Advertising on Facebook costs can seem affordable, lucrative, and a great way to capture potential new clients or customers. We will share three small business examples in this post, in an effort to help others determine whether this is a viable solution for their business, or gravitate towards a more traditional and proven method. We are writing this article from an unbiased standpoint, in an effort to show people what we see as an Advertising agency, and answer some relevant industry questions we receive every day in regards to the Facebook advertising platform. These examples are from real clients, all with very limited budgets for advertising.

Why Buy Facebook Advertising?

Small businesses generally look for lower cost marketing initiatives to drive revenue growth. Within 10 minutes of meeting with a new client or prospect regarding advertising, we generally are asked questions regarding using Facebook as a low cost solution for advertising. Clients have usually used Facebook as an advertising platform prior to our stepping on their doorstep, which has usually given them lackluster results. We also find clients wanting to use Facebook advertising, but they’ve determined they don’t have the ability or expertise to advertise effectively on Facebook. Is this the case? Quite frankly, the answer is no. Facebook advertising is so simple to use, we have proven that it isn’t the user, rather the platform that is failing it’s advertisers.

What Facebook Advertising Companies Won’t Tell You

As a Facebook advertising company, we will buck the system on this subject, causing adamant objections from our industry. We help clients advertise on Facebook for two reasons:

1. They are looking to build brand presence for their company, and want to either gain likes and/or followers for their business on a low cost cpm (cost per impression) basis. Facebook is a great platform for this form of advertising.
2. The client is looking to offer an e-commerce product for sale, which generally involves a product which resides in either it’s own or fairly uncompetitive market vertical. The keywords for this bullet point are unique product or unique market vertical.

Additionally, we do not accept pure advertising clients at Brand Presence Agency, rather use advertising as an additional service for our marketing clients, regardless of the advertising platform. Clients who feel that advertising without marketing initiative is their sole source for growth, generally do not meet our client structure standards, as they will never be in a position to engage in a long standing relationship.

Does Advertising On Facebook Work?

It can. Definitely. We don’t want to completely discourage people from using Facebook advertising as a revenue and branding growth supplement, rather set realistic expectations in regards to the platform being the go-to solution for every business, for every need. Realistically, we generally take the projections given by Facebook, and divide the number by 2, or increase the cost initiatives by 2. We generally see an advertisement by Facebook to boost a post for “only” $3 per day, or set a monthly advertising budget for a company. These numbers are NOT realistic for an ad spend OR capture. See below:

Client example #1: Skinnychickcoffee.com

Skinny Chick Coffee offers it’s clients and prospects both the opportunity to lose weight through their product lines, but also become an affiliate marketer or independent representative of their products. Their website allows visitors to participate in an interactive sales presentation, which then leads the visitor to a sign up page after the presentation.

Our initiative for the campaign used 2 different types of campaigns. The first campaign allowed visitors to go through the presentation directly, followed by being taken to the sign up page at the end of the presentation, while sending the visitor an email upon entering the presentation, with explicit instructions of how to engage with their brand. The target demographics for the Facebook campaign involved both groups of people looking for dieting information, and people looking for home based business opportunities. The capture result for all campaigns was zero new clients. Was this the fault of the advertising methodology, content offered, or the platform used? We will answer this question at the end of the article.

Client example #2: Kenmore Youth Wrestling

Kenmore Wrestling Club is a non-profit youth wrestling club, based out of Akron, Ohio. Their goal is to provide local boys and girls the opportunity to participate in a youth wrestling league.

Our initiative for this campaign was quite simple. We created a 2 week advertisement within their local area to place their organization in front of prospective local parents of children within the appropriate age range, in hopes of gaining a few new children into the program. The total budget for this campaign was $40, which would reach 50% of the target demographic population for the campaign. The end result was 3 new likes to their Facebook page, with no new enrollee’s for the upcoming season. Being the information is fairly straightforward for their initiatives, we highly doubt this was a format issue, however we will touch on this after the final example.

Client example #3: Montgomerylodge.com

Montgomery Lodge #258 is a local Masonic Lodge, who provides the community with MN KidsID events, to create ID packets for children, in the event they would become missing or abducted. Their events are a free service to the community, and they host fundraisers occasionally to build revenue for the administration costs and materials for the program. They are a non-profit organization, that provides amazing services.

Our initiative for this campaign was to fill a beer & wine tasting event, which was a major fundraiser for their KidsID program. The budget for this campaign was $100 total, which resulted in an exposure within the targeted local demographic of 115,000 unique Facebook users, netting 1 like for the event, with zero conversions.

Why Facebook Advertising Doesn’t Work

We promise, it isn’t Facebook’s fault, rather the expectation of trying to engage directly with people who are using Facebook passively. Passive advertising platforms should never be compared to direct search advertising platforms. When people are using any social media platform, they are not looking to make a purchase, rather quite the contrary. Social media platforms should never… and we mean NEVER be used as a direct advertising source for any reason. If you are looking to engage a prospect directly, you must engage them in search, when they are looking to find your product or service, whether this is through Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

Passive Advertising (CPM Cost Per Impression)

Passive advertising is a method by which a company places an ad in front of someone, hoping they gain interest in researching their product or service further. We explain to clients that CPM advertising is similar to fishing. While the cost is 1/10th – 1/100th of a CPC campaign, yet the results are neither direct, nor reliable as an advertising platform.

We find clients wanting to use passive advertising to try and maximize their advertising capture, at a reduced cost, which rarely shows a consistent ROI (return on investment). While every client believes they have the best product or service on the market (which they may have), they may not be presenting their product in the best manner or appropriate time for consideration to a prospective customer or client. Passive advertising will never account for satisfying a direct and timely need, rather present potential opportunity.

About Brand Presence Agency

Brand Presence Agency is a design, marketing, and advertising agency located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Serving clients of all sizes across the United States, we pride ourselves on both transparency and guaranteed customer satisfaction. We specialize in everything from logo or website design, to marketing automation management, brand presence, Google Adwords advertising, geofencing advertising, and mobile advertising. By making our clients happy, we know our clients will refer more great clients to join our family.