Facebook Noob - No expectations (33)
Long Due. Decided to be as transparent as possible so you guys can give feedback. I have thick skin for criticism so please fire away.
I'm realistic, I am aware of the statistics and most likely I'll fail but I'll try anyway. I just want to learn. I hate losing money but it is what it is.
I doubt anybody will rip a noob's campaign but if it happens then what the hell, I want to improve not profit, for now at least.
Offer: Reverse Phone Lookup - Credit Card Submit
Payout: $16
Traffic: Facebook
Budget: $40-$50/day
Geo: US
Why Facebook? I know it's not recommended. Actually contemplated on doing Mobile but this is where I started so this is where I'm going to do. You guys preach this so I'll stick to the traffic source. I actually got my account banned a couple of times but somehow I got it back. Played it safe ever since (NO DL unless green WOT and used iFrame).
Target: Women
Age: 21-55
Interest: TMZ (How many interests should I be using? - More will be better or worse?)
Used Facebook Graph Search to come up with this.
Volume: 100k+ per each group based on this demographic
Sample Ad:
Stop Calling ME!
Someone got your number and don't know who? Find out now! 5 day trial for $1. Click Here!
Have a total of 50 ads to test. Will be using CPC, 6-10 ads at a time at around $6 budget each.
Started running ads at 12:01AM(facebook ad manager time) <--- Is this a good idea? because server time is PT. Most Americans are fast asleep.
Will try to aim for 5k impression/ 0.1% CTR and weed out the rest. Very difficult as I only average 0.04% for right side ads. Have a long way to go.
So there you have it.
Right now running 21-25, bidding at $1.8 for CPC. Facebook suggests $0.54-$0.90 for this geo. Is this again, a good idea?
oCPM destroyed me before when I got busy with my day job and wasn't able to monitor the ads.
Questions:
1. For now my focus is bringing down the cost of CPC. This is through higher CTR right? Realistically can right side ads in Facebook have 0.1% CTR and above?
2. This is a credit card submit campaign. Based on the Payout and the current cpc range, will you guys still run this? This is what my AM suggested.
3. Did I miss something? or do you guys see anything that makes you say "what a noob". Lol 
. I know I am so I'm cool with you guys being frank.
I would bid lower, more like $1.00 to start.
I would removed the 5 day trial $1 part from your ad. It's an immediate put off. Broach this topic in your lander. Say something along the lines of "Find out who called you for only $1. Search as many numbers as you'd like for up to 5 days!"
1. Yes, you need higher CTR. Yes 0.1% CTR is very realistic, you just need good ads and targeting. I'm not sure how well TMZ will work. $1 CPC doesn't bode well if that's what you need to bid to get traffic! But with such a high payout offer you can have quite high EPCs if you can really funnel people to the offer. They will have to whip out a credit card so be prepared to have to spend a bit and really work on your angle/ad copy.
2. Just run it... collect your own data and see what happens. You will need to spend a bit to get data but don't test don't profit. However, be careful with the quality of this offer, MyWoT score, etc.
3. You say 6-10 ads at a time with $6 budget. Is this per age bracket? I would be more inclined to run say 2-3 ads with $5 budget and cull if they have shocking CTR. Let the higher performers get some data so you can see how the lander/offer performs.
Ah, got to work on my ad copy. I see what you mean by using "Find out who called you for only $1. Search as many numbers as you'd like for up to 5 days!" instead of just "5 day unlimited trial for $1"
1. TMZ, I'm playing with the idea that the ad image will be familiar to the target.
2. AM I likely to get flagged on FB even if I use a landing page?
3. 6-10 ads for 21-25 age bracket first. The plan is to run 6 and keep 1 or 2 then run another 4 on the same day.
Is this logical? You did say on your guide that I'll get awful CTR if I start the ad outside of the first few hours of the day.
Thanks for the input Zeno. I'm going to make the necessary changes as you recommended.
