When it comes to pay-per-click advertising (PPC), it comes as no surprise that many online businesses may experience hesitation, with questions of whether or not it will pay off in the short or long term. While it’s true that most PPC advertising programs offer a small margin between success and failure, I’ve recently discovered that Facebook has increased that small margin to a wide-open window of opportunity and removed the need for any doubt.

The process is truly genius when you look at the elements. By nature, Facebook already knows its users, what their users shop for, their hobbies and interests, friends and online activities. In short, Facebook can find a target demographic by simply asking a few questions. And with that, rest assured that a PPC ad campaign will be drawing the attention on qualified buyers, eliminating the risk of paying for unqualified clicks.

Case in point, I recently dove right in with a moderate $50 investment on a PPC ad for the My Dart Shirts website. I found the process exciting, easy to use and above all—successful. 

 

Build it

Creating the ad took all of about 10 minutes. I simply went to the My Dart Shirts business page on Facebook and used the link “promote with an ad.” That took me to the ad creation page where I was asked for the title and body text. Both are limited in how many characters you may use, so the no-brainer is to simply make it a call to action—an eye-catching title and some body copy such as “click here for details.” I opted for a title of “Your Dart Shirt!” and a brief teaser telling my prospective clients to “find yours here!” I also used, and would recommend, the image option. There is no extra charge and it provides an eye-catching element to the ad. The system has a live preview as the content is entered, so there’s a representation of exactly what it will look like.

The next process is the meat-and-potatoes of the campaign. I was able to select my target audience by location—choose from wide-open everywhere, or narrow by state/province or by city. Next, define the target demographic—age, sex, relationship, languages, or even an option to target people on their birthdays. I chose English-speaking customers in the USA and UK, ages 18 and up of all ages, sexes and relationship statuses, as the My Dart Shirts website ships worldwide and accepts several methods of payment and currency.

The next part of creating the ad can only be described as pure advertising perfection. I was able to narrow down my target audience’s likes and interests. Likes and interests targeting is based on information users list in their Facebook profiles, such as favorite movies and music, or groups and pages they have connected to. I keyed in “darts” as an interest. The system not only allowed me to choose from pre-defined list of what my audience connects to on Facebook—in my case, professional darts organization pages, darts groups and dart leagues—but provided estimated number of users I would reach with my ad as well.

This was followed by even more options including education, work, workplaces and connections. This latter term means you can target those that connected to certain pages, events, groups or applications. I selected a few more dart-related pages to increase my reach, which now totaled 98,450 people. Qualified people. My ad would only appear on the computer monitors of the audience I determined. I know that, when someone clicks through to my website, the clicker had to have been involved with darts on Facebook, thus increasing my chances of making sales, gaining new leads, gathering new Facebook fans for my business page and increasing subscribers to my email subscription list.

 

Campaigns and pricing

It’s time to settle on the budget for this ad campaign. There are two options here: CPM (cost per thousand impressions) or CPC (cost per click). Make a judgment call based on the criteria of the ad and the consideration of the estimated reach. Since the estimate I had been given by the system was that I would be reaching almost 100,000 users, I opted to pay per click rather than pay for all those impressions that may or may not generate a visitor to my website.

Next, define a daily spending limit and a maximum bid per CPM or CPC. I set my daily spending limit to $25 to cover both days of the weekend, and offered $0.50 as the most I would pay per click. This maximum bid determines which ad appears first; competitors may also bid on the same demographics. This does not necessarily mean the bid fee will be the same amount each time. The system has a tool for suggested bids based on what others are bidding for on the same keywords and interests, and the pricing settings can be changed at any given time.

Excited yet anxious to see the results, I retired to my man cave to throw a few darts and ponder on how my ad would pan out over the weekend. It should be noted that weekends are the best time to target Facebook users as many are blocked from using Facebook at work and because, during the week, many utilize mobile applications rather than logging in from their computer.

Interrupting my practice routine—ironically called 50 darts at the bull’s-eye—my Blackberry had been alerting me to a landslide of messages coming in. I finally gave in to check them and, wouldn’t you know, they were actually sales. Within two hours, my ad had generated103,428 impressions and 264 clicks to my website. Although my maximum bid was $0.50, I was only spending $0.17 per click. A quick login to my sales page revealed it was worth every cent for this tidy list of sales. In addition, my Facebook business page boasted more fans and, later that week, my subscriber notice reported several new subscribers to my newsletter.

Although my 50 darts at the bull’s-eye may not be on target all the time, I now know that shooting 50 at a Facebook PPC ad campaign on a weekend provides a winning strategy. Have a look at it, target that audience and demographic and shoot well in the world of Facebook advertising.