Do you trust what FaceBook is telling you?

[Barry-QDCC]

In the past I've asked help from you guys/gals here to look at and give me your opinion of my website. I'm not asking for that now - unless you really want to! www.QDcarpetcleaning.com

I decided at the beginning of this month to run a campaign thru FB to drive FBers to my website. I budgeted $5 a day (i'm a big spender) and only run 8:00am up to 11:00pm daily. Targeted a few local cities, 28 yr olds up to 65+.

This month so far (according to FB Ad Manager) I've had 194 FaceBook members click to my website. I've had 3 people call that I attribute to the FB ads this month. One booking. Yesterday it said I had 24 click to my website thru FB. No calls. ?????

I'm not sure I trust the stats FB is giving me. I don't think I'm so far out of the rational world to think my website is THAT bad that people wouldn't call...at least more than 3. Do you folks trust the stats that FB is giving you on your FB ads?

EDIT: Interestingly as I was typing this a lady called and booked. She said she'd been seeing my ad and wanted to call me. After getting the info and booking her I said, "so you clicked to my website from the FB ad?" We had a short conversation about it and she told me she had clicked several times before calling. So maybe it does take 60 clicks or so per customer to your website before they actually call and book!!??

 

[FredC]

shot of your ad?

This is an ad not a boosted post right?

yes I believe it.

what does google analytics say?

 

[Barry-QDCC]

Yes, not boosting post but "driving clients to website" There is several other pictures attached that they can see by clicking the arrow.

 

[Barry-QDCC]

Crap Fred, you caught me. I have no idea how to use Google analytics.

 

[FredC]

I didn't really review the second link here but it should give you an idea how to use analytics to track campaigns
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008080?hl=en
https://megalytic.com/blog/how-to-track-facebook-advertising-campaigns-in-google-analytics

search out @WillS post about FB to learn about the difference between boosted and promoted and getting your ads to perform better

maybe check out the webinars

 

[WillS]

Are you sure it is 24 clicks to your website and not clicks/likes on the pictures/post?

Can you post the actual results it shows where it tells you 24 clicks..

24 clicks to website on $5 is pretty amazing, to amazing.

 

[Barry-QDCC]

Are you sure it is 24 clicks to your website and not clicks/likes on the pictures/post?

Can you post the actual results it shows where it tells you 24 clicks..

24 clicks to website on $5 is pretty amazing, to amazing.

Yes it is a Facebook campaign to drive people to the website. I understand boosting posts or getting page likes are a different type of campaign.

Yes I'm getting a lot of website clicks for the amount I am spending but calls not so much. And I DO answer my phone.

This is the results of the campaign started at the first of the month. 207 clicks to website - only $65.57 spent.

 

[jwfoulk12]

That actually surprises me that more of your clicks came from men. I'd have thought it would have been the opposite. Who do you find calls you more?

 

[Barry-QDCC]

That actually surprises me that more of your clicks came from men. I'd have thought it would have been the opposite. Who do you find calls you more?

I saw that too and thought it unusual too. But then again I've always been surprised at the amount of households that nothing seems to happen unless the "man of the house" okays it. I trust my wife to make those decisions but some guys need to run the show.....but that's another story altogether, isn't it?

I've never tracked the male vs female calls but if I had to guess I'd pick more female calls.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Yes, I consistently get it down to .15-.17 cents per website click. Depends on the subject.

Remember facebook is like watching TV, people are not looking for the service/product like say google.
So many will click on because they are curious or interested in the subject.

Can't tell you what to do specifically but what I do is test different pages and find out what works best.
Plus use remarketing to follow up later on.

Best thing to do is create an audience and just try different themes every week until you find the answer.
Then repeat.

 

[Newman]

Can't tell you what to do specifically but what I do is test different pages and find out what works best.
Plus use remarketing to follow up later on.

Best thing to do is create an audience and just try different themes every week until you find the answer.
Then repeat.

I do trust the facebook analytics at face value, but know the reality of what they are tracking.
IMHO - The way defaults are set up skews results.

The Average % Completion shows 51%. The graph clearly shows otherwise.

I boosted this short video review. Was a complete flop. I guess no one likes a commercial on farcebook. Initially I saw alot of views and thought it was doing well. Then I remembered facebook has timeline videos set to autoplay, unless you disable it.