I decided to draft the new landing page with Photoshop. I simply made 2 layers, 1 for the background and the other one for the content. It's easier to make, took me 15 minutes compared to coding everything for a couple of hours.
CSS looks like this:
background:url(layer1.jpg);
background-position: 50%, 0;
-webkit-background-size: cover;
-moz-background-size: cover;
-o-background-size: cover;
background-size: cover;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
width: 100%;
max-height: (height of Layer 2);
}
#wrapper{margin:0 auto; width:#px; display: block;}
.layer2{width:#px; height:#px; display:block;}<---- in .png so background will remain transparent
Everything is working well now, IE and all. I made the LP look similar to the actual campaign lander and will test this in a few hours.
Day 1 (Test):
Ran 8 ads on Demographic A but weeded out the bad CTR banners so I won't bleed money.
Started at 7PM Facebook Ad time.
Spent: $12.51
Clicks: 15
Lander CTR: 0% <-- Needs improvement
Rev: $0
ROI: -100%
Top 3 Converting Banners:
0.073% 5.5k imp
0.059% 10k imp <-- Saw this one @ .09% on 5k+ but went down at the end of the day
0.056 3.6k imp
Tomorrow's Plan:
Will run the top 2 ads on 4 demographics. Started running this @ 12:01AM Facebook time.
See what happens.
Have you checked the loading time of your LP? If you're using transparent PNGs, it may be considerable.
If you install Adobe Edge Reflow, I believe it has a tool to auto-import Photoshop files and convert them to HTML - pretty neat.
Originally Posted by caurmen
PNG was ~90kb so I had that compressed using https://tinypng.com/
LP now loads at 575ms. Grade is still low though because of the redirects. Not really worried as I'm seeing 20-40% Page CTR.
See what happens.
Made significant adjustments to the lander. Decided to simplify and in my mind improve the ad copy.
Gained inspiration to the forum's Copywriting section.
I ran 2 ads each on the 4 demographics.
Spent: $31.96
Clicks: 44
Lander CTR: 27.27% (improvement)
Rev: $0
ROI: -100%
I didn't see anything above 0.06% CTR on my ads. Will test others. I have 45 to go lol. Also have a new idea for the banners. Will work on that Friday night.
Tomorrow's Plan:
Will give the 4 demographics another run tomorrow but I have already have a candidate for the ones to drop and the ones to keep. I just want to confirm the data.
Originally Posted by zeno
Will run a new campaign now lol.
Is there a reason why you're going for such a high payout offer? Usually those tend to require a bigger budget and a lot more testing. I guess it is possible still, but just a lot harder. That's just how how I've seen it.
You're right. There were pros and cons to the offer but it is "sale-able" in my opinion. Just wanted to see if it works.
I guess reading all those copywriting/psychology books made me a little over my head.
Anyway, I still learned from this so it's all good. I moved on from this and possibly changing networks soon.
They keep on recommending weird campaigns.
Tested an offer that ran on FB. It's direct linked and lead gen only. We'll see what happens.
Took a day off on Saturday to decompress and recharge. Changed networks but will still run campaigns on Facebook.
Will be running Gaming CPL's.
2 demos, 6 images(ad set) each, triplicates in 1 ad set. $5/day budget for each ad set. ~20 similar interests, used the recommended function for this.
Direct linked. Will use networks tracking tool for now to save time. This is just a test anyway.
Learned to play things smart and not overplay my hands. It's such a waste of time and effort to come up with 50 or so banners, 3 ad copy's upload them all and then find out that offer got paused a few days later.
Are you planning on direct linking to the affiliate link?
That's a bad idea.
You need a tracking system in the middle for:
1. Geo-redirection. Direct linking to an aff link is shooting yourself in the foot. Read that part of my guide if you haven't.
2. Rotating offers/landers. Sure you might want 1 and no landers right now. What happens when you do? You'll need to change the FB ad URL. Bye bye ad performance history.
I already did. Ads got approved using network's url without problems.
