You have probably all heard of Facebook, and I bet the majority of you already have Facebook accounts, and maybe you even tried our Facebook application. If you haven’t, click here to try it. Facebook has 307 MILLION users and growing strong, are you thinking about how to reach them? If you haven’t looked into Facebook, we strongly encourage you to do so.
We recently looked into the Facebook ads platform, and we want to give you a breif introduction on how it works and how much does it cost. We were very impressed with what we saw, and we think it is an untapped gold mine that has great potential for your business.
The Basics:
The Facebook ad platform allows you to advertise your website, you and your company’s Facebook page. You can add a short title, a breif description and a picture for your ad. Basically, when a user uses Facebook to connect with their friends, your ads will show up on the right column.
sample facebook ad
The Facebook ad platform works very similar to Google AdWords. You can either pay by each click on your ad or pay by each 1000 ad views (they call it Impression Advertising). In your case, we think it makes more sense to pay by click. Like Google, it is also a bidding system, which means the highest bid wins the ad space.
We were most impressed with how you can target your ad audiences. Facebook ads allows your to target your audience in the following areas:
- Location (US, State, City)
- Age (e.g. 18 – 35)
- Gender
- Keywords (e.g. Boston University, Boston Medical Center)
- Education
- Workplaces
- Relationship statuses (e.g. Single, Married)
- Languages
- Connections (users that are connected to certain page, e.g. Boston University’s facebook page
It is very rare that you can create such targeted ads so easily, if done right, we think it could be very very benefitical to attract clients.
The Costs:
As we mentioned, it is a bidding system. You can set a budget on how much to spend each day and the maximum you want to pay per click. For example, you can have a daily budget of $5.00, and bid 50¢ per click. This means that each day, you can get up to 10 clicks on your ad until your funds run out. Since it is a bidding system, the highest bidder’s ad will show up first, so if you bid too low, your ad might not show up at all. The good thing is, at least you won’t get charged.
Currently, the recommended bid is 45¢ to 55¢ per click. This is about 1/3 of the cost on Google.
So What?
So why should you care? We haven’t seen many Facebook advertising on apartment rentals and real estate services. While their ad platform is still under priced (comparatively speaking) and under utilized, we believe if done right, it could prove to be a gold mine for your business. This is especially true in the Boston area, where a great number of renters are college students who are on Facebook daily.
What we think really drives the point is how you can target your audiences so precisely, which means that you are not wasting your advertisging dolloars on leads that do not matter to you. For example, let’s assume that you run an agency in Allston and you rent to Boston University and Boston College students primiarly. Then you can create a Facebook ad to target only Boston University, Boston College students between the age of 18 – 22, who are only in Boston. Anyone else that doesn’t fit those criterias won’t even see your ad.
How Do I Take Advantage of Facebook Ads?
There are many aspects to create a effective Advertising Campaign, like the wording you choose, your target audiences, and your budget. One very important, but often neglected aspect is that once someone clicks on your ad and you get their attention (however brief), can your website keep them there and make them a lead? If your website cannot keep them interested, then you are just wasting your advertising dollars.
Feel free to give us a call, we’d love to provide you with more information and point you in the right direction.
