Facebook and Google Ads: Are they worth it?
Facebook makes billions of dollars with their ads.
Are they worth it?
GM says “no” – they’ve pulled their ad campaign.
But here’s the thing:
While traditional advertising (pushing information from one to many) is not nearly as powerful as permission-based marketing, there is still something to be said for brand impressions when done strategically.
If you’ve been to one of my seminars, you’ll recognize this screen grab:
Now before I get into WHY and HOW it can be done right, let me give you a bit of info about advertising.
Before we could click on something to get immediate access to content, advertisements in TV, radio, magazines etc were placed to distract you from what you were doing.
If you were watching your favorite TV show, listening to the radio, reading the newspaper, ads were designed to behave like a person dressed in a clown suit waving at you to come into their store. They were a distraction.
But…there’s something to be said about these distractions. Big brands have spent billions of dollars trying to distract you.
The secret sauce to advertising is: reach + frequency = impressions and customers.
The rule of thumb is that it takes between 8 to 10 times for someone to see your brand before they begin to have a relationship with it.
So you can’t simply place an ad in a magazine once and expect the phone is going to ring. It’s not gonna happen.
In the world of Social Media, where the gold is in pre-qualifying your leads with a smaller, yet actively interested community.
For the most part, we tune out ads. Very few people click on banners and buttons and hotlinks. You’re not going to convert business using web ads.
BUT remember those brand impressions I talked about? You can get in front of your potential audience and get brand resonance at an affordable price.
Facebook, Google, and even LinkedIn have a self-served, cost-per-click advertising model. So, you can choose your budget, choose your schedule, choose your audience and more.
Now, the important part to remember is to be STRATEGIC.
Don’t publish to the masses and think this going to drive lots of business. It won’t work.
Think about your audience. Where are they? What are they doing?
On Facebook, people are visiting this site NOT to think. They want to connect with friends and family and spend more time online in the evenings and later in the work week.
If it’s local and relevant to your audience, they may be more likely to notice it. Similar to driving down the road and only noticing license plates that are from out-of-town. If it’s relevant to your audience, they are more likely to click on it.
On Google, people are ACTIVELY looking for information. They are researching. The question you have to answer is, “what are they actively looking for”. Find the right keyword(s) and test them out.
Since you’re only paying when someone clicks on an ad, you can get a lot of potential brand exposure for free.
For one client, we had a national campaign over a 2-week period that received just under a million impressions for less than $200.00. The click-through rate was very low (under .028%) ….but a MILLION times that ad was seen for less than $200.00
Test it out. Set aside a particular budget and see what works.
And then let me know (by adding your comments below). In my opinion, when we collaborate and share our experiences we can grow and learn together.
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