Facebook ads.....an update

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Alright, I'm in. I'm trying your multiple ads tactic. I just launched 3 ads at the same target demographic. Two are still photos, and the third is a video. They are each budgeted at $5 a day, so I'll just keep an eye on them and see how they do.

Taking 3 out at exactly the same time is okay but what I've actually been doing is staggering them. Your approach might actually be a better way to do it now that I think about it. BTW, I never use the "lead generation" or other sales type ads that facebook offers. The click rate was magnitudes worse than just simply boosting a post. Incidentally, the ad I started running today, which I gave the link earlier in this thread, is doing great. It's been served about 300 times with 60 clicks. I consider a 20% engagement rate with a $.03 per click cost to be about as good as you can ask for.
 
Its funny you mention WW, when I got suckered into the sales call from them, I dont remember how it came up, but I had mention that I was considering give FB ads a try, the WW employee basically said that WW would be more effective than FB ads .

The proof is in the pudding, sweetheart. She's full of beans and likely knew she was lying her butt off. WW isn't even in the ballpark in terms of effective ROI.
 
I've never done FB ads for my DJ work (since I work for a corporate franchise company) but I have for my playwrighting work (I've mentioned this before). I've ran ads for my dramatic podcast productions and my actual in theater productions. My last show, I ran 3 ads, and did a very narrow target audience. 3 ads with a total of around $50 spent over a week period, a reach of 5,876 people. That was with a very narrow reach. What I did was set two ads the same day, the third ad a day or two later. I set two of the ads to run all the time and a third ad to only run different hours. You might look at when peak times when people are)active on Facebook (IIRC I set mine for 7-9am, 11am-1pm, 5-10pm). I believe I cross posted my ads to Instagram (but I could be wrong, I know I thought about it, pretty sure I did) and you might look into Twitter ads.

Let me give you a real life example of the effectiveness of ads. A friend of mine does an interview style podcast. A couple of years ago, she started doing a semi-regular feature where instead of an interview that week, we'd present a live "radio play". Playwrights send in plays, we rehearse, and perform live. We have actors from all over the world; professional and amateur. No one gets paid. In November of 2015 my show went live, I spent $10 on Twitter and got around 3,000 impressions and 40 Tweet engagements. I ran one Facebook ad, day of show, $15 spent, around 1,200 impressions and 26 engagements. Again very targeted audiences. At last count, this particular podcast episode had been downloaded around 3-4 million times. Now granted, the host/producer has a nice following herself and many of the actors posted on Facebook, we did an episode of the podcast the week before which was an interview, but in the end, we ended up being one of her top 10 most popular episodes of the year. So I can't say it was JUST my Twitter and Facebook ads (I also bombarded Facebook and Twitter with targeted hashtags and scheduled posts every half hour) but I think it was a big part of it because I was the only playwright to spend money on ads promoting a show this past season and my show was the only play to break into the "million plus download" club.

Bonus, you can also usually get like $10 off future ads, so look for those offers.
 
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The proof is in the pudding, sweetheart. She's full of beans and likely knew she was lying her butt off. WW isn't even in the ballpark in terms of effective ROI.
Oh believe you me, I knew she was full of sh*t
 
Wedding Wire Rep has emailed me twice in the last 2 months asking if we can meet over coffee and donuts on her. I have not responded. Since I am more local to the Wedding Wire office, I guess it's a tactic they are trying on local vendors to wheel us back in and get in our good graces. ...I've been clear in the past. Unless they can give me a featured placement ad for under $900 for the whole year, I wouldn't be interested. They want to charge around $2400 after all the discounts applied...we are too far apart, and I already know the ROI Wedding Wire will give me paying for an ad there.
 
Wedding Wire Rep has emailed me twice in the last 2 months asking if we can meet over coffee and donuts on her. I have not responded. Since I am more local to the Wedding Wire office, I guess it's a tactic they are trying on local vendors to wheel us back in and get in our good graces. ...I've been clear in the past. Unless they can give me a featured placement ad for under $900 for the whole year, I wouldn't be interested. They want to charge around $2400 after all the discounts applied...we are too far apart, and I already know the ROI Wedding Wire will give me paying for an ad there.
Well, if the coffee and the donuts are "ON" her, then it might be worthwhile .. if she's merely paying for them, probably not .. :)
 
To be clear...are the ads (and the clients) geared toward photography, DJ, or both?
 
I have a facebook ad going this weekend. About 620 engaged brides between the age of 23 and 38 have been reached so far. No emails, or phone calls yet. I am running a 30% Discount for Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend on 2017 weddings. I'd be extremely happy if the ad yields 1 booking. I kinda of don't expect it to yield anything though.
 
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I just setup 3 Facebook ads, roughly the same ad text, all with different pics. One of them is a standard multi-photo ad, the second is a carousel and the third is a slideshow video. I gave them all the same target and geographical area, along with a 14 day run and $25 budget on each. The first (standard photo ad) has 7 impressions with 2 engagements already. This should be interesting to see how these turn out. Fingers crossed.

By the way, I'm pointing these to my new website, www.carolynryanphotography.com. I'm really liking this new web platform. The SEO analyzers are giving this one much higher scores than squarespace or wix.
 
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Update. After about 18 hours, here are the numbers from the 3 ads I started yesterday.

Picture slideshow - 25 engagements, 165 impressions, 15% response rate, $1.40 spent
Carousel - 64 engagements, 222 impressions, 28% response rate, $1.05 spent
Video slideshow - 61 engagements, 287 impressions, 21% response rate, $1.48 spent

I think I'm going to let this run for a few days and see if the numbers hold up. The carousel is the one that's surprising to me. Almost twice the response rate from the normal picture slideshow.
 
