My lessons learned from running Facebook Ads

Those of you who regularly follow this blog already know that I’ve been really digging into Facebook community building lately . The idea behind all of these efforts is to generate revenue streams based on people’s passions. international FB AdsPhoto rights by Fotolia The big challenge is to convert Likes into I Buy You . I can tell you from other Facebook projects that generate income from here that in Spain it is not a very easy task. In the niche I am working in, successful products usually have conversion rates between 5 and 15%. These are mind-boggling figures that are not close to reality in Spain. Similar campaigns that I am running in Spain with Facebook Ads are having a conversion rate below 1%. This is a “normal” (even good) figure for e-commerce in these lands, but for me it is insufficient to achieve a positive ROI . The logical consequence is to go to other countries where e-commerce is more advanced. In Europe I am going to the United Kingdom and Germany. Then I am also starting campaigns in the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Targeting interests can vary greatly I’ll tell you in advance that it’s a complicated task . I feel like a complete beginner in this world since there are so many factors that change. The type of interest that can work for you in Spain to achieve interactions, clicks and sales is usually too broad when you want to apply it in a country with the dimensions of the United States. Here you have to go to more specific interests. Let’s take an example. It is clear that interests like “fashion” in any country in the world would be too broad. Therefore we would go for more specific things like “women’s shoes.” Now this may work in Spain to reach an interested audience (not always clear) but it is totally insufficient for an audience in the United States. The reason behind it is simple. The bigger the interest, the “fuzzier” it tends to be . What do I mean by this? With quantity comes loss of quality. Typically smaller interests (say under 1,000,000 audience) are associated with more concrete things so you find more passionate people. When there is passion it is easier for them to pull out the credit card. It is that simple and that complicated. To give you an idea, if you want to sell something related to the world of golf, it is not a good idea to include Tiger Woods in your targeting. It is an interest related to the topic but probably not of very high quality (there are many people potentially interested in Tiger Woods without being passionate about golf). It is much better to look for a player who is 20 positions behind Woods and who is not very well known. People with this interest can certainly be considered much more passionate on average. Different culture and way of thinking Spain is different , and you can take this literally when you start writing Facebook Ads. What connects with an audience in Spain doesn’t necessarily have to achieve the same result with a target audience in Germany or the United States. The cultures are very different and this is reflected especially in the humour . Having been born and raised in Germany, I still find Spanish jokes funny. I’ve been here for over 8 years now, but it seems that the German mentality and culture is still very much ingrained in me, so I get excited about different things in some ways. The subject of languages ​​is a bit of a delicate one. Even in Spain, there are significant regional differences. And I’m not just talking about languages ​​and dialects. There are also small colloquial expressions that are used in completely different ways depending on where you are. The key to a Facebook Ads advertisement is to be able to reach your audience in the most personal way possible. This consists above all in speaking to them as a good friend or neighbor from their town would. If you think you already know everything about Facebook Ads, you might be wrong. I’ve been working on the topic for over 3 years now and the more I get into it, the more I realize how much I still have to learn. The international topic is certainly a broad field that is worth investigating. You may not consider it relevant today, but remember that Spain is only a small part of your audience.