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1st Facebook Campaign Lost My Shirt In `1` Hour Please Help !

by jimkirk1943
20 replies
Hi guys,


Last night I started my first facebook campaign with a dating site I created 3 offers just targeting the UK all the same except the ages which are..
Offer 1 = 25-27
Offer 2 = 28-30
Offer 3 = 31-33


The offer is a international dating offer from Mate1.com and the payout is $4, when creating the ads FB recommended a starting bid as £1.02-£1.20 or very close to that remember this is `£` Great British Pounds
£1 GBP = $1.61 USD



So I entered 0.75 and facebook said that had to go higher so I finished with a bid of £1/$1.60 ! Right away this felt wrong bidding $1.60 for a payout of $4 but I wanted to get started so I took it !


After my ads being live for just 1 hour I had to pause offers 1 and 2 because i was £27 / $43 down in just 1 hour !!


I Checked Neverblue and I had 2 conversion $8, here are the full stats..






Offer 1, Age 25-27
Impressions 71,194, Clicks 30, CTR 0.042, CPC £0.70, Spent £20.97/$33.68


Offer 2 Age 28-30
Impressions 21,660, Clicks 7, CTR 0.032 CPC £0.76 Spent £5.33/$8.56


Offer3, Age 31-33
Impressions 20,469, Clicks 2, CTR 0.010 CPC £0.79 Spent £1.57/$2.52


These are the stats after 1 hour because I paused offers 1 and 2, offer 3 is still running, Offer 1 made 2 conversions making me $8.


So guys I really need your help ! Yes i`m stupid I can see this is not a good start but it is my first campaign I needed somewhere to start !


Whats the problem ? Did I make a total error bidding £1/$1.60 for a $4 payout ? Would you guys never bid so high what would you do ? facebook just kept giving me errors saying the bid had to be increased or no ads would be viable ! Would you guys just of left it there and moved on ?


What do you guys think to my stats on offers 1-2 ? offer 1 got 30 clicks in 1 hour


Can you guys please give me some advice before I let my campaigns run again




Please advise


Thanks so much..
Jim
#`1` #1st #campaign #facebook #hour #lost #shirt
  • Profile picture of the author soboer
    I would never bid that high. Also its better to bid on cpm than on cpc.
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    • Profile picture of the author M Thompson
      You probably won't believe it but thats too bad for a first attempt.. you made 2 conversions a lot of people would burn through way more that you did and not make that.

      I have no idea what conversions are like in that niche and for that product but it might be worth focusing on 1 age group and trying different ads

      you need to convert about 1 in 4 so thats never going to happen at those prices.. look for a higher payout or lower prices
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  • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
    So would you just of walked away from the offer as when i tried to put a lower bid in a red error came up saying i need to up the bid or my ad will not be shown, I couldnt just carry on either as i couldnt continue to the next page without raising the bid.

    CPM dont fancy that !
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  • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
    Hi Mark ! Thats funny you replying to this message i was just reading your blog about 1 hour ago !

    Well would they really burn though way mor than that on a simple 1 page submit ? What are the stats like in your opinon `Impressions 71,194, Clicks 30, CTR 0.042`??
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  • Profile picture of the author williamrs
    $1.60 is too high, bid 50% of what Facebook suggests (low end) and then increase your bid a bit if it's necessaryt o get a decent amount of impressions.

    In the beginning, focus on finding ads with a high CTR, like 0.1%+, so test many images and keep your budget low during the test phase.

    Also, test mulltiple offers and try to find one that can at leats break-even.

    If your CTR is high enough you can start optimizing the campaign and decreasing your bid. Instead of $1.60 you can pay $0.30 in the US with a good CTR and proper optimization.

    Also, considering trying something more specific in the beginning, like gay dating, black people meet, BB people, etc... those offers usually convert better than the more general ones.


    William
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  • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
    Hi William,
    I knew from the start $1.60 wasnt going to be good for me but what could i do !! I could`nt enter a lower bid becuase i tried this and a red error message came up saying i need to raise my bid or no persons will see my ad and i couldnt just ignore it and move on as facebook wouldnt let me create the ad at that price !

