The Facebook Ad Experiment = Failure

So I recently decided to use $11 (a paltry sum but enough for a small experiment) to see if I could get more book sales by promoting the book on Facebook.

The results?

804 people saw the ad.
29 people "engaged" with the ad.

• 22 Post Likes.
• 1 Post Share.
• 6 people clicked on the image.
• 0 Page Likes.
• 0 Comments.

Zero additional book sales during the time period the ad was up.

Now that the experiment is over it really feels like I was paying 50 cents per Post Like.

Less than 3% of people who saw the ad clicked Like.

Now I do agree that if I was to do this experiment over again I would change things.

#1. I would have included a larger amount of text in the ad itself.
#2. More links in the ad to increase the visible opportunities for people to engage with the ad and click the links.
#3. I would have chosen a different image to promote, something that is more visibly appealing and also more quickly delivers the message of what the book is about.

I would also be tempted in the future to only promote a Facebook post which is ALREADY popular and has more viral potential.

Maybe.

Just maybe if I had to done those things prior to conducting the experiment perhaps there would be more Likes, more Shares, and maybe even a few book sales.

But how many more Likes?

Double, triple?

And there would still be no guarantee of any book sales.

I would have just as much luck promoting the post by Sharing it to various Facebook groups which are thematically on the same topic as the book - a practice which is FREE.

And then there is the time consumption.

I would say I spent 3 hours in the past 10 days monitoring this ad, getting and deleting annoying Facebook Receipts in my email, and the actual time it took to setup the ad in the first place.

And since I value my time at $35 per hour, I have now spent $105 worth of my time conducting an experiment that cost $11. So I am out $116 worth of time and money.

This officially makes Facebook Advertising a complete waste of both time and money.

It would have been faster, more efficient and free to just share the post to 3-5 Facebook groups and I would have gained approximately the same number of Likes.

And Likes are essentially worth nothing unless you can find a way to get sales from new customers.

So some people argue there is no such thing as a failed experiment. You either prove that something is true or it is false. In this case we have proven that Facebook Advertising is a waste of money, and for the time and effort involved, it is quantifiably worse than simply sharing the post for the free.

Also I did some research recently and according to my sources if a person wants to be a "Social Media Influencer" they need to be posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc at least 80 times per week. Not all at once either. They need to space it out to roughly 1 new post almost every 80 minutes you are awake. 11 to 12 posts per day, minimum.

Who has time to do that? People who are obsessed with social media and don't have much of a life, that is who.

So becoming a Social Media Influencer does take a lot of time and effort. You would need to be posting every 80 minutes in an effort to promote yourself, your products, your services, your website, etc.

And there would no doubt be a social cost in making all that effort. So say nothing of lack of sleep, stress and other problems.

So does it make sense to do it yourself? No. Not really. Time wise it makes more sense to pay someone else to do it. And then see how many sales you get during the first week, to see if it is worthwhile.

But in the case of Facebook... when you consider the time it takes to setup an ad, monitor the results... it doesn't make much sense. In that scenario it makes more sense to just share posts than to advertise posts.

In summary...

Facebook Advertising is a complete waste of your money and your time.