As I mentioned in the
previous post, I have a new Facebook page. Last week, I tried my hand in
advertising on FB for the first time. The experience was positive. Partly it’s
because advertising there is easy; partly it’s because I had a limited campaign to run.
I ran a Kindle
Countdown Deal for the Two-Natured London series on amazon.com from Thursday to
Sunday, which I advertised from Friday to Saturday. Having a limited time,
specific location, and selected books made it easy to compose the
advertisement. I had my target audience (readers of paranormal romances), and FB
knew where to find them.
Facebook makes it easy
to advertise there. Compose the post – I had a large colourful picture to add
with mine for maximum attention – and click a button. You can then choose the
target area (the US in this case), target demographic (women between 25 and 60
for my books), the sum you’re prepared to use (FB tells the minimum, you can
choose how much you’re prepared to use), and the number of days the
advertisement will run (two days).
You can then further specify the audience
based on their interests. I chose those interested in e-books, romances,
werewolves and vampires. The payment options were credit card and PayPal, and
the account was charged afterwards.
Based on my settings,
Facebook promised me a reach of 2000-5000 people; not all that lot, considering
the potential. Spending more would have given me a wider reach, but since this
was my first try, I wasn’t prepared to do it. I was also informed that the
photo I used in my ad might not meet the requirements, because it had too much
text in it. That turned out to be a false alarm. However, it tells that they
won’t allow you to advertise just anything there.
 |
| This is the image I used in my ad. |
How did I do?
According to FB, the ad reached 4880 people. Of those, 62 people liked the ad
and two people shared it. 19 people clicked the link. Furthermore, my FB page got seventeen new likes. All in all, FB stats inform me there were 114 acts on it;
about 0.023% of those who saw the ad reacted to it. It’s not terribly much, but I count it all
as a plus. It’s a new page and it needs all the attention it can get.
I didn’t sell many
books. However, compared with the sales before the ad – some – there was a change. The advertisement paid itself, but that’s about it. It’s
difficult to say, if spending more on the ad would have brought me better
results. I might have got more likes for the page, but I’m not sure I would
have sold enough books to pay for it.
Even though I didn’t
sell many books, I liked the experience, and will try it again. So here’s a
recap of what I found important:
- Make a good, visual ad. (Truly put some thought into it.)
- Make sure you advertise a specific item or event. (The audience must have a certain way to react to it, buy, enlist etc.)
- Target the audience carefully to those interested in what you sell. (Don’t make it too narrow, though.)
- Limit the advertisement to your target audience. (More isn’t better if no one is interested.)
- Even a little sum can bring (good) results. (It's better than nothing.)
Here are my thoughts
after the first try. Do you have good advice to add?
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