Getting Ready With Facebook PPC

An increasingly popular pay-per-click option these days is Facebook. With Facebook's advanced metrics and ability to serve ads to a wide variety of very specific targets like age, gender, and interests, more and more businesses, large and small, are turning to Facebook to serve ads to their potential customers. With numerous PPC options (including search giant Google) available to advertisers, why are so many people flocking to Facebook? What are the benefits? Downfalls? Let's take a look.


The Good

Facebook is wildly popular. With over 900 million users, many of whom spend multiple hours a day on Facebook, advertisers would have to be crazy to turn down that kind of an audience. Further, more often than not Facebook tracks and knows more about it's users preferences then any other major internet hub but it allows advertisers to target very specific metrics about their potential targets. The ads are non-invasive and, if served properly, hardly look like ads at all. Often the calls to action are not necessarily to buy but rather to investigate a product and service more with in the context of Facebook and the companies' interaction with other Facebook users.

Advertisers also have the option of "bringing a Facebook user's friends" into the fray and showing popular pages someone's friends or family may like that might interest them too. Since "liking" a page is basically innocuous advertisers benefit by introducing a user to their product or service but not forcing them to make a decision about purchasing. This appeals to our nature as humans to procrastinate and investigate.

The Not-So Good

While Facebook boasts a ton of traffic, millions of hours a day, most, if not all those users are not there to shop, buy, or be solicited to. When someone Google searches something, for instance, they may be in any number of the phases of shopping. So when Google serves them a search result and some ads the likelihood that they are looking to buy or at least pricing is high. When someone is on Facebook they are connecting with friends or family, uploading pictures from a trip, and generally interacting with people. They are not necessarily in any phase of shopping for a product. This is why Facebook's click-through-rate is notoriously low. Beyond that it is hard to say exactly how many people act upon an ad even if they do click through.

Take Away

It is necessary for businesses to realize that the quality of ads they serve on Facebook must be high. They must be informative and relevant. They must not be intrusive and they must not be the companies' only avenue of advertising. Do your research and test everything. See what works best for YOU and your company not other people.



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