Only a small fraction watched to the end, and most views had the sound off.

Went back to my before / after pic type boost and doing well again.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Yes video views are a little misleading plus the compression is not as good as youtube.

Still good value for branding though.

 

[WillS]

I'd like to see your google analytics in regards to those 200+ website clicks.

Does it reflect that?

 

[Hoody]

Speaking of Google Analytics and tracking things. I just made a quick video on an easy and free way to track calls and contact form submissions. Forgive all of the um's and stumbling it is 4 AM and I've been up since 6 AM yesterday.

These types of tracking abilities are part of what I'm going to cover at MF Nashville in July.

Here is the contact form 7 code that I referenced in the video: on_sent_ok: "ga('send', 'event', 'Contact Form', 'submit');"

 

[Shane Deubell]

Yes google analytics reflects that but scores them in different categories depending on the campaign type and device used.

facebook/referral
m.facebook/referral
lm.facebook/referral
I.facebook/referral

Some will still be scored in direct category too.
If you really want to prove it then you can use a specific landing page or use goals/conversions in analytics.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Facebook traffic is legit ....

 

[WillS]

Is that for 6 months? Year? 1 month? What is the avg time FB visitors stay on your site? Any next page paths they take or just visit home page?

Nice results.

 

[Cleanworks]

Barry, I like your website but hate your video. Although viewers know that it is fast forwarded, it makes you look like you are just flying through the job and not paying attention to detail. I would either remake the video at regular speed and just edit the scenes to reduce playing time, or delete it all together. Otherwise, it looks great.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Is that for 6 months? Year? 1 month? What is the avg time FB visitors stay on your site? Any next page paths they take or just visit home page?

Nice results.

You guys are a trip, always trying to catch people and discredit them. LOL
Pay no attention to the numbers....

I purposely manipulated the search to stack all the facebook links next to each other so you could see how analytics scores them.
Some will still be thrown in the "direct" category also.

The question Barry had was do you trust the facebook clicks and the answer is yes.
Traffic is legit.

What marketing campaigns you guys like is none of my business....

 

[WillS]

That question wasn't about discrediting your results, it was about how long it took to achieve those? Is that a life time, 3 months, 1 month, 1 week? The numbers mean everything. If you run a campaign for 2 days and it says you received 200 clicks to your site, we need to know what the Google analytics shows over those 2 days and not what it shows for a year.

I ran a campaign that said it had 400 clicks to website, but when I looked at google analytics it was less than 50 people fb had directed to my site. I think Facebook clicks to site doesn't always mean they are going to your webpage. It is opening up your actual Facebook page or clicking the learn more or call now or whatever button.

 

[FredC]

I ran a campaign that said it had 400 clicks to website, but when I looked at google analytics it was less than 50 people fb had directed to my site. .

some of this can probably be attributed to the referrer info being "lost" for a variety of reasons.....and the differences in the way things are counted

Did you see a jump in "direct"?

 

[WillS]

See the example below. My first image is of an ad on Facebook I ran for the last 2 days. Below that is an image of the google analytical results. FB says I had 53 link clicks but am showing around 40 clicks to the site. I also had one more ad running that shows me 23 link clicks. Yet, I'm still at 40 clicks from FB on google analytics, when if FB results were true website link clicks I should be at 76 directs from FB, not 40.


Last 2 day ad run on FB:

Last 2 day Google Analytics:

 

[WillS]

Did you see a jump in "direct"?

Maybe that 9 direct could be from FB? I'd still be missing some unique visitors though. Unless FB link click results aren't for every unique visitor, but someone clicking on the link 3 to 4 times. I'll have to research that.

 

[Shane Deubell]

If you create landing pages this is much easier although more work upfront.

Then you can go to behaviors and see the traffic just for that page.
Also from a marketing standpoint its easier to isolate what turns into buyers.

With any data always going to have a margin of error 1-5%

 

[Barry-QDCC]

Just to show my final results from my FB ad trying to get website clicks. 31 days that the ad ran - $155 spent - 376 clicks to website - .41 spent per click - Hardly any calls to my phone - 1 job completed for $230.00.