Day 1 FAIL: Facebook ads > Fan page >CPA offer

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So I am one of those guys who likes to learn from my mistakes and failures, so I wanted to share with you my day 1 story of Facebook Ads to CPA offer failure.

There are a lot of case studies and success threads on here that are really inspiring but I think we also need to dissect or mishaps and learn as a community so we can be better marketers.

So a few days ago I got a tip from a fellow warrior about a really cool facebook CPA method. I checked out the WSO and really dug the whole setup.

I won't go into details but it basically integrated a Facebook fan page promoted by facebook ads. The ad brought the visitor to a tab where they liked the page and there was a way to get the visitor on your email list and offer them a quick email/zip submit cpa all at the same time.

I built a fan page around the strength training muscle building niche. Its fitness which is popular and its something i know very well.

So I set it all up and ran the add and started getting a pretty good ctr for facebook and a good amount of page likes. Problem was the email list sign up and CPA offer were not converting once the visitor 'liked' the page.

So I know 2 things were working.

1) My ad copy was good enough to get click throughs at a decent rate
2) My fanpage landing tab design was good enough to get the page 'likes'

But after that the funnel broke down.

After the visitor liked the page they only needed to click one button to sign up to the email list and 'enter to win their free gift' in this case it was an ipad cpa.

problem was they were 't clicking to get their free gift or sign up for the email list. I was promoting a free Muscle Building Ebook to entice the click along with the chance to win the ipad2. Yet it was not converting.

So I looked at the image ad i had promoting the email list/cpa and realized it needed some work.

So I re-did the image made it look more slick and engaging for the niche.

I ran the ad again last night and same thing....good clicks, good likes, no conversions.

here are my current stats for this campaign:

Reach
4,910
Frequency?
13.2
Social Reach?
27
Connections?
55
Clicks?
80
CTR?
0.123%
Spent?
$48.16

3 signed up to the email list and 1 CPA conversion $1.40

YIKES!!!! Can you say FAIL?

So here are my thoughts of what could be going wrong.

  • Males interested in building muscle and strength training techniques don't want an ipad2.
  • Are too smart to fill out an email submit offer like this
  • The free ebook i'm promoting isn't good enough
  • my landing page post page 'like' isn't convincing enough

As you can see there are a few things to test. It's just a matter of how much $$$ I want to spend to figure it out.


Any thoughts?
#ad networks (cpm/cpl, display) #> #>cpa #ads #day #facebook #fail #fan #offer #page
  • Great case study! Great to see a good initial failure too ( Not happy you failed, it's just good to see realistic statistics.. lol ).

    Yeah, the muscle-building niche to a > Win a Free IPad definitely looks like the problem here, I'd say.

    Guys into muscle-building also like stuff like MMA, Football, Energy Drinks, etc.
  • Yup Jeff I think thats my next change before anything else. There are some MMA store gift card offers and some sports offers on peerfly i should check out.
  • Well because you got a tip and didn't get the full training on the method, of course you think you've failed so far. You're operating on partial information and are in the wrong mindset completely.



    You're not alone, people do this daily, dive in without having a full funnel in place, trying for the one hit wonder. Which is the completely wrong way to do fanpages on FB.
    • [1] reply
    • well actually i bought and went through the entire WSO 2-3 times as I built out the funnel I just don't want to give away the guys system for free on the forums

      I realize PPC is a test and adjust method and I am actually enjoying the process.

      With this particular process te lead lands on the FB fan page and is asked to 'Like' the page. Once that happens a second backend landing tab is revealed to them. On this page they are enticed to click a link that will add them to you list so they can receive the free 'ebook/report/or other freebie' at the same time it is also promoting the CPA email submit offer on a second click.

      The problem is people are 'Like'ing' the page but then are not following through with the opt-in/CPA offer.

      I just need to find the right combination of CPA offer/landing page copy and graphics to push that opt-in. I have some really good ideas I will be testing tonight and I will let you all know how it pans out.
  • It's actually a good start and the fact you took action and put the work in that's great too, not just keep it up and Im convinced you will eventually find success
  • I have had some great CTR with facebook ads but I found very few conversions (selling physical products) my conclusion was people don't go to FB to buy but to just "hang out"

    In your case it sounds like the offer wasn't right for the crowd (IPAD)
  • great study man, i was about to do the same type of promotion. I think that your problem is in the offer targeting, sending free ipad offer to members of a fitness fan page won't work, try a weight loss, sports magazine cpa offer. Also you should have the opt in embedded into the secondary iframe so the user doesn't have to leave facebook.

    Should be a custom landing page "click the like button" then when they click the like button a second landing page opens up with sales pitch and opt in fields.

    I'm going to start promoting a few fan pages of mine and have the cpa offers appear in the second landing page after they click the like button.
  • That's great that you started testing and taking action. You'll make money for sure, no matter when, because you know what you are doing.

    ~ Omid
  • Congrats on taking that action though! It's the toughest part. My suggestion would be like you said, make the CPA offer more relevant to the subject matter.
    You could always make fan pages and give away popular game cheats or iphone unlocking directions (anything of value that people want for free that you can find links to on google) and use a free content locker to FORCE people to fill in CPA offers!
  • Switch out offers then update the opt in link with a status update including new information about the offer. If pages have status updates if your using a group send a fb email to the members.
    For instance "Check out this fitness/muscle building ebook completely free also get a awesome (enter name) energy drink just for signing up" Make it sound similar to a coupon. In their minds it's like this guy will give me this for free and I get that just for signing up. Make sense?
    • [1] reply
    • Can the problem be you're trying to get them to do two different things?

