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Facebook Ads Case Study
The Sprocket Report
Contemplating a Facebook ad and wondering what results to expect? Take a look at this report on how it worked for one of our clients.
While you can advertise lots of things on Facebook, this specific example was for an event. An Event was also created on their Facebook page and the ticketing/RSVP system was on a third party platform, but the event was written up in it’s entirety on the client’s own website page to be the primary source of information and all outside marketing linked back to that page.
When setting up a Facebook ad, you choose who you want to target. You can get pretty granular, which is terrific for local businesses. Narrow down the audience to your geographical area and even the age and gender of your primary customer, if you wish. And you don’t have to spend a lot. Try experimenting with just $5 or $10 while you’re learning what works.
Our client ran an ad for three days targeting all adults aged 18+ in a specific geographic area. The ad goal was “Engagement,” one of several choices you can make. “Engagement” includes clicking on the post, liking it or sharing it, but of course the ad is seen by folks even if they don’t engage with it. You pay per engagement, but you also pay for exposure so your bill is derived via a complicated algorithm. This particular ad set had a $50 per day cap, which was not reached on all three days, for a total expenditure of $129.92.
You can see that the first day got a little traction and the last day dropped off rapidly with the middle day costing the most in pay-per-action. Now let’s take a look at what kind of Reach that bought.
The ad reached almost 40,000 people over those three days. You can also see that the paid ad (green line) seems to have spiked the Viral Reach (yellow line) and the Organic Reach (blue line) as well. Paid Reach is when someone is shown your ad. Organic Reach is when folks mention your post or page in their own posts. Viral Reach is when their friends see those posts. Because of seeing the ad, people started talking about this event on their own Facebook pages.
Reach is important because it means a number of unique individuals have become aware of the client’s event, but there’s another metric that’s also important to marketing. Research says it takes a number of “touches” before someone is ready to make a decision. That’s why Facebook also measures Impressions. Impressions are the number of times your post was served to readers rather than the number of unique readers, meaning each reader may have seen the same post more than once. Obviously, that number is much higher. In this example, there were over 150,000 Impressions with 111,698 coming from the paid-for ad.
So how did social media marketing work for driving traffic to the website? Google analytics measures that so we can see the cause-and-effect. Take a look at the graph below:
Yes, you can see there is an obvious spike that corresponds to the Facebook ad. The number of Users increased as well as the number of pages those Users browsed. Since the web pages were built long before the ad went live, Users were able to find all the information and encouragement they needed to make a “buy” decision and complete the intended marketing goal. In the end, the event was well-attended and the client was happy.
Effective marketing isn’t necessarily difficult, but often the job doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Often the folks in charge are overwhelmed by other details or uncertain about how marketing works. A little effort in planning and putting the pieces in place – and that includes the data measurement pieces – can make all the difference. Partner with us for your next event. We’re happy to help you make it a success!
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Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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