If you are looking into advertising on Facebook, you are probably wondering what the effectiveness of Facebook Ads is.
Unfortunately there is no real definitive answer to how many likes you can get from Facebook ads because so many factors need to be taken into consideration. Based on our experience with Facebook Ads, we can give you some guidelines for what to expect.
If you have any experience with Google Adwords, you’ll notice some distinct differences between Facebook PPC and traditional PPC (most notably with cost per click and click-through rates).
Expected Impressions
What we have found is that for every $200 you spend in Facebook ads, you can expect approximately 1 million impressions (how many times each individual ad is shown). How effective your campaign is from there ultimately depends on how well your campaign converts into clicks and ‘likes’.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Out of those 1,000,000 impressions, you can expect click-through rates to be anywhere from .010% to .040%. This is basically a gauge of how effective each ad is. The higher the click-through rate, the more effective your ad is in making people feel the need to click on it and see exactly what you are talking about. Hint: Eye catching pictures work wonders in helping to raise your click-through rates.
With traditional PPC (Adwords), you would expect there to be far less impressions but a much higher click-through rate.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
The cost per click or CPC with Facebook ads is significantly lower than Google Adwords. We see the majority of our CPC at around $1.00 per click, but yours will vary depending on where you are advertising, demographics, and competition. Unfortunately, the days of $1.00 clicks on Google have come and gone. You can expect to spend from $2.00/click to well over $10.00/click with Google Adwords depending on how competitive your keywords are.
So, with your 1 million impressions, it is well within reason to expect roughly between 175-225 clicks for every $200 you spend.
Like Conversion
Here’s the tough part though: How do you convert as many of those clicks to likes as possible?
There are many strategies you can employ to increase your ratio of Clicks to Likes, and we’ll cover those in more detail in further posts on this topic.
For now we’ll leave you with a quick tip: Using contests in conjunction with Facebook Ads has increased our Click/Like conversion rates by between 35-50%. Bottom line: people love free stuff. This is also a great way to keep your fanbase engaged, entertained, and more likely to share your content.