WOT rating also has two greens.
It's odd though because after I used the network link, the link that showed in the right side ad is the advertiser's main site. Don't know how that happened but it did for all my ads.
Anyway, You have a point Zeno. I also realized that I can't use the networks tracking system as the reporting tool has a lot of delay. That in itself can drive me bananas.
I'll just finish this day's test(already seen a conversion) and revert back to the good ol prosper202.
I have a problem using iframes for this offer though. The LP shows two side scroll bars. It looks weird. Iframe height and width are set to 100%. Don't know why this happens.
I should probably use a metarefresh redirect for this one.
Facebook will resolve the affiliate URL to the destination and display that domain.
Have you disabled scroll bars in the iFrame settings?
More importantly, why are you even using an iFrame if you are direct linking to the network URL? I'm a bit lost on that one. Or were you playing with iFrame vs Direct?
Honestly, there is absolutely no point in using an iFrame whatsoever if the offer URL is compliant.
iFrames = your server added to the mix needlessly and the frames will break advertiser lander functionality sometimes.
I'm using STM tracker and whenever I use the tracking link in Facebook, it shows the subdomain in the destination. For example, tracking.mydomain.com.
I'm just not comfortable broadcasting my prosper log in page to anyone. Using iFrames is a workaround for this so it only shows mydomain.com.
That's basically my issue so I iFrame my tracking url to direct link an offer to make it never show the subdomain. I know it's complicated lol
I tried using scrolling="no" to disable to scrollbars, it works but it cuts off the actual page. So if you're using a smaller browser you can't see the call to action 
Originally Posted by zeno
As long as you have proper redirection in place that sends FB crawlers to the advertisers page, yes that is the domain that will show - NOT your tracking domain.
iFraming to avoid this isn't necessary.
In any case, anyone who is interested in your tracking domain will find it through http headers anyway, so trying to hide it is a rather pointless exercise.
Right on the money Zeno. I used my tracking links for today's campaigns. Everything works fine as you say it would. Thanks!
One More Time!
Gaming Campaign on Facebook
Demo: Late Teens to Twenties
Day 1 (TEST) - Direct link using Network Tracking
Spent: ~ $17
Ad Sets: 12
Conv: 1
ROI: ~ -85%
Summary: Trial run to see if offer converts. No banner above .06% CTR. Weeded them but kept the one that converted.
Day 2 - Back to good ol Prosper. Zeno was right about using networks link, it's just not worth the risk.
Spent: ~ $20
Ad Sets: 12
Conv: 1
ROI: ~ -88%
Summary: Tested other banners, made 3 variations of the one the ad that converted on Day 1. CTR improved but no 0.100% yet. Will continue running the converting ads to get more data.
Plan for Day 3:
Continue to run ad(3 Variations) that converted.
Add 5 different images for demo1 and demo2
Test new copy for ads that converted.
Total of 15 ad sets to be run.
Will also run another gaming offer. Lots of landers on this one but will test the one that has Green WOT for the meantime.
12 ad sets (6 each for 2 demos) with $5/set budget.
I'm slowly ramping it up. Hopefully see improvements soon.
Looking good! I'll be interested to see your next updates.
Gaming Offer #1
Day 3:
Spent: ~ $26
Ad Sets: 15
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%
Summary:
Sent in 60+ clicks till I paused the campaign. Highest CTR I got is 0.057%. Long way to go friends.
Question:
Should I continue running this campaign? It looks bleak and talked to another network and the AM told me that this isn't a really hot offer.
It's just under a really tight budget so it looks like to be in demand.
Plan:
Will take a 1 day break from this campaign to set up a landing page. Will be running 6 ad sets for 2 demos again.
Gaming Offer #2
Day 1:
Spent: $37.63
Ad Sets: 12 (6 each in 2 Demos)
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%
Summary:
Yuck. 81 clicks and no conversions. Doesn't look like a good offer.
Highest CTR is 0.066%.
