Adwords VS Facebook Ads - Have you had PPC success?

[copywritematters]

Hey everyone,
I have been mulling over the concept of PPC advertising and I wanted to get the thoughts and experiences of the group.

I know that one of the key benefits of Adwords is clarifying/confirming the keywords of the niche stream you are targeting (and that it's important to create a niche stream so you don't just blow loads of $$$). I've always looked at the traffic generated as a secondary benefit.

But I've never run a campaign.... I wondered if anyone has used Facebook PPC and Adwords and can offer a comparison or any tips?

[Chris Bates]

I wouldn't say the traffic is a secondary benefit... In fact, that's completely the wrong approach to it!

Sure it can be a good way to confirm your keywords/messages, but really that's part of the research phase. But PPC is buying traffic - pure and simple (or maybe not so simple). If you don't approach it as such, you're wasting money.

Don't approach PPC half assed, or you're wasting money (again). Make sure you are using an appropriate landing page, or you're wasting money. Make sure you're constantly optimising and testing, or you're wasting money.

Remember that the purpose of your PPC message is to sell the click. NOT make the sale, that's your landing pages job.

FB and AdWords are rather different from one another, I could probably go on quite a bit about it really!

My only other tip would be to be prepared to invest in it. Not much point spending $50 and giving up - if you don't have the budget to give it a solid crack, then save your pennys for a while. Facebook is a bit different, but AdWords requires a bit of data to get a fair representation of how the campaign is performing.

[copywritematters]

Great points Chris. I've clearly been focussing on the keyword side the PPC without thinking about the bigger picture and your point about the landing pages is a good one. Make the destination worth the click. Right?

I'd be interested to learn more about Facebook advertising and how it compares (in terms of costs and traffic). I guess it still comes back to the value you provide at the destination.

What would you say was a fair starting budget for PPC advertising?

[Chris Bates]

FB is quite different, both in metrics and how the ads are seen and perceived. FB ads get stale MUCH quicker than Google ads.

Budgets depend on CPC really. I'd plan for a daily budget that doesn't get capped quickly (i.e. lasts most of the day), and plan to run the campaign for at least a month (AdWords).

FB is different again, as an ad is stale by a week - so you need to constantly mix it up.

Test, test, test, test. If you want me to talk your ear of, just Skype me haha

[JakeThomas]

I've had my Google adwords campaign up for about 2 months now, so it's still at a stage of refinement and research.

I've found that it's like any other kind of marketing, if you don't give it 100%, it won't give you 100%.

I ended up upping my daily limit about 5 fold and that was when I started to see results.

In truth, the conversion rate from Google adwords is much lower than my three other steams of new customers (walk by customers, word of mouth & letterbox drops / direct mail) but for the most part, I've found it quite quick, easy and not much effort.

- Jake

[BusiMum]

I did a revamp of website and adwords campaigns for one of my customers. We never increased the budget but simply re-did his keywords and loaded up his website as well with lotsa keywords. He is now constantly in the top 3 on page 1 for a half dozen different keyword searches relevant to his business. His business has increased geographically as before he was only getting work from Eastern Aus, now he gets work on in the West as well. Seeing the change in his business placings and enquiries, I am a fan of Adwords.

I can't comment on FB. But I will be starting an adwodrs campaign for Trench Safe.

[Jason Didsman]

I have been managing Google ads for my clients for over 2 years so I will share with you what I can about Google more so then FB, without hours of content lol.

Before you choose to use FB or G, you really need to consider your website as a whole. Are you generating successful leads from your website now, if the answer is no, them spending more money to drive traffic as Chris says is just wasting it. If you think your website is ok, bear in mind that people that click ads are usually not ready to buy the first time they click an ad, ad placement and control in Google is alot easier I think then in FB. This is valuable because the #1 spot will cost you more then the #3 spot. It doesn't always serve to be #1 if the opposition advertisers don't relate to your product and sometimes its easier to write better ads then they do too.

With google you can control where your ads show up in the list quiet easily, changes are also virtually instant. The geographic tool of where to show your ads in Google is amazing, FB not so much as far as I have seen, although the FB demographic too is very cool.

Ad variation is also important, you can use as many keywords as you want but I would say start with 5 - 8 key words (for beginners) and make say 8 variations of your ads, different taglines can make all the difference. Google will also help you by rotating the ads that get clicked on more. There are settings to control that too.

