The Newbie Manifesto: 30-days of Facebook (12)
Alright, mouth piece in, hands up, elbows in. Time to go toe-to-toe with Facebook. I wanted to get my first follow along going before meeting you all after ASE this coming weekend (if you're going!), so I decided to execute my first Facebook ad. Who knows, by the end of the week I could make enough money to pay for the bus ride into NYC 
I will try to be as transparent as possible both to receive tips, but also to help other newbies who need a point in the right direction.
I decided to go with Facebook dating to start, and I'll post the info and stats here:
Network: Adsimilis
Offer: Be2 - Dating
Country: Canada
Status: Ads Pending Approval
Cost Per: CPM
Budget: $10.00/day
For the other newbies: I chose all of this based on reading the 40-day newbie guide by Tijn and Polarbacon and I highly recommend you start with this as well; it is basically what helped me lay out my strategy.
I will be updating this daily with profit, loss, or whether I edited the campaign to optimize it. My current plan is that if I take 3 straight days of 0 conversions, I will pause the ad and go back to the drawing board. I'll update next as soon as the ads are approved/disapproved!
3 things:
Start with CPC
Double your Budget (at least)
Don't start broad. Start niche, then go broad.
Niche is easier pickings in terms of profitability. Broad is a bit harder. Will require more money to test but will get you much bigger results down the line. At least do a broad dating offer with a niche angle to start.
That's just from what I've learnt.
Originally Posted by richardj
Why, in your opinion, is CPC better to start with? Does it have a higher conversion than CPM in your experience with FB dating? I tried to keep my budget in the $5-$15 range as per the guide... but you think I should create a larger daily budget to get better data?
I have re-adjusted my ads per your suggestion to CPC. The range is currently $.78-$.83 CPC.
All ads in my first batch were approved, woo!! Also re-adjusted my budget to $20/day as per your suggestion richardj
Originally Posted by sjhunter86
If you think about it, it makes sense. Facebook would make more money by showing the CPM ads to less clicky users and in the positions where less people click, and vice versa with CPC ads. So I normally stay away from CPM.
That's not to say you shouldn't test with CPM eventually, but I would suggest you start with CPC.
$10 might be enough, but I would suggest $20 considering the offer you are using has a $7 payout - I think someone suggested 3 times the payout as a good amount to test with.
Best of luck anyway. I will be following this.
I think you've made a good decision to start dating on FB. Most people start with POF, which works. But I've honestly found FB much easier to hit bigger numbers.
I've scaled mature dating campaigns to do $xxxx per day with ease on FB.
The payout is actually 4,50€ per Conversion, so do you think I should do $15 instead of $20 (for the testing phase, obviously). My bid is in the lower range, but not the suggested minimum. My guess is that I won't even see impressions until later in the day, correct?
Are you linking directly to offer or via a landing page?
Originally Posted by hummer
I'm starting out just like you except I'm advertising on PoF instead of Facebook.
Maybe we can help each other out.
BTW, I'm well versed in server setups, programming and design. So let me know if you need any help.
Day 1 Stats:
Clicks: 28
Conversions: 0
Highest CTR Ad: .075%
Spend: $15.00
Revenue: $0
Profit/Loss: ($15.00)
ROI: 0%
Spoke to my affiliate manager, apparently the ad I was promoting hasn't been doing fantastic in general. However, my image in one add was getting almost all of the clicks, but only achieved a .075% CTR by the end of the day.
I am going to change the offer to another dating niche which was deemed more "Facebook friendly" for tomorrow's test batch using the same images (one other image turned over a .072% CTR). I will be adding some new images in to split test along with very specific age groups (i.e. 30-31, 32-33, 34-35, etc.) tomorrow. Will keep you all posted!
Every creative was disapproved for some reason even though I'm simply direct-linking a Facebook app. Back to the drawing board temporarily I suppose.
Upon getting some advice, I have decided to hold off the remainder of this campaign for a little while. Direct linking is the easiest route as a beginner, but clearly not as effective as a custom lander. I need to figure out how to set up and configure hosting, and create custom landing pages. The advice I was given pretty much told me direct-linking, especially on Facebook, is a dead end. Anyone else have an opinion on this? I am available by PM, AIM and Skype as well. Any feedback is much appreciated.
Go check out Finch's premium posts for a good break-down of why direct link vs use an LP. Most of the questions you're asking in this thread are covered 100x over
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