I started a Facebook ad campaign but I'm not getting the return I want.

[BUKKIN]

I started a Facebook ad campaign but I'm not getting the return I want, what am I doing wrong? My service provides small businesses with the platform to survey they're customers and analyze that data. How should I market this, If I'm using Facebook ad's what keywords should I use? Are there better platform than Facebook to get website clicks? This is what I'm seeing now: 658

[Fulcrum]

You have an app that's intended for business yet you are spending your marketing dollars in an area that is primarily viewed by consumers (aka not business). In my uneducated opinion, I believe that you are looking in the wrong spot.

[UncleRodge]

Fulcrum may be right. You obviously have a business facebook page or you are doing something different than what I am familiar with. If your target audience is small business then the ad campaign should be geared toward that and I'm not sure you can narrow down exposure to just small business on facebook,

[Harold Mansfield]

Can't really give you any kind of suggestions without seeing the ad, the product, and where the ad links to. After incorrect targeting, bad presentation is usually the culprit of most under performing ads.

Great ad, poor landing page.
Bad ad, bad landing page.

[vangogh]

We would need to know more to have any idea why your campaign isn't working. Did you take advantage of what Facebook offers to target your ads to the right people? Did you test your ad copy? Other than just placing an ad, what did you do?

[Harold Mansfield]

Facebook has a lot of tools for advertisers including tutorials, and case studies. Have you taken advantage of any of the free education about running ads?
Also, just because a platform makes it easy for you to buy ads and spend money, it doesn't mean advertising and marketing is any easier.

Every platform is not a good fit for every business.
Facebook does well with certain kinds of products, but not very good for certain kinds of services. You've really given us nothing here, so it's hard to offer any reasons or suggestions for improvement.

[David Hunter]

We would need to know more to have any idea why your campaign isn't working. Did you take advantage of what Facebook offers to target your ads to the right people? Did you test your ad copy? Other than just placing an ad, what did you do?

Yeah, did you target "business owners?" I've never used Facebook Ads before, though I'm going to start testing them out (I'm an direct mail guy).

[vangogh]

David, I haven't used them either, but from what I understand you can get very granular with the targeting. You could advertise specifically to men between the ages of 27 and 36 who live somewhere on the west coast of the United States who have shown an interest in x, y, and z. I don't know the specifics though I'm pretty sure gender, age, location, and interests will be among the characteristics you could target. I think there's more.

[Harold Mansfield]

You can target pretty specifically in Facebook, but that still doesn't mean it's the best platform to advertise everything. Facebook is great for lead captures that give something for free. It's also a great place for brands to distribute coupons. It's also good for entertainment advertising.

But it's not the best place for advertising things like your auto shop. At least not direct advertising. If you're building followers in your area so that you can communicate with them over time, that's one thing..but no one goes on Facebook when they need products or services. They look for them in Google.

[vangogh]

Oh I agree it may not be the best platform for advertising. Like you said it depends on a number of things. I'd argue in general social sites aren't the best place to market directly. People don't usually visit social sites for commercial reasons. I think most people are more likely to use search when they're looking for something commercial.

[BasicBrix]

Facebook ads campaign is not worth your money. Furthermore, when you come across any issues with your ads campaign, the ads team always give standardised replies without any help. Try google ads instead and target specific sites or forums with your ads.

[krymson]

I've seen a lot of case studies and talked with a lot of people who have used facebook ads... (For me this goes across all PPC) It's never really worth it. Even if your target audience is using the platform, they're not looking for services on Facebook, they might look for a facebook page for a business but they're not going to pay any attention to the ads. It's not worth the time and the ROI about 75% of the time is either even or negative, from my experience and the experience of some of my clients.

PPC is best used on Google search results because you can get in front of prospect at the time they're looking for your services. That's the best way to approach it.

[vangogh]

It's not worth the time and the ROI about 75% of the time is either even or negative, from my experience and the experience of some of my clients.

Maybe Facebook ads should be thought of more as a branding or retargeting thing and not for PPC. I agree people don't visit social sites looking to buy products. At the same time Facebook can direct your ad to very specific and granular demographics so you should be able to isolate who you think is your market. I think most of the ads we've watched on TV for years, would have been very happy to show their commercials only to people in their demographic.

[KristineS]

Facebook ads can work, it depends on what you're selling and who you're selling it too. Our company sells machine embroidery supplies and sublimation supplies to garment decorating businesses. We've targeted our ads specifically and done quite well on Facebook. Most ads have either been offering a sample of a particular product or a coupon or something. We track who gets samples and see how many of those people turn into customers. We also track coupon use. Our ratio of request to customers is enough to make us keep advertising.

Facebook won't work for every industry or every product. I should also say that we spent a great deal of time learning how the particular market we serve used social media, and identified people on Facebook and built a community before we ever started advertising to them. The first thing to do is know where your market is and go there. You can have the best ad in the world, but it will do you no good if no one from your market is seeing it.

[Goldnote]

I started a Facebook ad campaign but I'm not getting the return I want, what am I doing wrong? My service provides small businesses with the platform to survey they're customers and analyze that data. How should I market this, If I'm using Facebook ad's what keywords should I use? Are there better platform than Facebook to get website clicks? This is what I'm seeing now: 658

There's no way to answer this question with the info given. A better platform would be LinkedIn where Business owners frequent. Hire a VA to scrape businesses contact info and email them directly. PPC ads. Giveaway a few trials to national companies that may introduce your platform to all their locations.

[Randall1022]

You have to optimize your Facebook. Make sure you have your website linked to your Facebook. Have good content. Have good pictures. Your Facebook has got to have a lot of details that are relevant to your business. The only reason I am going into such detail is because I went through the same situation a couple of years ago. Good luck.

[Mont Ellis Consulting]

In terms of social media, I think that if you are targeting small business owners, LinkedIn is better because you can select "job title" such as "Director" or "Owner" to narrow down your target market.

Facebook Ads does obviously allow you to select a target audience, but age, gender, location and "interests" won't really help you target business owners - unfortunatley, there is no filter for that .

[MikeSweeney]

Targeting the right audience is important. Facebook is trying to capture more video advertising. Post to an ad to your business facebook page. Make it a short 30 second to 1 minute video. Something that captures your business audience attention. The problem, time saving or cost saving your app relates to. In your video ad, have a Watch More or View More call to action. Then take them to a Landing Page with more details on how you can help.

Setup your ad to the Post on your business page. Other people may share it or like to give you "free" traffic to your page. You will also pay less linking directly back to a Facebook page. Facebook loves ads that say with in the Facebook platform.