      Go for the opt in or go for them CPA offer, but not both. Maybe one after
      the other.
  • Simplify the process as much as possible and make it flow as easily as possible. In this case, I would say the email capture is more important as you can always market to that email account numerous times in the future.
  • can you not keep a relationship with the people who "liked" your page? Message something every now and then on your page and then pitch some more offers
  • great advice here guys. I found an offer on peerfly that I am going to test with the same funnel system I have now. I am of the troubleshooting mindset of just change one thing > test it > then adjust.

    However I was thinking about the reach i know have will all the people who liked my page. The cool thing is it is a niche I know a lot about, before I even promoted the page I filled out the wall with lots of comments. I even got a few of the people who liked the page filling out the poll questions 'liking' posts and commenting on posts in the first day. I feel like I could keep them enganged offer them quality content, and then hit them with a FB mail or staus update to get them on the list/take advantage of an offer.

    I guess my thing was using PPC I was hoping to cover some of those costs up front with the cpa offer. But I never failed to see the long term value of these people on my page/list.
  • Facebook seems to have so much potential, No? Just curious, are you using a permission app (like farmville , for instance) where people just check off the info they allow you to have (email address), OR an actual sqeeze page or the like where they must manually enter their information? Facebookers (did i make up a term?) are used to checking off that generic facebook permissions thingy.
  • I'm fail too lol
  • Hey!

    I do a lot of FP to CPA. I can tell you right now it is better to start about 5 or 10 pages and build them out for 3 months. Do not promote any offers at all for 3 months and focus on daily updates and building a relationship.

    -Jokes
    -Website Articles
    -Quotes
    -Free Stuff
    -Free Giveaways

    etc.


    Once they trust you....they will do amazing things

    At my high point I was rotating promotion between all 10 of my pages getting about 100 bucks a day with similar CPA offer and 10 or so Subs. to my list.


    CHAD
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • You've received some good advice here. I would say good job on getting started as well, that's half the battle. That being said, I'd also add that your CTR, especially for an internal/fan page is low. .123% isn't shabby but personally for external pages I'm shooting for higher than that. Internally you really want to be getting .5% or higher if you can (to get the low cent costs.

      It's not always doable, depending on the niche, but I'm willing to bet you can get higher than .123% in the fitness/muscle building niche. Keep your images extreme, and try some simple ad copy, alternating with more descriptive to test. If this is a fan page, you have a like button on your ad - USE IT. Also make sure your targeting is on the mark, and use that to customize your ads.

      Lastly, don't be afraid to use CPM, it can be much cheaper to test. I know this doesn't help with the monetizing aspect, but you have a lot of responses in that regard here. Your ctr jumped out at me for a fanpage targeted campaign. Get that up and get cheaper clicks, more likes, etc.

      Danny
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Thanks Danny and Chad great points! I thought the ctr seemed low. I really need to get the CPC down, will try more extreme images. I am really thinking of changeing to CPM to keep costs down a bit as I don't have a huge budget, but my day job affords me the ability to put a little cash into this project.
  • facebook is waste of time
    • [2] replies
    • LOL...I tend to disagree but that's me.
      • [1] reply
    • How Insightful, please complete the sentence.
      facebook is waste of time because...
  • Every failure is a step to success. Take Care.
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Great study case !

    Well , here my comment this study case.

    Building muscle not related to iPad. Try Building muscle with any health offers. Make sure they related.
  • Hey, Firstly I want to say Good try!
    try another cpa offer that your nitch will be like :
    Sport magazine,free trial of products in the mussle building world.

    try this and let us know.

    Thanks for the case study!
  • I am looking at promoting CPA offers on facebook and this topic was very helpful. It would be nice if the OP updated his current status.
  • Like the others I think the main problem was the iPad offer. You can't push an offer onto a demographic that isn't interested. I always try to scope out message boards that are related to the niche and see what they're talking about on there to get an idea of what their interests tend to be.
  • I wouldn't call this a fail.

    More than anything, it seems you just haven't narrowed down your market enough to get your CTR % up.

    The higher your CTR, the lower your cost will be (when paying for impressions).

    I use Facebook pages with CPA and they work perfectly. But more than anything, they can be used again and again. Instead of just losing the viewers, you have those people on your page now.

    It seems you ended up paying almost $1.00 per fan though.

    Which probably means you're paying for clicks?

    If you were paying for impressions, you probably would have only spent like $5.00, so do some testing.
  • My recent stats : 59,445 reach, 54 clicks, 0.051% ctr and ONE conversion. adding some more ad copies
  • Hello
    Its a great study case because this is way of success.
  • Its not a fail. You have had feedback.
    and you still have those likes within reach.
    If I was interested muscle building I probably would not sigh up for something to read.
    I may sign up for a video, on a quick tip or helpful training technique, or something similar..

    ps I wish people would stop hitting "quote" when they reply to messages when it is not necessary.
    • [1] reply
  • Facebook fan pages are completely different now. This is a thread back in 2011.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • It is! Who is bumping these old threads and why?
  • I know its late, but what do you expect offering free iPads to people that joined a fitness niche!

    You would have better luck advertising one of the thousand CPA offers that cater to the fitness niche.
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    Day 1 FAIL: Facebook ads > Fan page >CPA offer

    So I am one of those guys who likes to learn from my mistakes and failures, so I wanted to share with you my day 1 story of Facebook Ads to CPA offer failure. There are a lot of case studies and success threads on here that are really inspiring but I think we also need to dissect or mishaps and learn as a community so we can be better marketers.