Just ran my first social media advertisement, and I made a profit!

9 replies
Just the other day I ran my very first advertisement on a semi-popular social media site (I would prefer not to share which one).

The ad was simple: when clicked, it sent the visitor to an Amazon.com affiliate page of a product that I thought was interesting.

Now here is the cool thing: I spent $60 as my advertising budget, and now that all of the items have shipped from Amazon, I've made exactly $62.44 in Amazon commissions!

See image here.

The irony is that nobody actually bought the product that I was advertising, but they apparently went all over Amazon.com and bought other stuff! I guess it's true what they say about Amazon Affiliate program: just get the visitor to Amazon.com through your link, and let Amazon do the selling for you!

I have already scheduled more advertisements to run, similar but slightly tweaked to hopefully get higher CTR. I just hope that this wasn't a one-time fluke, since as you can see, the large majority of my commissions came from 2 purchases of expensive electronics items which maybe I won't be so lucky in the future.
#advertisement #made #media #profit #ran #social
  • Profile picture of the author Max Greenflame
    Hm, congrats on that but be careful not to waste all your money next time. As to me, I think you're going wrong way spending your cash for so small return. The time and efforts you've put in your work are paid back with $2.44. What you're doing is big risk with no reward. If I were you I would be disappointed and change the strategy. This is my opinion.
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    • Profile picture of the author Curtis2011
      Originally Posted by Max Greenflame View Post

      Hm, congrats on that but be careful not to waste all your money next time. As to me, I think you're going wrong way spending your cash for so small return. The time and efforts you've put in your work are paid back with $2.44. What you're doing is big risk with no reward. If I were you I would be disappointed and change the strategy. This is my opinion.
      Obviously this is just a start. I don't plan on living off of $2.44 a day.

      Originally Posted by brutecky View Post

      I agree with Max. Spend $60 to make just over $2. Also you didnt make money at all in reality. You lost money. How long did it take you to set everything up? You probably could have made more if you spent that time flipping burgers.

      If I where you I would be extremely unhappy with these results.
      Ouch. Don't you think this is pretty harsh treatment for someone who just ran literally his first paid advertisement campaign in his life?

      And for the time wasted, most of the time was spent figuring out how to use their platform. Now that I know how to use it, I can set up a new campaign in like 2 minutes. I already have 3 more campaigns of equal size scheduled to run, and I have made tweaks that will most definitely improve the CTR (there was actually an error the first time and the advertisement didn't come out how I thought it would).

      Originally Posted by basse View Post

      Good start, look around and see if you can find a more targeted website for the product you want to promote. Other then that congratulations!
      Originally Posted by Scotty Bee View Post

      Congratulations!, The other guys may be partially right BUT, you did make money (profit) so thats something that not everyone does.
      Next time you may lose money and next time someone might buy an extremely high ticket item and you 10 times your investment.
      It's all a numbers game but by tweeking and testing you can gradually get the numbers to fall in your favour.
      Good on ya anyway. Done well by taking action
      Scotty
      Yeah this was really just a test of the advertising platform for me. I wanted to see what kind of traffic the ad would be able to generate. In the future, I will experiment with monetization other than just Amazon.
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      • Profile picture of the author brutecky
        Originally Posted by Curtis2011 View Post

        Ouch. Don't you think this is pretty harsh treatment for someone who just ran literally his first paid advertisement campaign in his life?
        No its not harsh treatment at all. Telling someone the truth and trying to help them get a true assessment of there business results is not harsh at all. Its a kindness that I gave you.

        Truth is that you earned a 3% return on your investment. Which is garbage.
        Truth is you worked to set up the ads etc for $2 and some change.
        Truth is even with these poor results you only got them because of a lucky sale or two.
        Truth is this campaign did not earn you money, you lost money and the results should have you very disappointed.

        Im sorry if the truth sux but Im trying to help you. Not stroke your ego with a bunch of silly comments like 'whoo hoo good for you bla bla' when it not good for you, this was a bad result. If your looking to get a bunch of people to pat you on the back then Im sorry for my response. See Im not interested in pats on the back. Im interested in money. And Im trying to help you see that based on your results this is not a good way to get some.

        Now do the smart thing. Understand this is not a good venue. Learn from your experience. Adjust your strategy and move on.
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  • Profile picture of the author basse
    Good start, look around and see if you can find a more targeted website for the product you want to promote. Other then that congratulations!
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  • Profile picture of the author brutecky
    I agree with Max. Spend $60 to make just over $2. Also you didnt make money at all in reality. You lost money. How long did it take you to set everything up? You probably could have made more if you spent that time flipping burgers.

    If I where you I would be extremely unhappy with these results.
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  • Profile picture of the author Scotty Bee
    Congratulations!, The other guys may be partially right BUT, you did make money (profit) so thats something that not everyone does.
    Next time you may lose money and next time someone might buy an extremely high ticket item and you 10 times your investment.
    It's all a numbers game but by tweeking and testing you can gradually get the numbers to fall in your favour.
    Good on ya anyway. Done well by taking action
    Scotty
    Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author jasondinner
    Well, the fact that you were able to make a sale at all from paid traffic separates you from 98% of people who try and fail, so pat yourself on the back for that.

    And the fact that you did turn a profit, although very small, should tell you that you're moving in the right direction.

    My advice would be to see if you could make another sale with that campaign and still be up a little money, even if it's a buck or two...

    ...THEN figure out how to get that campaign more profitable by tweaking your copy or split testing another similar ad against that one, lowering your bid, modifying your target market, etc.

    You're not that far off.

    In the beginning stages, you probably could make more money flipping burgers, but if you get a winning campaign, you can buy enough burgers to feed a lot of starving children.
    Signature

    "Human thoughts have the tendency to transform themselves into their physical equivalent." Earl Nightingale

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  • Is it facebook? Because I don't know of any other social media site that allows advertizing per say? I think its good you at the very least tried. I am sure you'll do better when you ramp it up. Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Marketaire
    Good job buddy! You just spent some money and acquired data and experience. Now you have the opportunity to work on targeting and segmentation based on your results, or at least developing more of a strategy that can scale profitably.

    Best of luck, even though there are haters here, you've gotta start somewhere! Keep sharing, often times you'll discover new ideas and strategies by doing so.

    BP
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