How do you maximize your returns on Facebook Advertising?

At the beginning, I thought Facebook advertising would be similar to Google CPC adwords. After trying for a month and spent over $100 USD on facebook, I have proved my thought was totally wrong. There was zero conversion and I don’t think the ads were even seen by my targeted audiences. Just like many advertisers, I am used to the Google interface and its reporting. Facebook’s report just turned out totally too simple to me. Before I started the campaign, I have sent them a ticket of requesting for a pixel code (which I thought that all of the big or small advertising network would have this feature by now), and they were kind enough to reply me and informed me that they don’t have pixel code/conversion tracking as of now.

For that reason, I was a bit hesitated in trying them, but I have found a $50 free trial coupon on facebook advertising while doing my research and I will just go ahead with the Google Analytics report for now (even it could lead to around 20% discrepancy as usual). With over $150 (include the coupon) spent and more research done, here are the techniques of using Facebook advertising:

·         Looking for “fans”, not instant conversions or sales

·         Actions tracking for “Likes” are provided

·         Calculate your returns on cost per click (CPC) by cost per like for short term budget analysis

·         Not typical CPC ads like Google, it’s a social network platform, which advertisers should focus on long term relationship building

·         Calculate your long term returns by conversions from direct facebook referral

·         Create useful information and updates on facebook page frequently

Is it worth to run facebook advertising? It depends.

In conclusion, you can spend money in generating more visitors to your facebook page, just like generating more visitors to your website. Different than website, facebook is not a direct sale tool. It’s a community for you to build relationship with potential customers or just make friends. Therefore, it is worth for you to spend on facebook advertising if you are building a precise, worthwhile facebook page. When promotion comes once in awhile, it becomes an additional channel to spread the words out and convert into sales. Hence, it’s no hurt to generating more “fans” to your page after all.