Day 22 - The Complicated World of Facebook Ads
As an experiment, I attempted to use Facebook Ads to gain new followers and get people to enter my three giveaways - which in turn expands the Readers Collective mailing list. All in anticipation of my novella launch on October 21st. This has, by no means, been the most extensive or scientific experiment, but I’ve used it to get to know Facebook Ads and see what a minimal investment can buy me. Spoiler alert, it’s not much. I ran three boosted posts over a three week period. “Boosted” means Facebook will show your ad to more people than it would get on its own. Supposedly. If you are not familiar the difference between Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts, read this.
Good to Know: Ad Center and Ads Manager are two different things.
Ads Center gives you basic information (reach, engagement)
Ads Manager is more complicated (???)
First off, the Ad Center and Ad Manager aren’t easy to find. I wanted to get all that juicy data into a spreadsheet so I could analyze it. Nope. Once I found it, I discovered that the copy function (ctrl v) is blocked throughout the Ads Manager and Ad Center. I had to enter my data by hand. Why doesn’t Facebook want you to copy and/or paste your information?
Further, I was unable to export my ad data. The export function is also difficult to find. When I finally found these mysteriously hidden links, I tried twice and all I got was garbled mess. I attempted both .xls and .csv files.
TOTAL SPENT: $40 = 16 page likes at $2.50 per page like.
Time to Approve: Facebook must approve every ad you submit. Boost 1 was approved in a few hours. Both Boost 2 and 3 took twenty-four hours. I assume this is because Boost 1 only ran for a day and was given a priority.
OK. Which ad did the best? Obviously, I spent more money ($20) on Boost 3, so that one did much better reaching people, but had less *conversion than Boost 1 and 2.
*Conversion: An action that's counted when someone interacts with your ad (for example, clicks a text ad or views a video ad) and then takes an action that you've defined as valuable to your business, such as an online purchase or a call to your business from a mobile phone.
Days | Engagement | Reach | Spent | LinkClicks | Shares | Comments | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Boost 1 | 1 | 47 | 439 | $9.96 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
Boost 2 | 7 | 43 | 404 | $10.00 | 11 | 2 | 1 |
Boost3 | 3 | 292 | 1234 | $15.43 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
I had to count my own page likes by memory. Nowhere does Facebook tell you how many people liked your page as a result of your ad. Probably because there’s no way to tell if you have new likes because of the ad or it’s just a coincidence.
After the 1st boost: +1
After the 2nd boost +9 (10 total) ß did the best
After the 3rd boost +7 (16 total)
Forget about reach and engagement. What really counts is conversion. Conversion is where your likes and clicks turn into some action (usually a sale). The action I’m looking for here (pre-book launch) is page likes and entries to my giveaway. Based on the data above, Boost 2 did the best converting; I got the most link clicks and a higher surge of her followers. By surge, I mean eight more than then week before. However, I got exactly thirty-three giveaway entrants during both Boost 1 and Boost 2. Boost 3 only got twelve entries; which was a bigger prize and ran for a shorter time. Boost 1 only ran for a day and received twice as many link clicks as Boost 3. Are you confused yet? Me too.
I’m sure there are factors that make a difference: time of day you start the ad, photo used, copy text, and length of campaign. I would argue that Facebook makes this process difficult on purpose. The Ads Center and Manager are not easy to use, it’s hard to find information, and exported data looks like vomit. I spent a great deal of time fishing for information: clicking, looking around, forgetting where a page was, having to look things up on Google. When creating or analyzing an ad, there are almost too many options to consider and it’s overwhelming. There’s definitely a steep learning curve.
If you’re going to use Facebook Ads, I suggest reading a book about it or watching videos on YouTube. It’s so complicated and doesn’t quite make sense. How do I use the data above to make better ads? It’s overly complicated on purpose. There is no way to tell WHAT worked. Keywords? Day of week? The photo I used? The only thing I can think to do is use a modified version of Boost 2 (which did the best) and see how that does. I’ll post results next week. Facebook Ads are made for those beefy dudes who sell entrepreneur books; the ones that scream at you on YouTube. I actually watched a guy yesterday that called his audience “stupid morons.” Yet, he has a wide audience, sells books, and claims to make six figures. Go figure.
I don’t think anyone is stupid. I think Facebook deliberately makes the ad game complicated and addictive. It’s gambling. And gambling is intermittent reinforcement. You win some, you lose some. It’s the winning some that keeps you coming back.
In behaviorism, Intermittent Reinforcement is a conditioning schedule in which a reward or punishment (reinforcement) is not administered every time the desired response is performed. On an intermittent reinforcement schedule the mouse would only receive food every few times (it is typically random and unpredictable). There is an increased likelihood the desired behavior will continue with intermittent reinforcement conditioning and the behavior lasts longer than continuous reinforcement. Gambling is an example of intermittent reinforcement. You don't win every time or win the same amount when using a slot machine- this wouldn't be exciting or fun. The reinforcement is intermittent and causes a positive and euphoric response in the brain that in some circumstances can lead to gambling addiction.
As a small business owner (yes, Indie Publishing is small business), you just want to do well. You want to get a return on your investment (ROI). You want to make a living, feed your kids, take a vacation now and again. But Facebook doesn’t care about that. All it wants is your money. To get your money, it gamifies the system. Makes it a “hunt and peck” - which humans inherently love. Women, especially, are naturally inclined to enjoy searching because we are hunter/gatherers. It’s the same concept behind popping zits or shopping for groceries. Why do we like searching for things? The simplest answer is: human nature. Facebook augments its honey pot by providing tons of useless data. At first glance, it looks like they’re really trying to provide you with all the information you could ever want. In the end, most of it is truly useless.
I spent $40 and converted nineteen people. Is it worth it? Who actually SAW my ad (engagement) is useless information if they didn’t convert. Facebook shows you a big number: 236. Wow! Uh…what did they engage with? They didn’t click my link, didn’t click the photo, and definitely didn’t like my page or enter my giveaway. So what exactly did they engage with? What does that even mean?
So, I spent hours searching Facebook for answers only to come up with basic information: reach, engagement, etc. Nothing I can really use.
Many fans of the Facebook Ad system are pro-users - number crunchers, left brains. Are you a number cruncher? I’m not. Facebook Ads isn’t made for writers. But we’re told that if we want a wide reach, we HAVE to use it. It’s the best place to get those readers. But is it? Unless I dig really deep into the numbers and go all, A Beautiful Mind on it, there is no way to tell what’s working. My sister, who loves this kind of stuff, tells me it takes time. I didn’t expect my first run of ads to do well, I merely wanted to learn. I’ve learned a lot.