I know this has come up and several STW'ers have said they get great results but I'm looking for more detail.
Obviously my perception is strongly influenced by the ads I receive but I'm at a loss as to how this works for lower value items. (Say £50 or under with say 50% net profit - pre ads)
The cost doesn't seem to even approach a realistic conversion rate? (e.g. take above of a £50 item with £25 profit - which would be nice) I'm missing how this could ever get a conversion rate that makes it financially viable.
Am I missing something obvious or is this really only good for higher value items/subscriptions etc.??
What are you actually asking?
It's basically an auction, so you tell it how much you want to pay and for what.... some will pay per click on an ad, some pay per purchase. Then it will bid based on that. It works totally fine for items much less than £50, you just adjust your bid accordingly.
It's about traffic. A click for a cheap item might get you to buy a more expensive item or get you to be a repeat customer. The real value is when you sign up to the newsletter to receive offers etc.
Campanies pay thousands a month for advertising.
tenaceous
It’s basically an auction, so you tell it how much you want to pay and for what…. some will pay per click on an ad, some pay per purchase. Then it will bid based on that. It works totally fine for items much less than £50, you just adjust your bid accordingly.
Ah, OK... I've put some rough numbers in based on a nominal £5/d that estimates Link Clicks
81 - 235 .. I think I misread previously thinking the £5x7 days was clicks estimated per day... so I guess it's trusting FB's estimate as taking 100 then works out something like £1.66 for a conversion based on say 3% conversion rate (I'm being pessimistic but don't want to chuck money away) and my business partner is completely against paid advertising)
dangeourbrain
What are you actually asking?
Most basically does it actually work for low value, low margin stuff.
I'm a bit sceptical because it rarely advertises anything I'd part cash with to me (indeed loads of stuff I'd NEVER consider buying) or loads of stuff I can't afford by a HUGE margin.
Just a for example it's currently advertising a Bulgari 'slimmest watch in the world' or something that in the first instance I can't afford anyway but even if I won the lottery Id not spend more than £20 on a watch anyway. Just remembered that but the rest aren't much better - 2x fake food meal replacements I guess you have to subscribe (don't know as I'm not interested) and Lazer Eye surgery..
This doesn't fill me with any confidence a paid for ad won't be just randomly placed.
Those Facebook people are very clever. It does work or they wouldn't make so much money from it.
The beauty of FB advertising is it's very cheap compared to Google. Just start by spending a tenner and tweak your demographic to find out what works best for you.
It really depends on what you’re selling and how well you know your niche to allow you to target your ads. With a typical website conversion rate of 1-2%, you might need to reach 1,000 people, of which 100 might visit your site and it’ll generate 1-2 sales. I tried it a few years ago, but FB would let me tighten my target audience tight enough, so most clicks were from places I couldn’t sell to.
the-muffin-man
Those Facebook people are very clever. It does work or they wouldn’t make so much money from it.
Facebook simply can't lose, it's their sandpit and they make the rules They're not trying to help you sell your product, simply make themselves money. It used to be a great sales platform and was amazing to be able to directly connect with your target audience but that's been diminished by GDPR rules and the escalation in cost per click. I don't have direct experience of it but my wife has all but given up on placing paid adverts on it as it just wastes money and makes her frustrated at the lack of views.
It works a lot better for something like a pair of jeans at £100, £30-50 of which will be "Profit" (however you define it). £5 to buy that sale will be much better value than for, for example, my wife's 4 for £10 food pouches or snack bags. FB and Instagram have become pretty toxic for the low value, small business. The algorithms mean that there's little chance your advert will get anywhere near the reach you'd expect if you're bidding low at the sort of level a low value, low margin product can justify. Not matter what you do it's going to be very hard for your product to win a limited number of advert placement opportunities against someone making a lot more on a single sale. The fact of the matter is that every "punter" has overlapping demographics and if you've only got pence per view/click to spend you're not going to win many.
Best thing to do is give it some budget, take the best up to date advice you can get and give it a go and see what you learn. Be prepared to spend a lot and be disappointed with the results. If you're not please come back to me and I'll educate the wife.
The wife's having much more success on TikTok right now ;o)