Question
Hello,
So I setup a campaign to rent a desk at my web agency. No one's using the desk, so we figured we could rent it out to someone in the area.
So I setup a Facebook CPC campaign to a very specific target audience:
• Location: Within 25 miles radius of my location
• Behaviours: Small business owners
• Age: 24 - 65+
• Desktop: News Feed or Right Column
Results Day 1:
Max Bid: $0.70 (suggested was between $0.56 - 0.86)
Clicks: 2
Frequency: 3.48
Reach: 601
Results Day 2:
Max Bid: $0.70 (suggested was between $0.56 - 0.86)
Clicks: 4
Frequency: 2.95
Reach: 632
Results Day 3:
Max Bid: $0.70 (suggested was between $0.56 - 0.86)
Clicks: 0
Frequency: 2.51
Reach: 336 (decline begins)
Results Day 4:
Max Bid: $0.70 (suggested was between $0.56 - 0.86)
Clicks: 0
Frequency: 2.36
Reach: 55 (huge decline)
Results Day 5 (today):
Max Bid: $0.70 (suggested was between $0.86–$1.77) ---> They doubled
Clicks: 0
Frequency: 0
Reach: 0
So looking at this, Facebook's ad platform essentially said this to me:
"Look buddy, you don't want to spend on a CPM model, so we'll force you to start to pay more for your CPC because your offer is so niche, that you'll waste our impression inventory and not even make us a penny -- pay up or we don't help you."
It seems like no matter how you try to setup your offer to be advantageous for yourself, Facebook's ad platform forces you to pay up to get a chance to sell what you want to sell. In this case, would it be worth keeping the CPC model if they'll just keep on raising the price for me? Or should I switch to CPM and hope that I'll find a buyer before I run out of budget?
The same problem is happening with Twitter. I setup a Lead Generation campaign, and due to the niche-like offer, we're not getting many signups. Twitter dropped our impression count from 347/day to less than 50 a day now.
I wasn't interested to take a CPM model for this campaign, because I found that running it through a CPC model guarantees you a better chance that you'll spend only on individuals somewhat interested in the offer (and I'm building my retargeting lists in the same time as tracking pixels have been setup). In a CPM model, you technically just assign a budget for XYZ impressions, and hope for the best.
P.S. I also have a Google AdWords + Search network campaign running which is hyper segmented (single keyword ad groups), so that's been taken care of. I wanted to give Facebook and Twitter a shot for this offer given that we can target quite nicely in those networks -- but it seems like they're not really keen on helping offers like ours flourish in their inventory just yet...
Any thoughts from other professionals?
Answer
Your interpretation of Facebook's ad platform is pretty accurate and it may not be the best fit for your purposes. This may not be the answer you're looking for, but I don't feel that traditional FB and Twitter ads offer the quality or quantity of leads you are looking for.
Given that you are hyper focused on location, you want to target groups / events / organizations in your area. You are targeting small business owners so you may want to target professional networks like LinkedIn. Posting into local groups or running ads should be more successful than FB and Twitter. You are targeting business minded people while they are on a business minded network.
I'm sure you are targeting ad networks because they are automated and light touch. But you may want to look at listing on websites like https://www.sharedesk.net/.
Lastly, there's always a good old fashioned Craigslist post! :)
If you would like to talk more about your options, feel free to give me a call. Best of luck!
