The Facebook Ad Experiment -- 5 Recommendations for a Successful Campaign

The advertising world is moving towards micro-targeting where advertisers will get it spot on every time. A year after Facebook launched Beacon, its advertising platform, I wanted to find out what its situation was doing a little investigation. I wanted to find out why so many advertisers were complaining about its effectiveness.
Do it’s advertisers make an optimal use of Facebook data to better target?


The Experiment
I rated the following 10 random ads based on relevance, catchiness, click likelihood (would I, as the target, click on this ad?)

The Results

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*Please forgive the picture quality and allignment.

What the Results are Saying

• Overall Facebook ads scored 47.8% on my scale: that's an F.
• There was only 1 ad that was worthy for me to click on.
  
• No recognized brands reached out.
  
• 1 ad was geographically targeting me.
  
• 2 ads targeted me based on my interest: 1 for wedding pictures (because I like photography!?!) and the other one based on my interest in traveling.
  

How to optimize your Facebook campaigns?

1. Relevant title and description for the market you will choose to target.
2. Graphic has to be clear, relevant and catchy
   
3. Advertise a benefit and/or a reason to click.
   
4. The landing page has to be relevant
   
5. Test, test and test. Creating different campaigns on the same topic helps determine which one works better in light of optimizing your advertising.

Personal recommendations for targeting university students: target locally and mention the university or local landmark to differenciate yourself. Moreover, combine Facebook ads with other advertising medium such as campus newspapers for added branding effectiveness or with on-campus promotions for added impact!

In conclusion, Facebook opened its doors to the incredible personal information of over 40 million users and the reason why the ads are crappy is simply because advertisers don't put the necessary efforts.
Lastly, making your ads as targeted and relevant as possible helps the advertising and user community as a whole. The 'better' the ads, the more users will click-through and hence the higher their confidence regarding future Facebook ads. So don't be selfish and help others by benefiting yourself and putting that extra ounce of effort into making successful Facebook campaigns.

One up and coming blog with a great post on the subject is Scheuguy's Social Media Innovation.
To know more about facebook and its tools visit the Unoffical Facebook Blog.
Courtesy to Geek and Poke for the touch of humour.