How much could this 50 dollars' worth of free advertising cost me?
February 18, 2013 8:42 AM   Subscribe

Facebook has sent me a code for $50 in free advertising to use in promoting my blog and/or its page on FB. Is it worth bothering to set up a $50 advertisement on Facebook when I'm not willing to spend anything at all on advertising over and above that? And it makes me nervous that they want my credit card info up front — are there pitfalls to avoid in making sure nothing gets charged to my credit card?
posted by orange swan to Computers & Internet (7 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Just keep an eye on your campaign and shut it off when it gets close to $50. It'll go fast. You can set a budget cap when you set up the campaign. They're just hoping you'll get drunk on clicks and keep the tab rolling, that's all.
posted by spilon at 8:46 AM on February 18, 2013


If you are not willing to spend more than that $50, then it's almost pointless since repeated exposure is so important for most advertising. With $50 you can't get extensive (broad) or repeated exposure. In the world of online advertising, and pretty much any other advertising, $50 is a grain of sand.
posted by Dansaman at 8:49 AM on February 18, 2013


It is worth it. My wife used this for a site of hers. Although I agree with the point about repeated exposure, the truth is that the small campaign got plenty of Facebook "Likes" for her Facebook page.

This means two things: 1) The people who liked it now have her page on their Facebook stream. Repeated exposure. 2) Their act of Liking appears on their friends timelines and some even comment and share the posts. So she is continuing to get new Likes.
So, based on nothing more than a small campaign, a Facebook page at least can easily kick off slow and steady growth.
posted by vacapinta at 8:56 AM on February 18, 2013 [4 favorites]


The way Facebook advertising works, you can allocate a specific amount of money to a specific campaign, and that amount of money acts as a cap. So, you can tell facebook "spend $50 on this over the next three days", and it will spend only fifty dollars and not a penny more. It's not like, say, signing up for a monthly cell phone where you might end up incurring a bunch of fees you didn't know about.
posted by ManInSuit at 9:26 AM on February 18, 2013


Response by poster: Okay, I'm going ahead with it. The form is asking me what I want to "bid", and suggesting a range of $0.53–$1.56 CAD. What should I enter for a bid?
posted by orange swan at 9:55 AM on February 18, 2013


Response by poster: I bid $1 per click, halfway between the maximum and minimum. Here's hoping I get some new readers!
posted by orange swan at 10:07 AM on February 18, 2013 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Well, the ad campaign has run its course and the $50 is gone. I got 148 click throughs for that $50. According to the report, the campaign generated this activity on my blog's Facebook page:

10 Link Clicks
10 Page Post Likes
17 Page Likes
9 Other Actions

And of course about a day's worth of traffic. So I'd say it was worth the time it took me to set up the ad.

Thanks all!
posted by orange swan at 8:34 PM on March 15, 2013


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