Plan:
Will still run this but through a different network. They have a different set of landers but the WOT rating is poor so I made a landing page. Nothing fancy.
Already uploaded 6 new ad sets each for 2 demos. Will be running this for tomorrow. Budget is still the same, will see what happens.
Other things:
Got in another network, AM gave me an offer. I checked and the game looks like a few months old. Good opportunity, will get into this in a couple of days.
This is a lot of work 
But I'm focused. Wish there's more time though.
@de_sean - what's the payout on both of those offers?
Originally Posted by caurmen
Game #1: $2.5
Game #2:
Network A(green WOT): $2.7 <---- No conversions
Network B(Yellow-Red WOT): $2.2 <---- Running now
80 clicks to a gaming offer, with reasonable ads and targeting, and no resulting conversions > generally means it's a shitty offer.
Send gamers to a gaming offer and some of them will convert if the offer is worth it's salt.
What offers were these specifically?
The one with 80+ clicks is LOA. It's an old lander though. Gave it a go because of the better payout.
Will try LOA with another network because of better landing pages(eg. animated background, login with Facebook, Google, etc. & not so intimidating woman)
The first offer is Wartune and the more recent one that I'll be running is Monkey King.
All browser games!
I've been getting conversions here and there. ROI could be better though.
Then I read this post by Malan Darras:
http://www.malandarras.com/insider-information
Took action. Saw in spy tools that there's not much volume on games coming from Facebook. There's probably a reason why that is so.
I have to think about what traffic source I'm going to use from now on. I'll be talking to a bunch of people and try to figure out what can work for me.
Originally Posted by de_sean
There is unequivocally a metric tonne of volume coming from Facebook to games, although many are integrated into the FB platform or are mobile games.
I spent a good part of last night researching on this.
Here's an example:
r2games.com
Top 2 volume is LoA and Wartune.
Source: http://www.similarweb.com/website/r2games.com
@ SocialAdsNinja:
Sorted by Last 7 days, 30+days alive. Only 1 game and not LoA and Wartune
@ Follow.net:
Same as Similarweb.
@AM:
Talked to him straight up and told me he's hasn't seen much volume on Facebook for gaming campaigns.
Although there is promise to 1 game, he hasn't seen results yet.
Games allowed on Social doesn't necessarily mean a good chunk of the traffic comes from Facebook. Based on these:
http://www.similarweb.com/website/kongregate.com
http://www.similarweb.com/website/r2games.com
http://www.similarweb.com/website/gtarcade.com
Less than 10% comes from Facebook.
These all lead me to conclude that working campaigns in Facebook right now that have volume are cloaked diet, health and dating offers.
Let me know what you think because I'm leaning towards jumping ships to mobile now. Or learn how to cloak effectively.
I would love to continue on Facebook because I'm beginning to get a better grasp on how to run campaigns now. Doing it with more direction because of what I've learned here on STM.
LoA and Wartune have been hammered on Facebook... whether spy tools and places like similarweb so say or not. Facebook is a social platform. People there are bored. Bored people like to play games. Intuitively, Facebook is more equipped for gaming traffic than it is virtually any other vertical. You only need to look at the destinations sites listings to see Facebook is where a lot of the people on those sites hang out...
There is a lot of display advertising for games and it's hard to beat the volume out there with just Facebook, hence what similarweb shows.
However, note that the direct and search values can virtually be excluded from the data there... they are huge portals so get a lot of direct traffic from internal links, bookmarks, etc. and will get a tonne of search traffic that is not advertising.
Many of those companies will run Facebook internally because of the crap affiliates tend to do. In particular, most ads on FB for games that redirect to a FB app are run internally.
In short: there is a tonne of gaming volume on Facebook, but it can be hard to tap into easily - it's not exactly a non-competitive vertical, or traffic source for that matter.
Thanks for the insight.
Jumped to mobile. Running 1 offer now.
Thread Here:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...o-expectations
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