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Another update. The video slideshow is clearly taking the lead in effectiveness.

photos - impressions 715, engagements 123, cost .03, response 17.2%
carousel - impressions 465, engagements 67, cost .05, response 14.4%
video slideshow - impressions 816, engagements 267, cost .01, response 32.7%

Hmm, just looking at the other numbers and noticed that the carousel has had another 200 impressions with only 3 clicks. The engagements for the video are off the charts. Out of 550 impressions, I added another 200 clicks. I think I'm going to have to spend some more time producing a bit more elaborate video slideshows and run those.

FYI
 
Another update. The video slideshow is clearly taking the lead in effectiveness.

photos - impressions 715, engagements 123, cost .03, response 17.2%
carousel - impressions 465, engagements 67, cost .05, response 14.4%
video slideshow - impressions 816, engagements 267, cost .01, response 32.7%

Hmm, just looking at the other numbers and noticed that the carousel has had another 200 impressions with only 3 clicks. The engagements for the video are off the charts. Out of 550 impressions, I added another 200 clicks. I think I'm going to have to spend some more time producing a bit more elaborate video slideshows and run those.

FYI

Have you gotten anybody contacting you this week after the facebook ad run? Anybody you can confirm directly from the ad?

I had a picture slideshow ad. I had a few new likes on our business facebook page, but that was it out of it. No Emails or calls asking about the 30% OFF Cyber weekend special. Oh well.
 
Have you gotten anybody contacting you this week after the facebook ad run? Anybody you can confirm directly from the ad?

I had a picture slideshow ad. I had a few new likes on our business facebook page, but that was it out of it. No Emails or calls asking about the 30% OFF Cyber weekend special. Oh well.

I often wondered in this business if percent off specials do more harm than good. Percentage off makes it seem like a discount store rather than a professional service and some people will pass it by just thinking that you've raised your prices to lower them. I feel offering a dollar amount discount may attract more inquiries and solid bookings
 
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I often wondered in this business if percent off specials do more harm than good. Percentage off makes it seem like a discount store rather than a professional service and some people will pass it by just thinking that you've raised your prices to lower them. I feel offering a dollar amount discount may attract more inquiries and solid bookings

I'm trying that to get one of my associates busier, but closer to his home which is about 2 hours from my primary market. I was running an ad for $300 off our typical rates - which gets my typical pricing down to a better space for that market. I was running a targeted Facebook ad for those brides and generated about 9 leads with $300 in spend. None have booked yet, but I'm still hopeful and working on them.
 
I often wondered in this business if percent off specials do more harm than good. Percentage off makes it seem like a discount store rather than a professional service and some people will pass it by just thinking that you've raised your prices to lower them. I feel offering a dollar amount discount may attract more inquiries and solid bookings

I'm still experimenting but tend to agree with you. I've been running a $x off special and wanted to change it. The percentage-based seemed the logical change to make. I'll probably flip it around later this month if no action.

Incidentally, speaking of video ads, I created a slideshow (movie file) yesterday and used it to create a new ad. The facebook-created video ad is at 1,075 impressions with 388 engagements for a cost/click of $.01. Phenominal performance. The video that I uploaded has been served 199 times with only 4 (FOUR) engagements at a cost of $.31 per click. I can't understand this. The FB-created video is crappy in my view yet, it's getting magnitudes better response. Anyone care to speculate?
 
Have you gotten anybody contacting you this week after the facebook ad run? Anybody you can confirm directly from the ad?

I had a picture slideshow ad. I had a few new likes on our business facebook page, but that was it out of it. No Emails or calls asking about the 30% OFF Cyber weekend special. Oh well.

From the ads I've run in the past, FB ads don't seem to be that fast to generate leads. Of the ad sets I've run in the past it seems the prospects need to have it thrown at them for 2-3 weeks before they take action. I remember one girl, who is scheduled for May, told me, "I just kept seeing your pictures everywhere so I just had to call." Nothing scientific about my assessment, just a guess on my part.
 
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From the ads I've run in the past, FB ads don't seem to be that fast to generate leads. Of the ad sets I've run in the past it seems the prospects need to have it thrown at them for 2-3 weeks before they take action. I remember one girl, who is scheduled for May, told me, "I just kept seeing your pictures everywhere so I just had to call." Nothing scientific about my assessment, just a guess on my part.

I've been experimenting with where I send people. I've sent people over to WeddingWire to look at reviews, to a custom landing page featuring the DJ, and also straight to our lead capture form. I think having that lead capture in the mix was helping on the lead gen side - but there is a lot more I can do to optimize that page. It isn't particularly compelling yet.
 
I can't understand this. The FB-created video is crappy in my view yet, it's getting magnitudes better response. Anyone care to speculate?

Might be the way FB tags it when it's uploaded
 
Incidentally, speaking of video ads, I created a slideshow (movie file) yesterday and used it to create a new ad. The facebook-created video ad is at 1,075 impressions with 388 engagements for a cost/click of $.01. Phenominal performance.

Unless you can attribute any of those 1,075 impressions and 388 engagements with a single new booking, that's far from phenominal (sic) performance.

The FB-created video is crappy in my view yet, it's getting magnitudes better response. Anyone care to speculate?

An impression on the FB-created video ad is probably counted from the moment that it's shown, whereas your uploaded content probably requires 20-seconds or so of viewing to be counted as an impression. There are some other possibilities, too, including that the FB-created video autoplays and your uploaded content does not.