How much do Facebook ads cost & How to get the lowest Cost Per Click
There are plenty of arguments against using FB ads as a form of PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. There are a few advantages to the system, if you know how to use it properly. I shall discuss both sides of the coin, the way I see it. I have done my research with FB Ads both on a global and on a local scale. It is in the latter part where I found the “trick”. Keep in mind this is A WAY not THE WAY, to go about Facebook ads.
Why does Facebook even have adds? Aren’t the apps, that are generating income enough?
When Facebook came around, it most probably had the same ideas as Google. They had “we will sell ad space” at the bottom of the income-generation list. Of course they both went down the same path and came to the conclusion, that selling advertising space is the only way to go. People usually think that all the apps, like addictoholic games, such as Mafia Wars and Farmville, with over 40 million active players, generate a lot of income. They do! But not for Facebook! Facebook made a crucial error, when they literally gave the free space to Zynga, so they can run their games on Facebook. The purpose of this was just to keep the masses ON Facebook at all cost. Zynga is generating far more profits, than Facebook at this time. But who knows, what the master plan of Facebook is. Being one of 3 sites on the entire web space with PR 10 and Alexas ranking #2 is quite the peak I would say.
All in all; Facebook makes its $$$ from selling ad space via their Facebook ads system.
Facebook ads are EXPENSIVE! How much do Facebook ads cost?
They can be very, VERY expensive indeed. I think that PPC in general is the most money-gulping method of online marketing, especially if you don`t have a clue about what you are doing. There are a gazillion users (<- don`t know the number so I speak metaphorically) on Facebook today. For some strange reason, everyone thinks they are all American, so 95%+ target solely the USA, UK and Australia. Other people can speak English as well, for all the people who think that the rest of the world uses sign language to communicate.
Of course the US are the most online shopping friendly nation, largely due to the fact everyone has a credit card (seldom just one), whereas other countries (especially in the EU) have certain restrictions regarding, who they entrust with a credit card. The latter makes sense right? If your answer is no, you are probably still holding up a banner saying “Welcome Recession Enjoy Your stay”.
To stay on course -> In order to get a LOW cost per click on Facebook ads, you must target people OUTSIDE the above mentioned 3 countries. You could find some “loop holes” within them, but trust me when I tell you that the chances are slim.
Facebook ads do not target keywords, but people. They can only show so many ads, to a certain amount of people, especially in a specific niche. If there are 5 advertisers, that are paying high $ for a “dog training” product and are targeting Americans that “like” dogs (<- this is stated in their Facebook profile, from which the Facebook ads gathers its info on who to target), then you will most likely have to pay even more in order to get your adds shown. If you are promoting the same product (let’s say a Clickbank product), your chances of even getting approved are slim.
In order to get your CPC down, you must target a large amount of people. It is exactly vice-versa than Google ADwords, where you get a lower CPC the smaller the targeted group is. So in order to get the CPC down I suggest you target at least 50k people that have at least some interest in what you are offering. If you are selling locally, this could be easier, if there are a few competitors. I have made quite a few sales, selling Mafia Wars guides to South Korea, South Africa and Argentina. Who would have thought people in Argentina spoke English and played mafia wars huh?
I did target other countries and still the CPC was 0.20$+. What to do?
I am not the Chris Columbus of the Facebook ads system, so I did not “discover” this mystical formula, but I can show you how I got my CPC down to 0.023 $ per click. I followed the next steps and the results were there. Keep in mind I am talking solely on traffic generation. The conversion rates of the product sales pages you are promoting are your own business and have nothing to do with CPC on Facebook ads. So here is what I did:
- I targeted 120 000 people from 7 different countries (I avoid African countries in general, except South Africa).
- I chose a product, that was related to my specific niche ( Mafia Wars Blueprint -> for Mafia Wars players ).
- I made some research of the SALES PAGE (I used quantcast.com to check out the demographics and stats of the site )
- I targeted the age group that showed up as the most relevant to the product. ( You would be amazed at this figures! 55 year old grandads gobbled the blueprint )
- I made an APPEALING add. This is the most crucial part. Of course I put an attractive woman with a gun in the picture (got it from flickr.com ). The topic was a provocative question, lead by a description, which was actually a teaser to get them to click the add. In the case of adwords you wouldn`t want “random” people to click your adds, but with Facebook ads you want to have the highest CTR (Click Through Rate ) possible. The more people that click, the lower your CPC is. That’s the Facebook way, as non-logical that it may sound. Maybe there is a theory to their madness. I still hadn`t figured it out, but frankly I don’t give a hoot.
- The next step was to keep track of the CTR and the CPM (Cost per Mille = Cost per 1000 views). Once the CTR was so high, it was better to switch to CPM, where I went from 3.5c per click to 2.3c per click. I received over 4k visits in a 48 hour period for “pennies”. That’s what I call dirt cheap traffic.
- You must know; that in order to keep a high CTR, you must switch the adds regularly, because the same people will view them over and over again and you will not get any clicks from them. So I suggest you make more campaigns or make pauses (of about 1 week) after each “shot”.
I know you stopped reading and took a look at this 
That is exactly what FB users did as well!
I hope this helps. I would suggest that you use Adwords instead, due to the more relevant traffic, but for massive launches or generic products Facebook will do just fine. Your money management must be in tip-top shape or you will go down hard.
If you are promoting something locally (and you are not from the US or UK), I would encourage the use of Facebook ads, due to the fact that there are most likely just a few competitors in your niche. As long as you keep your target audience high, you should be fine.
Looking forward to your responses with comments on your success.
To your online success, Igor Buyseech
Interesting findings. Thanks for sharing.
Got a question on how interest targeting works – when you target Americans that “like” dogs, are these the people who clicked LIKE on a specific page called ‘dogs’, or just generally people who typed ‘dogs’ in their interests? What about those who did not enter ‘dogs’ as an interest, but who like multiple pages related to dogs?
P.S. we speak English here in Malaysia too
Hi there,
I believe its both. So people that liked “Dogs” (probably a site/fb page related to Dogs with thousands of “likers” aka followers.)
In my practice so far, I have learned that I myself get shown the ads that are related to my profile information the most. Other interests are in the 2nd row, but still count nonetheless.
Good to know there are many Malaysians that speak English
Will definetly give some FB campaigns a try.
Thank you for the insight.
Sincerely, Buyseech
Hi buyseech,
It is an interesting article you have here.
I am wondering, if I may know, what 7 countries you use for your ads? I use South East Asian countries, and get 0.02 and sometimes 0.01 CPC.
Btw, I am Indonesian and a lot of us understand English too…
Regards,
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