    Am i missing something here ? Why is everyone saying to ignore facebooks suggested bid ? I really get this part go lower then facebook recommends but i couldnt move on to create the ad without raising the bid !
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  • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
    Can anybody offer any more advice ?
    Is it simply that i payed too much for the clicks ? and am i right when i say FB wouldn`t let me decrease the bid at all it was £1 when i tried to go lower FB gave a red error saying no one would see the ad if i went lower and wouldnt go to the next page until i increased it ?
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    • Profile picture of the author sdentrepreneur
      I have found with Facebook Ads that split testing not only the copy of the ad but also the image works best for me. You also really need a good converting page to take them to.
      You can also that them to a Fan Page and once you have built a big following on a niche, you can marketing to them for ever withouth CPC or CPM.
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  • Profile picture of the author enSo
    Give CPM a shot. With a great ad it could turn out a lot better that what you got paying per click.
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  • Profile picture of the author ankee1991
    I'm also a newbie to internet marketing. Just started about a week ago using facebook to advertise the same thing, dating. The best advice I can give you is start small and TEST don't expect to write 5 ads and all of them do wonderfully, NO. Just test the you know what out of each ad. Put yourself on a small budget I started with $5.00 per day. Images are 90% of what makes the ad so research what kind of images work and what doesn't. Of the 10 you started with maybe 1 or 2 will actually do decent (CTR rate of 0.1+). After 2 days of testing I had 2 ads that were doing alright 1 of them had a CTR of .36 the other I think was around .074. Once you found some ads that work start scaling them up and split testing with it (same picture different title etc.) As for CPC or CPM? I personally never heard anything good about CPM my affiliate manager said stick to CPC but for bidding I remember facebook wanted $2.20 but I only set it to $.60 and after 2 days the CPC dropped to an average of $.14 because it was doing so well. So go back and start doing some research on dating ads and keep testing until one eventually works.
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  • Profile picture of the author tonydyt
    first bid lower than test with different images ( very important in facebook)

    Start with low budget campaigns and if you see good conversion ratio scale up.

    Just keep trying man! Good luck
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  • Profile picture of the author ameerulislam10
    One thing about facebook ads that it all depends on the current competition. I think in certain times/days bid rates goes down. Competition in my country is low. at times avg click rates are $.06-$.1 (yes only 10 cent I even got 1 cent a year a go) and at times it goes down to .03-.04 (I know you will fell from your seat when you see these low rates). Why don't you try to set a low rate and wait for a day or may be a week, you might find the time when your ads will get some low rated clicks. Will be slow and boring although. Just take it as an experiment.
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  • Profile picture of the author steve m
    You would need a 50% CR to all but break even (ish) That bid is well too high. Also are you direct linking?

    I was looking at that very same offer but it was in maxbounty, you'll get there. Beginners luck maybe?

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Eko Ventures
    Ignore the red message saying people won't see the add - it's BS, and most PPC networks do this to keep bids high, as it means a lot more money for them. You can always raise the bid if you don't see any impressions, start low and slowly go higher as you test.

    As you're on facebook you have some incredible demographic targeting tools at your disposal - do some research, get into the minds of the people you're targeting. Think of similar niches or areas of interest that these people will have exposure to and target them as well. If memory serves me correct, the more keywords and groups you target on Facebook the lower the average bid is.
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    • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
      Originally Posted by Yasha View Post

      Ignore the red message saying people won't see the add - it's BS, and most PPC networks do this to keep bids high, as it means a lot more money for them. You can always raise the bid if you don't see any impressions, start low and slowly go higher as you test.
      Ok i will ignore the red message but i seem to remember that i couldn`t continue to submit the ad without raising the bid ? maybe i`m wrong i`ll try again this weekend.
      thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author blillard
    a side from bidding to high make sure you set a daily budget so your ad spend wont run out so fast. Like to test you dating offer say your willing to lose $10 just see the ctr on the campaign. Then you take that data and run another test keeping your best ad variations and what not. Another thing when your doing campaigns try setting up some tracking like through prosper202 for ads as well. But keep it up.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewMurray
    Proper targeting is essential.
    Narrow your market
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanvroman
    You simply can't make this work. $4 is way too low for a CPC campaign like this. Even if you could nail 30 cents per click. 2 conversions for 30 clicks is pretty decent, so you would need to land 1 every 15, that means 27 cents per click to break even, let alone profit. And if you do profit, you would be lucky to make $1 per signup and it'll be too hard to ramp up enough click to make that profitable enough.

    This reads like an epic fail all the way. But hey, good luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author jimkirk1943
      Originally Posted by ryanvroman View Post

      You simply can't make this work. $4 is way too low for a CPC campaign like this. Even if you could nail 30 cents per click. 2 conversions for 30 clicks is pretty decent, so you would need to land 1 every 15, that means 27 cents per click to break even, let alone profit. And if you do profit, you would be lucky to make $1 per signup and it'll be too hard to ramp up enough click to make that profitable enough.

      This reads like an epic fail all the way. But hey, good luck.
      Lol no i know you and all the other guys giving there advice is 100% correct and i`ve got a heap of good starting points now, I really knew that the bid was too high for the offer but i didnt know i could just ignore facebooks questions to raise my bid or i will have no impressions.
      I`ve got a better idea of what to do now and will start fresh campagin this weekend and i guess i`ll be back with more question early next week.
      Thanks guys
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  • Profile picture of the author ckweb
    Yeah, $1.60 for a $4 payout? You would need crazy conversions for that to work and your targeting would have to be fantastic!

    I would dwindle down the demographics on your conversions. I'm assuming they are males in the 25-27 range. Now you need to limit the location, the age (maybe even further - do you know the age of the conversions?) and other factors. Your bid costs should go down and if your getting a good enough conversion rate, you can switch to CPM instead of CPC which can save you a ton in the short-term and long-run.
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