All Forum Posts by: Mark Sewell

@Ryan Ray if you don’t mind I will just pick up the phone and call a bit later. I have also invested in learning this.

Mr A:

Who is knowledgeable about power tools? I need a new drill. Can you tell me which you like and why it works? How do you use it?

Mr B:

Same here. I suck at drilling. Let’s compare notes.

Mr C:

Who would you ever buy a drill? Just get a hammer. Cost way less. Easy to use. Just hammer it.

@Nick Britton buddy now this is wrong. Please do not bring the ugliness here.

I like J and I have learned much from him about SEO. And i don’t agree with your assessment of him. I know you guys have had this little spat going for a while so please take it outside.

The only thing I objected to was that I wanted to learn more about what works IN THE FB AD space. Sure SEO works, nobody will debate that. But there are people running ads in FB and getting leads.

Clearly I am doing it wrong. Or am I? Not wanting to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Alright.  Going to get another cup of coffee.  Let's see where this goes.

Originally posted by @Jerryll Noorden:

what are your numbers?

I would love to know the cost per lead, the monthly budget and the number of leads/month, and how many of those leads actually result in contracts.

My reason for knowing all this is to evaluate FB ads against PPC

:)

Please stop.  You get free leads.  Nobody disputes this.  SEO is better.  OK? 

I do some SEO myself and I even get some 'free leads' from it.

Jesus, man.... just ONE THREAD.  that's all I am asking.

Originally posted by @Ryan Ray:

@Mark Sewell I am putting together various images and copy to rotate through and test my target market. Once i find what is working, I will turn the rest off. There are countless way to identify an audience using Fb criteria. What I am really after are the look alike audiences and putting the Facebook data engine to work for me. 

My ads are specifically targeted for lead generation. I will keep you posted of the progress and how the funnel pans out if you like. 

I started with this, using lead generation and also traffic objective.  I was uploading lists to FB as custom audience.  For a time that was working.  The first time I tried it, I had a lead within a matter of hours.  But that was well over a year ago, before the big revamp.

Targeting is not what it once was.  FB has given way less demographics, particularly economic/financials, to target specifically.  You can target top 10% earners, for example, by you cannot target people that have low credit scores.  FB tries a lot harder to protect privacy. 

I also have been experimenting with lookalike audiences.  I use lookalikes for website visitors and I also use lookalikes for some of the lists that I have uploaded.  Just not sure that I have done enough of this to really provide adequate sample size for FB to work its magic.

I agree with you @Ryan Ray that it is easy to over define an audience.  Need to let FB do the work.  I have heard several people make this statement, folks that are getting deals and doing deals.

Tell me more about your funnel. 

@Jerryll Noorden thanks. 

Before this short discussion spins too much further out of control, I would like to point out that I'm not advertising to God and everybody in my target zip codes.  There are audiences that you can define.  

@Ryan Ray I'd like to hear how you are using FB ads.

@Ryan Rayundefined

The idea behind these videos are to are entertain and educate maybe along the way.  More education is to be found on the website for those that want it.

As the folks at Carrot like to say, you want to gradually move along with the customer from being 'problem aware' to being 'solution aware' , and then from solution aware to why sell to us (vs. somebody else).

The tactic I am attempting to employ is to show my video a really wide range of folks, and do it cost-effectively, which allows me to retarget.  I can track easily the masses that watch a given amount of any given video.  I can run slightly longer videos, that mix in a little more of the message into the content... this should narrow the audience down a bit more.  Then I can retarget those.

And it is working, to the extent that they do click through.  The one where I really get them is actually just two static photos, a before/after street view of a flip I did.  I am only showing this ad to folks that have previously visited the site or folks that have watched a certain amount of video in the last 180 days. 

The good news is that now I know how to get the views cost effectively.  And I know I have an ad that a certain subset of people will click on.  That is something. 

I'm just not there yet.  What I suspect is this:  (a) I might need to refine the audience a bit more, with some more retargeting, and (b) for sure I need to beef up the video content on the site itself.  This gets people to stay on the page longer, to what it, hopefully (this in turn should help improve my SEO rankings over time).

@John Corey maybe it’s not just love. I have a ton of respect for J. I see the value, and SEO is the most powerful tool and easily the most cost effective. It is also a long journey that takes serious effort.

I just need to have the discussion about this topic without a debate about why I want to discuss it.

The flood pain maps were redrawn recently so hard to say - honestly I think nobody really knows at this point, what areas will flood, but the maps are out there, and there isn't much point in speculating.  Your insurance guy will need to get the numbers for you.  You might need to provide some info such as an elevation cert.