Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, link building, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Hope this doesn't sound too much like spam but the Visa Business Network on Facebook - http://apps.facebook.com/visabusiness/business - is offering $100 of free Facebook advertising for simply joining their network. It's free to join and so far I've not had any downsides to it, though I'll quickly leave if I do. The only catch I can think of is you're now on their database and may get spam from them in the future.
I know Facebook adverts haven't been a great success for some people here but I guess if it's free then give it a go. I'll let you know if any sales come out of it when the cash runs out.
What do you get for $100 and how do you cancel when the credit is up. I have got caught up in things like this before and when it came time to cancel It took months of being billed and jumping through hoops to get the service shut off. Make sure there is an easy way out and at what point they start charging you. The service I was signed up with charged on a per click bases and my $100 credit was gone in three days leaving me with a huge bill at the end of one month.
__________________ Daniel Slatkin, SBE Multi-Media, LLC Fulfilling Fulfillment with free web store included. SlightlySick University The polar opposite of Higher Education!!
What do you get for $100 and how do you cancel when the credit is up. I have got caught up in things like this before and when it came time to cancel It took months of being billed and jumping through hoops to get the service shut off. Make sure there is an easy way out and at what point they start charging you. The service I was signed up with charged on a per click bases and my $100 credit was gone in three days leaving me with a huge bill at the end of one month.
They give you a coupon code that you enter in "Funding Sources" in the Billing section. It shows up as a $100 advertising credit.
How much advertising do they give you for $100? Did you also have to provide a credit card/ paypal account, etc...
__________________ Daniel Slatkin, SBE Multi-Media, LLC Fulfilling Fulfillment with free web store included. SlightlySick University The polar opposite of Higher Education!!
The test is almost over so I'll wait until then to say what the results were. As to the questions, I already had a credit card account set up with facebook so I can't tell if you need to do this for the free advertising. As to how much $100 buys, well it's up to you how you spend it. It works in a similar way to adwords in that you can decide what sort of demographic profile you want your ads to appear on and then set how much per click through you want to pay. I guess it works that the higher you want to pay, the more it appears but I can't say that for certain. You also set how much you want to spend per day. This is a very simplified explanation and I would recommend anyone wanting to do it investigate some more.
Christine, thanks for the other code, just added another $50 to the pot. Where did you find it?
Christine, thanks for the other code, just added another $50 to the pot. Where did you find it?
I just figured if there was one code, maybe there might be others. So I did some Google'ing.
That code I found on multiple sites, all basically coming from the same article/source. It seems to be from Facebook itself, as a promotion to get people to advertise with them.
Well the pot of (free) advertising cash has run out and here is a summary of the result:
The was a total of 323,949 page impressions by a total of 5 different ads
The total click through was 202, giving an average click through rate of 0.06%
Total sales was a big fat zero but that's more down to my site and my designs.
Overall I think that Facebook advertising may not be the way forward. The best click through rate I achieved on any of the ads was 0.1% though that is still higher than what I got from Adwords (The Facebook ad had an image, the Adwords ad was just text, could this be the reason?). However as I haven't got a load of money to burn, I'll be trying other routes in the future.
Well the pot of (free) advertising cash has run out and here is a summary of the result:
The was a total of 323,949 page impressions by a total of 5 different ads
The total click through was 202, giving an average click through rate of 0.06%
Total sales was a big fat zero but that's more down to my site and my designs.
Overall I think that Facebook advertising may not be the way forward. The best click through rate I achieved on any of the ads was 0.1% though that is still higher than what I got from Adwords (The Facebook ad had an image, the Adwords ad was just text, could this be the reason?). However as I haven't got a load of money to burn, I'll be trying other routes in the future.
I've had pretty good luck with Facebook ads. I tried to really make the Facebook page an extension of the Web site, allowing for adding videos, press, and of course user comments.
I almost always use my ads to go to my Facebook page, and by comparing my ad data from Facebook and my site analysis, I can see that the number of people who visited the Facebook page and the number of people who visited my site from Facebook is pretty similar. Plus it allows you to create another fan base to send announcements to.
Not that I'm an expert by any means, but I've had the best luck with colorful ads, and ads that are somewhat intriguing (like in the text I might have a quote and the ad might say 'Do you know who said this?' or whatever, and the graphic of course would be the corresponding design).
Christine you could well be right. I set the ads up to go directly to the site rather than the facebook page. I guess this is all part of the learning experience and also what you can do in such a small ad space.
Like the site by the way, it's something I don't think we could do in the UK, only in the last decade has out campaigns began to be more American.
Christine you could well be right. I set the ads up to go directly to the site rather than the facebook page. I guess this is all part of the learning experience and also what you can do in such a small ad space.
Like the site by the way, it's something I don't think we could do in the UK, only in the last decade has out campaigns began to be more American.
Thanks! And it took me a LONG time to create ads that worked. Not to mention how many times I'd get ads rejected by Facebook because I had too much punctuation, or incorrect punctuation (according to them), or God-knows what else. I had one an ad rejected 6 times before it was finally accepted.
It sounds like a pain, but actually in a way it made me create better ads in the long run. Plus, as a Facebook member myself, I don't necessarily want to see obnoxious ads.
I do think Facebook is the "way of the future," or whatever you want to call it. Both in terms of social networking and ads. I guess one follows the other.
Also, they'll do a free "optimization" for you if you want. They ask questions about your company and your goals, and then their sales people come up with possible ads, including targeting options. I haven't run any of the ones they've sent me yet, but I'm going to give it a shot. They came up with some interesting ideas.
$100 of Free Facebook advertising. 
Daniel Slatkin, 
So I did some Google'ing.
