Greetings!

I recently paid for an ad on Facebook. I was able to specify exactly how much I wanted to spend. I set a $50 limit. As I understand it you only pay when people click on your ad. You can even target people within a specific geographic area. I targeted people within a 50 mile radius of Farmington. You can even then target people who have listed words like "piano", "music" and so on in their profiles. I've had several new "likes" on my page. My ad says "Looking for a present for that hard to buy person? How about an in tune piano?" I've already had a call from a lady who said that her teenage son said he wanted his piano tuned for a Christmas present and she couldn't figure out where he got that idea. I just smiled to myself. LOL!

I ran Facebook ads without success for a few months and finally stopped. I just didn't get any response at all from them. I do much better with my Google AdWords campaign.

Glad ti hear it's working for you, though!

No response here either, Ryan. They were billing me for clicks, yet no clients told me they found me on Facebook. Hmmmmm. So I dumped them....right about IPO time....... For me, facebook is something to do when that darned traffic light won't change to green. I rarely post, but enjoy the postings of family and close friends.

Bob, Facebook was way too much of a time and energy drain. I almost bought into the IPO but then it hit me that I was actually considering buying stock in a company where my friends from grade school tend virtual farms.

I finally deleted it from my iPhone so I don't have the pop ups and distraction through the day.

Initially I signed up for a Facebook page. Then once I had time to do further research, I found the place held little in the way of appeal for me.

Check this out;

Facebook is using you

Then I began to look at the Google Adword program and spoke to several others about that one. It seems you start with a small fee for some words. Then after a while your site moves down in search results.

Suddenly you get another offer from Google for guess what? Spend more money……

So I have ignored all of the advances from Google. And my site moves down in search results…..geez no great mystery there….

I have used Adwords for over two years with a very restricted geographical area and have almost always been first on the list, or not at all if I have exceeded my limit. I am sure that most of my new clientele come through this way. I pay less than the cost of a single tuning each month in clicks.

Facebook ads, on the other hand, I ran for a few months and never to my knowledge produced any jobs as such, and I spent a lot of money. However, my Facebook page has facilitated some dialogue with people and has led indirectly to some jobs. My Facebook page is more of a "about me" information source to link from my web page. I hope that I create a good and honest impression.

I don't really think this is Google just trying to make more money out of you, and punishing you for not spending enough. Every adwords space on a page of search results that contains the keywords you target is 'sold' in an auction according to the bid amounts and daily caps of all the people targeting keywords relevant to those results. So if there is increased competition for the same keywords, then those with lower adwords budgets will lose out. It's just market forces at work in an auction-style situation.

Having a good website that shows up well on google without advertising, and an adwords account to top that up, I've not felt the need to increase my marketing, and have a steady stream of new customers coming in. I think a lot of people are put off by facebook marketing, as they see it as a personal, social activity interrupted by marketing attempts.

I have a Facebook page for about 9 month now and I run an advertising campampaign for a few weeks. Some ads promted the user to visit my regular homepage, some ads invited the user to visit my Facebook page and becoming a fan of that FB site. Ok, I got some clicks on my homepage and I generated some new "friends/fans" for my FB page, but so what? No extra income so far. Very interesting: some people that became my "fan" are for sure not real. I mean they have a strange name, they don´t share public information about themselfes and liked thousands of FB pages. Who are they? Are that people having fun to increase somebody´s FB ads bill? Or are that people paid by FB to pretend the success of FB ads?

I see my FB activities as an investment into the future and think that it is overhyped today. On the other hand: generating a lot of fans will help to develop my popularity as piano dealer/tech. Who primarily uses FB? Here in Germany or Europe at all it might be teenagers more than adults. So I am talking about the customers of tomorrow.

The stuff that I am posting on FB is for the main part fun stuff, interesting or beautyful old pianos that I tuned and I share piano related information or pictures. Not really advertisement. But when somebody likes my postings his friends see that and my name climbs a step higher in their subconscious (must buy, must buy, must have a piano ):
https://www.facebook.com/klaviergalerie.weldert

I don´t pay for Google ads because my homepage is allways on top of the search results searching for a piano tech/tuner/dealer in my hometown. Not so difficult in a town with 280.000 inhabitants with only a hand full of techs

Gregor

we need to determine when advertising on Facebook is what your goal will be like to get more fans to our Facebook page,send users to our companies website or an other outside landing page,promote a Facebook event,Promote fan activity on our wall etc.

Well Facebook sent me an update on my ad campaign today. So far 62,868 people have seen my ad who live within 50 miles of Farmington, 94 people have clicked on my ad, 70 people have taken some type of action (going to my fan page or website). I have netted 35 new likes to my fan page which now brings me to around 610 fans and I have spent $36.59 of my total campaign budget of $50. For the number of people it has reached, that's pretty cheap advertising if you ask me. I am now getting more and more customers contact me through FB.

But, how many new customers have you actually acquired? And with all of the additional time involved, keeping track of it etc., I wouldn't think it was worth the effort. Getting likes and fans is the easy part...... No offense, just saying...

Two to be exact, so it has more than paid for it's self and gotten my name out there to over 60,000 people.

How much of a discount did you get to acquire these two people that perhaps are price shopping?

I didn't give a discount, I don't do those. I have my prices clearly posted on my website.

Good for you then!

FB ads work if you know how to work them.

If you put "piano" or "playing piano"
in the interest matching area of the ad you
will get a lot less "tire kickers".

You also need to post regularly on your
page to turn those likes into customers.
Use it as an outreach and education tool.


I could go on for pages on this subject,
but those two things will help keep your ads
targeted and help convert page users into
customers.