Today Shaun asked the question
is Facebook Flyers the next Google AdWords? So I thought now is as good a time as any to post my findings on Facebook Flyers.
Just to recap, if anybody doesn't know
Facebook Flyers is an advertising program whereby you can create self serve ads to be displayed across the whole Facebook network. Here's a quick rundown of how they work.
It's really easy to create a flyer, you can knock one up in about a minute from scratch. Take a look at the screenshot below:
So as you can see you simply upload an image/photo if you want one, create a title and up to 200 words for the main body. You can then enter a URL which isn't displayed - hint: this is great as you can use an affiliate link direct to a merchant.
You then get some pretty good targeting options. As well as picking a country to show your flyers in you can also choose from some cool demographics such as relationship status (good if you are running a dating campaign for example and just want to target singles) and even education status. See below for screenshot:
Another good point is that you can set the minimum price per click at only 1 cent. Yep thats about half pence at current exchange rates.
However this is when the good stuff ends and we move onto why Facebook Flyers really is rubbish.
1. You can only spend a maximum of $50 a day. I mean come on, I can spend that in less than 10 seconds on the major PPC search engines.
2. CTR is rubbish, and I mean rubbish. I've been running about 20 different campaigns on Facebook Flyers for the last 2 weeks or so and below is a screenshot of a typical click through rate.
Yep thats a massive 0.019% from 1 click. Great.
Now it could be that I picked the wrong type of campaign or it could be I used the wrong type of offer for the Facebook demographic or even that my copywriting skills are crap. But I've tried about 20 campaigns now and they have all shown similar CTR's. I've stuck to freebie type of campaigns, ringtones, free vouchers, half prize pizzas, competitions and just about anything that I thought would appeal to Facebookers.
I'm beginning to think that there really isn't money to be made using Facebook Flyers, so why could that be? Well maybe people using Facebook are just too busy enjoying its rich features and connecting with friends to even notice the ads in the sidebar? I have to be honest, I've never ever clicked on a Facebook ad so why would anyone else? Or maybe I just haven't found the right affiliate offer for the Facebook audience? Sure there are
success stories if you are willing to stretch the rules a bit but is Facebook really a good medium for sending traffic to an affiliate campaign? I don't think so, but would love to hear if anybody has had any success with Facebook Flyers?
What I'm listening to right now: "Will.i.am - "Songs About Girls". OK I still love this album, especially spotting the old school samples and breaks that Will.i.am uses. I know I'm an R&B geek!
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other stuff. I have no idea why I'm blue on this photo though but I like it!
Wow – that stinks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that from Flyers Basic, since it’s CPM.
If that is typical, surely they will be placing these ads better in the future.
Interesting – I tried them a couple of months ago and don’t remember seeing the Price Per Click… maybe I’ll look again.
I’m sure I paid $XX for XXXXXX traffic – but my CTR was better at 0.045% from 18 clicks
I wasn’t impressed
I have not tried facebook flyers but I tried the marketplace where you can advertise products, and target regional target areas.
I think the money in facebook is getting a killer app which has high take up.
Good post Kieron – my wife is about to launch a student focused affiliate site in the next week or so (when she gets around to finishing the content) which I think could be perfect for this kind of advertising (we were already planning on setting up facebook groups).
Will let you know how it goes
J
I’ve tried to run a few experiments but they won’t accept any of my credit cards
Seems like it might not be worth the hassle yet!
Interesting! Do you think big merchants will stay away due to the potential bad press, and leave the way for affiliates to enjoy these ‘impressive’ CTR? I can’t remember which companies they were, but a couple pulled their advertising a few weeks ago because of the inability to control where the ads were displayed, and the potential damage to their brands.
I had a go with the Facebook Flyers Pro – I wouldn’t touch the normal CPM flyers.
I made a fair bit in the couple of days my account was active. Very low CPC, very low CTR but an incredible amount of impressions got me a fair few clicks.
My account got suspended without an explanation but I think it was down to the competition I was promoting.
I was looking at promoting my student money saving blog – Smoolah on facebook but i’m not so sure anymore – maybe i’ll leave it for now
Hey Kieron, someone on Shawn’s comments said Facebook won’t let you use Affiliate links in the flyers, is this correct or have people been using them without worries?
I wouldn’t want to get my account banned for that, but I can see some very targeted opportunities if you can indeed use affiliate deep links to products.
Mr. Daz, – I’ve had loads of campaign running, all with affiliate links in. So no problems for me so far.
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Does anyone is trying this Flyers Pro? I have been trying to signup for last week and its totally not working and driving me crazy.
I first need to setup an ad, then I am beign asked for credit card details. Now I have tried with 4 different cards and I keep getting error :
“Please enter a valid CVV2 code”
I have tried contacting Facebook support but they are even more useless – after 2 days they just replied that my card is not working. Common I am using these cards everywhere including on Adwords. What are the chances that all are not working? Obviously I am doing something wrong or their system is broken.
Can anyone confirm how they went through the Flyers Pro ?
Thanks very much
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Kieron,
May I ask what you think of using social sites like facebook for marketing in general?
Same error message over here “Please enter a valid CVV2 code”. Tried 3 different valid Mastercards. Facebook’s Support says : “the error message that you are receiving indicates that your credit card is not passing our fraud protection system” and that I should contact my card issuer..
Any one a solution?
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Been trialing it over the past few days. Seems pretty useless to me. 6000 impressions, no clicks.
I think this is probably due to the fact you can’t use caps on each word. The adverts are generally in the wrong place, down the left hand side. They should be in the main body of the site.
I guess if they show them on the photo areas, people flick past them quickly.
It makes me wonder, with such a low CTR on PPC adverts. How are they going to increase revenue?
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I think the nature of the companies that use this method have ruined it for everyone. The general concensus (with the general public) is that it’s scam companies or products with false promises. So when real companies with a valuable offering put forward, people won’t be able to tell the difference.