In a bid to stimulate sales of my horror comedy novella Dead Heat, I last week paid for a batch of Facebook targeted advertising for a featured post on my Facebook page. I set the budget to £15 (around $20 US by current Brexit uncertainty driven exchange rates) and set the promotion period for one week.
I had no expectations that I would sell masses of copies, but I did expect a better outreach than I actually received from this first tentative advertising attempt.
- The advert reached just 672 people. I’m not sure what I expected there, but 672 probably seems fair for less than £10 investment
- 4 post engagements. I can only assume that meant people clicking through to the post on my page
- Two new post likes
Hmm. Again, I understand that £8.98 is not a large advertising budget for Facebook targeted advertising by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t know how effective this method of advertising really is? I have to get people through several barriers: 1) be intrigued enough to click through to the post. 2) then be intrigued enough to click to the blog’s sales page and then 3) be intrigued enough after reading the extended blurb to want to buy it.
I realise I will probably have to spend much more than £15 to achieve the level of awareness that I will need to get some sales so this may require several attempts at sale through Facebook targeted advertising. However, I am unconvinced by it as a sales method at present. I have an ad blocker (as many people no doubt do) which means it will not show up for those who block adverts, even if they are prime target audience. I realise this is counterproductive, but there are too many websites using too much advertising that I keep it left on much of the time.
When I do switch the ad blocker off on Facebook and other social media sites, I tend to ignore the overwhelming majority of adverts.
Has anybody had any success in Facebook targeted advertising? I would very much appreciate hearing about your experiences.