Marketing Problems - Here Is Everything That's Wrong With Facebook Ads

Marketers compare Google Adwords with Facebook Ads while in essence the efficiency of both networks is entirely different as well as core targeting metrics. Google Adwords is generally known for effective conversions while Facebook is known brand awareness. However mainstream marketing is quickly shifting towards social networks which include but is not limited to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on.

Here we discuss some problems which startups with incredibly limited budgets face when they try Facebook marketing for the first time. TL;DR is, they are ugly.

The main things that marketers desire are engagement with the post and effective conversions. Take a look at the example Facebook article post below which I boosted for a very little $5:

There are total of 546 actions are on that post of which majority are just likes. Make that 87% of the total engagement on that post is irrelevant to me as a Publisher. Only 12% is the total desirable outcome. How is that? Let me explain,

Page Likes

What people don't understand at first is that in order for users to actually get your post they have to go through a plethora of posts from competitor pages and then there is the conflict of interest. Return of Consumers(RoC) percentage is incredibly tiny. Say goodbye to Organic Reach.

10% of the total desirable outcome comprises of Page Likes which has actually boosted the overall presence of the page, theoretically. What people don't understand at first is that in order for users to actually get your post they have to go through a plethora of posts from competitor pages. But first there is a condition that the user has a genuine interest or not. While Facebook provides a lot targetting options as well as demographics, it utilizes the majority of our budget to small scale users who merely browser through Facebook just to like the posts. And believe me, I speak as a Facebook user too. Only an article with an interesting headline would provoke me into clicking it.

Which gives us advertisers extra work into making the post look as good as possible. Even after the user has liked the page, the probability of a post reaching depends on it's organic engagement. Which is supposed to given by the user liking the page but due to it being just another page, the chances are conversions are highly reduced.

Out of this 10%, I would say around 0.2%  are the users who may accidentally receive further upcoming posts and then chances of engagement are a question mark.

Dissecting what a Like Button does?

A Like button is supposed to show you like a specific post and if your privacy settings are lax enough, there is around 5% chance that one of your friends may stumble upon one of these posts.

As said above around 87% of the total engagements on that post are likes. Which actually indicates that someone managed to read the post. Of that 87%, around 1% to 5% tops would have clicked the link to the article which the prime focus of a marketer. So conversion rate lies around 2.5% tops.
Which is a highly disappointing figure considering the return of consumers(return of consumers) is already really low as said.

Granted likes are potential figure for possible advertisers, users and other readers to check the credibility of the Page but it is useless if the figure is not concurrent on all upcoming posts or at least gives a 15% return afterwards.

Expressions are little better in this case since they showcase the feelings of the reader when he saw the post title at least and that is just about it. The rest of the story would unfold IF he would actually click the link or so on.

Engagements Should be:

• Link Clicks
• Shares 
• Comments

Link Clicks are the prime focus here. If I were running a Kickstarter campaign with limited budgets, I would want the user to click the link and at least view the product. In essence, likes would be irrelevant since they showcase nothing or give zero return as explained above.

Shares are the best engagement which a post can receive in my opinion. Even if the person sharing doesn't click the link himself/herself, the chances of other people clicking on it are highly increased as well as the outreach of the post.

Comments are essentially important since they denote the mentality of the user as well as showcasing his/her's loyalty towards the page. There is also a chance of people tagging their friends so it's fundamentally comparable to Shares.

These above-listed engagements are indeed very expensive but if Advertisers should be given a chance to select what they are actually looking for. 5 to 10 shares are a hell lot better than 500+ likes altogether. Same goes for the comments. Hopefully, Facebook will simplify their available advertising strategies while taking into account the pleas of young startup so that both networks can attain desirable results.

What are your thoughts on Marketing on Facebook? How have your results been?