General PPC(pay per click) tips
1. Know your audience and target it wisely
Make some research before starting a campaign to see which is your target audience, what sites they visit, their location and interests. With this information in hand and right targeting is much easier to make the campaign successful.
2. Make your ads eye-catching and interesting
The whole point of an ad is to get clicked. Doesn't matter if it's a text ad or a banner, make the headlines interesting or use some attention-grabbing images. People need to see the ad before deciding to click or not.
3. Keep the ad relevant to your product/offer
Even if you get a higher CTR from a “Bieber” ad, if is not relevant to the landing page and the product/offer you promote, visitors won't convert...it will be a waste of money and time. Even if you use different angles, do not push too much, make sure you maintain relevancy.
4. Always use call-to-action words
The better your call-to-action is, the higher CTR you'll get. Tell the people what to do, they will subconsciously listen to you. Use something like: [Do/Get it] now/today! , “Click here!” etc... use the “!” at the end.
5. Know your competition
Knowing what is your competition will help you plan your next move. If the competition is on the market longer than you are, than you might learn about their techniques, analyze their ads, their targeting, their landing page and optimize your own campaigns based on that. A good way to start is by using spy tools.
Tips specialized for Facebook Ads(PPC):
6. Image is the most important part of the ad, so focus on it
On Facebook, the image is responsible for over 70% of the CTR according to a study. Make sure your image stands out. Look for weird, strange, unusual images for your ads, they will grab FB user attention and will bring you a good CTR. You can also use tweaks like bordering images, apply different eye-grabbing effects to make the ad stand out. Hint: You can use my specialized tool for this: Crazy CTR - Boost your ads CTR (for Facebook and POF)
7. Read Facebook Advertising guidelines before starting your campaign
Facebook becomes very strict these days. Before promoting an offer, make sure you read the guidelines and stick to it, otherwise you'll waste your time creating ads that don't get approved and if they do pass, you may get your account banned. Of course, there are tricks like cloaking, but you need to be careful and know what you are doing.
8. Use different angles and know how to target your users
Before creating your first ad make some research of what you are promoting. Check the offer's home page on quantcast.com and alexa.com to know your demographics. Once you know your demo(age, sex, location, interests), think of an unusual angle. An angle is the way you connect the audience with the product. For ex, for a dating offer you can use the “geeks” angle, which can be targeted using gaming and programming related keywords.
9. Don't play too much with bidding, start at min suggested bid. If the ad is good the CPC will drop by itself.
Few years back, everyone talked about bidding strategies like dropping cents every hour, etc. Now, Facebook ads algorithm is much better and will decrease the costs automatically(much faster) if you have a good performing ad. To get enough traffic and let Facebook determine your ads performance, you need to keep the bid on their suggested range.
10. For every 3-5 ads create a new campaign to drive traffic evenly to all of them
This is a little trick that everyone should know. When starting a new campaign, Facebook tends to give a few impressions to all the ads and if some(maybe from pure luck, not because are good) get a few initial clicks, it will drive all the traffic to them, the rest remain untested properly. To overcome this, create more campaigns with a low number of ads.
11. When starting, split test at least 15-30 variations of images and headlines, images more
Split testing is everything. You can't know what works before you test it. Even if you think it may work, the chances are, it won't, there are too many variables. To get started with a Facebook campaign, the right way, find about 10-20 images and set 2 different ad copies, especially the headlines. Split them in different campaigns(tip above) and give it a go.
12. To get cheap clicks, try to advertise in non-competitive countries, if the offer allows it
USA, CA, AU, UK are the most expensive countries for most offers because that's where everyone advertises on. But there are many countries from Europe(like Germany, Italy, France, Spain) or South America(like Brazil, Argentina) who drive good traffic on much cheaper rates(even 2x-3x times much cheaper). Check your network for what offers you can advertise on these countries.
13. You'll get a better CTR with images that look amateurish, unprofessional
The reason is simple: if the image looks too professional, the user's mind subconsciously triggers something like "that's another ad selling crappy products" and the decision is almost final. However, if the image looks amateurish, even if they know it's still an ad, the chances to get the click are much higher, because it resonates with the real world.
14. Don't start Facebook PPC promoting external websites(not fan pages) if your budget is less than $500
If you don't want to go on the Fan page route and you want drive traffic directly to the offer instead, than you need a higher budget. Most affiliates say 9 out of 10 campaigns fail, so you need enough budget to find that 1 out of 10. After you find it, there's another problem, the cashflow, to keep the campaign going. 500 is the very minimum(if you are a lucky guy), 1000 is mostly the best.
15. Try to get close to the maximum characters allowed and image size
You already bought the placement, why not getting the most of it? There is no too much space available so it's a good idea to fill it up with content. Of course, most of us need more space, but this tip is for the ones who use 72x72 images(or alike) instead of 100x72, the rest of the space could be filled with a bright color to attract attention.
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