Facebook Ads: Do It, They’re Worth the Money
by Dori SaltzmanFor many travel agents, the best aspect of social media is that it’s free. Creating a Facebook page, posting comments, photos and videos – all free. And all great ways to interact with clients and maybe pick up a few new prospects.
But agents or agencies that are willing to invest a few hundred dollars in Facebook ads will see even better results. Their fan bases will grow, expanding their exposure to new prospects.
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In Travel Market Report’s continuing series of Tactical Technology articles, social media consultant Sophie Bujold explores how Facebook ads work. (Editor’s note: Next time, Bujold will provide concrete tips to help you get the most bang for your buck when investing in Facebook ads.)
1,000 leads for $200
Bujold has extensive experience running Facebook ad campaigns. One of her most successful efforts was a two-week Facebook campaign for her former employer, Ensemble Travel Group. The campaign netted about 1,000 solid leads for an investment of just a couple hundred dollars.
The Facebook ad, which ran around Valentine’s Day, targeted Canadian brides. It led prospects to a contest website, where a contest form asked if they wanted to be contacted by a honeymoon or destination wedding specialist. Of the 2,000 or so who entered the contest via Facebook, some 1,000 asked to be contacted.
Highly targeted
Facebook ads are a form of pay-per-click advertising, where the advertiser pays only when someone clicks on the ad, and pay-per-impression advertising, where you pay only for the number of times the ad appears on targets’ pages.
The advantage of Facebook ads compared, for instance, to Google pay-per-click ads, is that Facebook ads can be highly targeted, based on attributes such as age, location, interests, workplace, education level and relationship status.
“Facebook has a lot of demographic information about its audience because it uses everything you put in your personal profile to determine what you might be interested in,” Bujold explained.
Depending on your goals you would target differently. For instance, if you want to grow the number of people who like your Facebook page, you would target broadly and reach more people. However, if you want to attract people to a physical event, you would target narrowly, according to interest and geography.
Pricing options
Facebook ads range in price from a few cents to several dollars per click or impression. Based on a bidding system, advertisers tell Facebook how much they are willing to pay. The higher the bid, the more often your ad will appear and the better its positioning on the page.
Facebook suggests a range of bids to advertisers, based on the number of people your ad might reach and the desirability of that market (i.e. are lots of other advertisers trying to reach the same market?).
How to bid
Bujold recommended bidding in the middle to upper end of the suggested range. If you bid the lowest price, it “pretty much guarantees you’ll get the lowest priority,” she said.
Additionally, advertisers set a budget for their campaign – either a daily budget (say $20 a day for two months) or for the lifetime of the campaign (perhaps $500 over three weeks). Facebook then allocates the money so it lasts the amount of time the campaign is set to run.
The tricky thing is balancing how long you want your campaign to run with how often you want your ad to appear per day and how much you’re willing to spend.
Tracking
All Facebook ad campaigns include a metrics dashboard that tracks results, including the size of your targeted audience, how much of it you’re reaching and how much of that audience’s social networking you’re reaching.
“Pay attention to those metrics because they can give you insights into what’s working and what’s not,” Bujold advised.
About Sophie Bujold: Before starting her own social media consulting company for travel agencies, Bujold (www.sophiebujold.com) spent eight years working with first Uniglobe Travel and more recently Ensemble Travel Group in their online marketing divisions.
