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Seeking intermediate advice on Facebook and advertorials (14)

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I saved up 13k to play with FB ads. I'm on my second campaign. My angle is good - I think. I am getting 8% - 10% CTR and .15 to .2 USA clicks to an advertorial that promotes a free trial with $36 payout. Seems workable.

My lander isn't making me profitable though. First lander had 15% CTR to offer and no conversions. Second lander had 50% of people reading the entire advertorial (which seems good to me), and 25% making it all the way through the end of the comments, but still just 18% CTR with no conversions.

I think there is room for improvement. I'm building a third lander and will make improvements based on what I have seen from my heatmap.

• I'm improving the comment section (previous comments weren't good, and most clicks were on the CTA after the comments)
• I'm making the pitch less obvious (it's a savvy crowd and I think it was too obvious at some parts)
• I'm monitoring the ad for negative comments (had 2 negative comments on it the whole time, didn't realize you could hide them, this alone may have killed any possible conversions)

I THINK I can make this campaign work. But here's the thing. I'm targeting a younger crowd and I have no baseline of stats. So, I am seeking some input regarding all of that:

• What is a good percentage to aim for, when considering CTR from advertorial to free trial offer, when running FB ads as a traffic source?
• What EPCs are possible with advertorials and free trials in 2017? I have .2 clicks. I can probably get 20% CTR from advertorial to offer. With those stats I would need around $1 EPC to break even. Surely people are still getting $2+ EPCs with advertorials and free trials in 2017? For reference, I'm running one of the Apex offers, and almost all of my traffic is mobile.
• Do you think my younger audience is killing conversions too much? Anyone ever made advertorials for 18-24 year olds? I know a younger audience might not convert as well as an older one when it comes to credit cards. But they have debit cards, right? What do you think? My best angles right now are definitely for younger audiences... but if that is too big of a hurdle for free trial submits, I will adapt.

Thank you for any and all replies. I'm moving ahead with the third lander now.

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First of all I think it helps a bit more if you put some numbers too instead of percentages only. The 18% and 50% CTR doesn't anything about amount of traffic etc. Second, the high payout for a free trial (not sure how many fields they have to fill in?) is some kind of a "clear" indicator it takes a lot of clicks to convert, I think.

"What is a good percentage to aim for, when considering CTR from advertorial to free trial offer, when running FB ads as a traffic source?"
Depends on too many factors; ad, prelander, targeting, geo, vertical.... could you be more specific?

"What EPCs are possible with advertorials and free trials in 2017?"
EPC's of 1 dollar are quite common yes.

"Do you think my younger audience is killing conversions too much?"
Yes, in general younger people are more savvy as you mention and harder to convince.

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Do you know that the offer's good?

You can have the best landing page in the world, but if the offer sucks and doesn't convert (or, worst case, is broken at some point and literally can't convert - seen that before more than once) you'll not achieve good CVRs.

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I don't have a ton of data which is why I left specifics out. I've sent about 300 clicks to each lander to get those CTR and time-on-site stats. Nothing huge but it was enough to show me that lander #1 sucked and lander #2 performed much better. Thanks a million for your input.

Thanks for your input. I realized this last night after looking around STM a bit. I asked my AM this morning and he says that the offer has performed well in the past, but it was just re-added so he had no recent stats.

I'm running about $250 of ad spend to lander 3 now, which is about 8x conversion cost. If it works, great. If it doesn't, then I know that either the offer or audience is killing conversions, because from what I can tell my angle and LP are both working well.

My next campaign will be with a more mainstream audience (no young people), and an offer that has healthy stats on the network already, so I can hopefully cut out these unknown variables. Overall I'm pretty happy with what I've been able to achieve on this one already (even if it ends up not converting), and I think the next one will be a hit.

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^^This is the mentality I don't see a lot with people trying and fail. Good mindset bro', go get sum!

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Good stuff!

Remember - just because an offer is performing well on your network doesn't mean it will work for you specifically. Always approach offers sceptically until you've got them working yourself.

(There are exceptions to that rule, but they come with experience in knowing what signals of quality are relevant to your campaigns and what aren't. Initially, scepticism is the right approach.)

Looking forward to your next updates!

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Thx m8

Thx, good to know. I picked one that is doing well with the network to start with. As soon as I confirm the angle and LP are both on point, I'll start split testing the offers.

Since two days ago I have ditched the old campaign targeting young people. Them being young and pushing CC submit, and the lack of reliable offers, made me rethink it.

I've picked my new vertical (still CC submit, different category of supplement), have the new audience and two angles, LP copy first draft is done. Angles are similar, so I can use same LP copy with slight tweaks for both.

Tomorrow I'll put it all together and submit the ad to run the day or two after that to get some starting data on ad CTR.

Feeling pretty good about it, think ad copy will get high CTR, no idea on lander. Feeling VERY good overall about not having to worry about the younger audience killing conversions or the fact that there were only 1-2 offers possible to promote. If I can get this mainstream offer sold to a mainstream audience, I'll have no trouble expanding everywhere fast.

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I came here via the link in your self intro.

Free trial supplements on FB - I'm guessing you are cloaking? Did you warm up your account sufficiently before launching these camps?



Amy

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Hehe no, account was banned today. I had no issues with the first campaign which promoted a brain boost free trial, so I got cocky and submitted one for muscle that was too over the line. I'm going back to the drawing board - looks like I need to learn more!

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You must split the campaigns, 18-24 and 25+ because 18-24 might not convert very well, but this traffic is also way cheaper.

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Thanks, yeah, 18-24 was quite cheap. I'm actually going to stop this trial/FB shit because I don't want to be messing around with bans and stuff, thought rules were more lax than people said because my brain boost offer kept getting approved over and over again. No more blackhat shit. Going to go with ecom.

BTW here's my campaign in case anyone wants it:

Target In College, 18-24, then specify a college, like OSU

Headline: Lazy OSU Students Goes From C's to A's overnight
Picture: pic of OSU logo or something

(he went from C's to A's overnight with his brain boost free trial)

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Got my Facebook account reactivated after submitting the pic, which is nice. Didn't have to go through the trials and tribulations of getting a new one as a noob.

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How fast did you get it back and has it lasted since?

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Yes, you can target older audience.
How about your creative? Picture? Video?

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