As to budget, throw all your keywords into a campaign, create and add set a cpc of .25 and wait 15 minutes. It will tell you what it will cost to get on the first page for each keyword. From their add say 10% and use that as the bench to get in the top 4 ads. Tweak it from there.

Check your ads daily even 4 hourly during your waking hours for the first few days and see whats going on, after 3 days get it out to morning and night, then out to once a day after 2 weeks. Then to twice a week.

If you need more help, feel free to ask me.

[bluethumb]

I have been managing Google ads for my clients for over 2 years so I will share with you what I can about Google more so then FB, without hours of content lol.

Before you choose to use FB or G, you really need to consider your website as a whole. Are you generating successful leads from your website now, if the answer is no, them spending more money to drive traffic as Chris says is just wasting it. If you think your website is ok, bear in mind that people that click ads are usually not ready to buy the first time they click an ad, ad placement and control in Google is alot easier I think then in FB. This is valuable because the #1 spot will cost you more then the #3 spot. It doesn't always serve to be #1 if the opposition advertisers don't relate to your product and sometimes its easier to write better ads then they do too.

With google you can control where your ads show up in the list quiet easily, changes are also virtually instant. The geographic tool of where to show your ads in Google is amazing, FB not so much as far as I have seen, although the FB demographic too is very cool.

Ad variation is also important, you can use as many keywords as you want but I would say start with 5 - 8 key words (for beginners) and make say 8 variations of your ads, different taglines can make all the difference. Google will also help you by rotating the ads that get clicked on more. There are settings to control that too.

As to budget, throw all your keywords into a campaign, create and add set a cpc of .25 and wait 15 minutes. It will tell you what it will cost to get on the first page for each keyword. From their add say 10% and use that as the bench to get in the top 4 ads. Tweak it from there.

Check your ads daily even 4 hourly during your waking hours for the first few days and see whats going on, after 3 days get it out to morning and night, then out to once a day after 2 weeks. Then to twice a week.

If you need more help, feel free to ask me.

Great info, thanks Jason. So it terms of landing pages that you setup for clients, do you primarily set them up to capture email addresses? If so, what do you normally have as the bait to sign them up. Thanks

[Jason Didsman]

Currently all the clients I have are selling something. Once you have the email what are you going to sell them, I think using Google ads could be an expensive per click way to simply just collect email, then obviously you are going to market to that person through their email and try to sell them something.

Getting people to sign up for newsletters is getting harder and harder and the offers less and less and credible, no one gives away $1500 FREE worth of information for an email. Make sure your offer is credible.

My suggestion would be make sure your ads before the click are genuine about it.

For Example. (Keyword is Golf Tips)

Free Elite Golf Books
Expert & Pro Golf Guides
Golfing Tips & Tricks Portal
ww.mygolftips.com.au (fake address)

When they click through I would have a newsletter capture that says

Get 20 Free Golf Tips
Improve your game with
Golf Pro Monthly.

The plus side to this is, you have told the user how often to expect the email as well.

Put an auto responder to thank the person for signing up and send them the 20 free tips. After they have signed up, send them to a page with a thank you and give them button options to continue through the site.

This way the client feels they are getting what they were searching for straight off the bat, or club in this case They also get a thank you for visiting the site so they don't feel like its a bad experience, the auto responder thanks them again and you could get a little cheeky and send them an offer to pass it onto other users or friends.

Put a like Option on the site with the capture also, that way if they are not interested in giving over the details for the email you still have a secondary chance of getting them on FB.. Don't put them next to each other though.

One final thing, try at least 2 different landing pages to start and with, put about say 50 - 100 clicks though each and measure your sign ups. Once you have done your testing, if they are fairly close to each other, use both and alternate them or put them both up.

I will stop raving now...

[Convertology]

I think you need to consider what you are trying to achieve before leaning towards Google Adwords or Facebook (assuming you want to choose one to focus on). Facebook users are not really in any sort of buying cycle since you are usually in downtime when on Facebook. Adwords ads are seen when someone is actively searching so they have entered a buying cycle - research phase.

You'll find Facebook is less effective at direct resonse marketing in most cases, though it does have it's exceptions. I have used it very successfully for universities and course providers for example.