my CTR. It's a tradeoff you have to master.

Anyways, using images from in the game is really tough when you're trying to get a high CTR. I tried to keyword target audiences that would respond to my gaming offer the best, but even when I use ingame images, it's difficult getting my CTR above 0.1%

I've been losing money trying to test and find which images work best. I also have to work on my ad title and description as well.

All in all, it's been pretty frustrating. I'm just trying to make this darn thing work... I'm getting 20-25% conversion rates and 0.25-0.30+ EPCs, but because my CTR is so low, my CPC is really high and it's unprofitable. Arghhhh!

Once I find that ad that yields a 0.1% CTR or higher, I'm gonna split test it, use different headlines, and flip the switch to CPM.

How do some of you get such a low CPC when you're using images from the game itself?
 
Quick update:

The title and description matter THAT much!!!

So I launched some new ads that were getting piss poor CTR, around 0.06-0.08%. Boooo.

So I decided to change up the title and description of the ads. The CTR shot up on most of my ads from 0.12% - 0.18% CTR. The images weren't all that great either, so I bet with some more optimization, I can reach the 0.2% CTR.

And the EPCs? Yummy. I only sent about 20-30 clicks for the "new" tests, but I'm yielding a 0.30 EPC. 20-30 clicks isn't a lot, but it's enough IMO to serve as a representative sample. I am going to flip the switch to CPM.

0.30 EPC and 0.1%+ CTR!?!?! The tests are early and small, but I think I am going to make it.

12/4/10 profits: -$10

Don't worry, tomorrow looks bright! I'm going to scale this mofo up. Even if the EPC drops down to 0.25 and even if the CTR drops to 0.1%, you can still make a pretty darn good profit off of those stats.
 
@seolinker: yes.

Ok wtf, I changed to CPM just now and my CTR dropped to 0.02% CTR... just like Mgrunin said.

Weird. This didn't happen to me in the past, but all of a sudden, it happens now. Looks like I'll be sticking to CPC. Shit. My dreams are always getting crushed.
I'll just be running the ads at CPC and let you guys know how it pans out...

At the moment, I'm really frustrated.
 
@LMFAO

I simply used keywords that targeted in on the demographic as much as possible. I tried to grab their attention. Keep in mind that I made quite outrageous claims in the titles and descriptions. After many tests, I have come to a conclusion. Yes, you could get a really high CTR using this method, but conversions are completely crap, and your drop in EPC will be really large. Not worth it.

@seolinker

I pick the 5 best images that I think will perform well. It is essential that the 5 images are not "related" in subject. For example, not all 5 images should relate to one subject, e.g., a character. This way, you'll have a better idea of what image and type performs best. Have 5 different image types.

I really should be testing 15+ images, but I'm on a limited budget, and as of right now, this method is working for me.




Anyways, I'm completely changing my methods up. In the past, I've gotten CTRs as high as 0.5%, but EPCs as low as 0.02. I've got to stop aiming for such high CTRs, because in the end, the leads are crap, and the EPCs are downright low.

So here is how I'm changing up:

I've done a few more "tests" and I think I'm going to go the CPC route. I'm targeting fairly large demographics, and I'm only getting 0.08-0.12% CTRs. However, the gaming offer itself is related to the demographics, the image is from inside the game AND it is kind of related to the demographic.

The title and descriptions are not outrageous. They are believable, relate to the game, and unique. Sure, I might not get crazy CTRs, but I've sent a little traffic and I'm actually getting some pretty good CVRs, and I'm talking 25-30% CVRs...

So, what are my plans?

I've got the offer. I've got the demographic. Those are the hardest parts to find, in my opinion. Now all I need to do is split test for better images, titles, descriptions, male/female, and age. I have decent ad copies right now, but I know they can do better.

Also, ages 14-23 convert like crap. Try the older demographics, you might be surprised. Hell, sometimes females can convert much better. It's all about the split testing.

At this point, I am not going to give in. I have a working demographic and offer, now all I have to do is optimize for profitability. I don't care if I have to spend $500 or $1000 and be in the red, I am pretty damn sure I can make this profit.
 
On a side note, I used to do some other IM ventures (not PPC related) earlier in 2010.

In the beginning, I was super frustrated. I saw others make money using the exact same method, and I just couldn't make the damn thing work.

Hell, even one of my friends online who does IM was doing pretty well using this method, but I just couldn't make it work. He kept having small successes, and I kept having big failures. Seeing my friend succeed and me fail was not a pretty sight.

Finally, after 3 weeks of just throwing shit at the wall and countless frustrations and pulling hair out of my head, I finally got something to stick. It made me a ton of money, much more than my IM friend. It was a pretty random idea too that I wasn't even sure was going to work, but it worked.

The result?

I had an epiphany. I knew how this "method" worked, and I scaled the crap out of it.
My friend never had another success, and he kept asking me for help. It seemed like 50% of the things I utilized turned to gold and brought in profits. What I learned was that you have to copy what others are doing, but put a twist on it.

You should also have a friend who is successful in whatever niche you're promoting. Why? Well, I never would have figured out the method if it weren't for my online friend in the first place. Even though I became more successful than him, I still owe it all to him for introducing me to the method.

So, I am willing to go through another 3 weeks of hell to make this damn FB thing work. Hell, I'd probably go through another 3 months.

But I know that once you get that "epiphany" for any IM method, you're pretty much solid money until the method dies out...

The gaming niche is pretty big on FB, so once I do "get it," it probably won't be going anywhere for a long time... I will succeed.
 
NoZaw, great posts, keep it up!

Profitability is not as easy as it seems initially, but worth the effort!
 
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