Facebook Ads – What You Need to Know

I’ve been using the Facebook ad network since the site first began offering public advertising. Advertising on any social media site can prove profitable due to the overwhelming user activity and the need to stay connected with friends and family.

Unlike the MySpace ad network, which is still flawed in many respects, Facebook’s ad platform is a little bit better, in the sense that there’s less competition and the site generally does not have a “corporate feel”, as with MySpace. Sorry Rupert Murdoch.

Let me start with the process of creating an ad. Facebook has very strict guidelines when it comes to what they approve and what they don’t approve. I’ll almost guarantee the first time you create an ad it will be disapproved. But after a while of getting to know how the editors think, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem getting your new campaigns running.

The CPC (cost per click) rate is calculated on a number of factors, including the location you wish to target, which can be narrowed down to the exact town/city. Depending which sex you choose to market to, and the age range, your CPC can go up or down. This is where things get a little tricky and I’ll let you in on a secret.

Let’s say you’re creating an ad promoting gift cards and you want to target residents who live in Seattle, WA between the ages of 18 and 25. You would first fill out your ad, select your options and then scroll down to see how much you can expect to pay. Make sure you’ve also uploaded an image to make your ad stand out.

Take a look at the screenshot to see how I’ve set up my example ad so far. (click to enlarge)

Now take a look at how much I can expect to pay for each click.

That seems a bit high, so I’ll see what tweaks I can make to bring that rate down. First I’ll play around with the demographics. By having the target age start at 17-years-old, I can lower my CPC by $0.07.

What else can I do? If I de-select male/female as those I wish to target, it will bring it down even lower, while still targeting both of those demographics.

So you can see there are endless possibilities of the options you could tweak to figure out what gives you the best rate. I usually pay around $0.60 per click, but if it’s a good offer, I’ll go as high as $0.90.

While Facebook advertising is more expensive than Google AdWords, I’d definitely recommend it as my first choice. AdWords is way too competitive and you have to deal with the Google politics, such as quality score, ad position and ranking, and mysterious billing practices, to which I still don’t understand.

If you’re looking to boost your CPC campaigns and really make some decent money in affiliate marketing, you should definitely be involved with Facebook Ads. Use these little tips to your advantage.

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