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Facebook advertising gets media attention but no dates

April 27, 2011 by Matt 6 Comments

Mashable had some fun with my Facebook advertisement.

It’s been a hectic few weeks since I first revealed that I was using Facebook ads to find a date.

So hectic, in fact, that the experiment is currently paused while I field media requests, enjoy my upcoming birthday, and, ya know, do my day job.

Honestly, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by the interest from friends, industry contacts, and the media.

Media interest rolled in slowly, with Social Times syndicating the article and Valley PR Blog offering its take.

I realized that the campaign was of interest outside the marketing world when Fox 10 asked to interview me in front of the Love sculpture in Old Town Scottsdale. It seemed cheesy, but fun. The video of my interview with Kristin Anderson is below.

Media interest exploded after the lovely Jolie O’Dell covered the story for Mashable. That article led to over 2,000 tweets and over a dozen more blog posts. Some have called me brilliant. Some have called me desperate and sad. Maybe I’m somewhere in between?

Since the Mashable article, I’ve had interview requests from all over the world. Portugal’s top newspaper sent 360 visits to this website in two days. Crazy! Still no dates. But, as I like to say, with this product it’s going to be a long, complex sales cycle.

So, thank you to everyone who’s expressed interest in my story. I apologize to the many to whom I didn’t reply. And thank you to my Bulbstorm teammates who’ve been very supportive through the craziness.

Filed Under: All Posts, Digital Marketing Tagged With: advertising, dating, Facebook

Facebook advertising for the single-and-looking

April 10, 2011 by Matt 45 Comments

Facebook interest-based PPC advertising campaign for a bachelor with flair.

This ad image is performing best, perhaps because my face is partially-hidden.

I’m a single guy with specific taste. I’m only interested in women with the potential to become my intellectual and spiritual partner over the long term.

On any given night, these women may be in bars. Or coffee shops. Or yoga classes. Or laundromats. In the unlikely case that I’m in the same place at the same time, the only filter I’d manage to apply is physical. At first meeting, a woman is like a Facebook profile with her privacy settings too high.

But, interest-based pay-per-click ads remove the privacy shroud and deliver insight into her intellectual and spiritual nature at 75 cents per click. That’s about 10 clicks for the price of a cocktail that may or may not end up splashed in my face!

Facebook marketing for the eligible single

On April 2, I launched a Facebook ad campaign designed to find me a date. As a true marketing dork, I built 9 distinct ad versions for testing purposes – 3 creative variants and 3 interest-based targeting variants.

Demographically, ads targeted single women ages 28 to 34 within 25 miles of Tempe. Interest groupings were:

Yoga, Bikram Yoga, etc. (max reach: 940 users)
Buddhism, meditation, metaphysic, etc. (max reach: 580)
Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, etc. (max reach: 420)

For a landing experience, I created a Facebook fan page with free contact form and welcome tab apps. (Thanks to Mari Smith’s Big List of Apps!) Yes, it’s ghetto. My html skills are weak and Facebook’s iFrame bug is weaker.

Why not drive to a WordPress page or dating site profile? Well, Facebook grants a lower cost-per-click to advertisers keeping traffic on site.

Plus, users maintain grip on their Facebook security blanket when: A) an ad doesn’t include a fishy third-party URL, and B) the landing page keeps the Facebook URL and header.

Why Facebook instead of Match?

I know what you’re thinking. Why not just use Match, eHarmony, or some other dating site? Three reasons:

Match is too competitive. The economy of Match favors women. As a man on Match, I’m a buyer in a seller’s market. One female friend received 86 messages in 3 weeks on the site! Personally, I’d rather attract a woman before she hits Match’s meet market.

Match’s interest-based targeting sucks. On Match, I can filter by any number of physical fetishes from hair color to ethnicity. But filtering by spirituality or intellectualism is relegated to clunky keyword searches. (Sorry, but spiritual not religious is too vague to be meaningful.)

Match is too labor-intensive. To be effective, Match simply requires too much active attention. Facebook ads are set-and-forget. At this point, I have more money than time … especially at 75 cents per click.

OK, let’s see some ad data

Facebook interest-based PPC advertising campaign for a bachelor in a hat.

My Twitter avatar is performing worst of the bunch. Time for a change?

Let’s cut to the chase. In five days, my campaign drove 30 clicks and 5 leads via contact form for $19.39. By comparison, a Match membership costs $34.99 per month (with no guarantee of traffic or leads). The upfront labor costs are roughly the same.

Here’s a breakdown of my Facebook ads by interest:

Interest	Imps	Clicks	Leads	Spent
Yoga	8,592	5	?	$3.75
Buddhism	10,630	15	?	$9.43
New Age	8,523	10	?	$6.21
TOTAL	27,745	30	5	$19.39
x

Interest	CTR	CPM	CPC	CPL
Yoga	0.06%	$0.44	$0.75	?
Buddhism	0.14%	$0.89	$0.63	?
New Age	0.12%	$0.73	$0.62	?
TOTAL	0.11%	$0.70	$0.65	$3.88

Yes, I’m a tad disappointed that I cannot track leads by interest group. If only Salesforce had a free contact form plug-in …

But Facebook ads are just creepy …

What are the ethical ramifications of the campaign? Is it creepy to target women with PPC ads? Are there privacy implications of interest-based targeting? What about eyes romantically locking from across a crowded room?

I don’t know. Thanks to Match, eHarmony, and others, America has come to accept attraction-based singles marketing. It’s modern day serendipity when your match stumbles across your dating profile.

Facebook interest-based PPC advertising campaign for a bachelor on a hike.

Women who dig yoga also seem to dig this picture of my on a hike.

Promotion-based singles marketing is a whole new ballgame. On Match, there’s no amount of money one can invest in order to boost profile traffic.

(For about $10, you can add a “guarantee” to a six-month commitment that adds a green highlight to your profile in search results.)

The times may be a-changing. Chas McFeely is offering a $10,000 bounty to whoever introduces him to his future wife. My cost structure is more modest, but I’m essentially paying Facebook to set me up.

So, is this campaign weird? Maybe. As one respondent to my ad said, “My opinion: creepy, invasive AND cool!”

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Filed Under: All Posts, Digital Marketing, Featured Posts Tagged With: advertising, dating, Facebook, metrics

Interview with Social Times Pro, II: Facebook ads cost less, perform better than display ads

March 6, 2011 by Matt Leave a Comment

Social Targeting: Why Facebook's Self-Serve Ad Platform Works

I was recently interviewed for the report “Social Targeting: Why Facebook’s Self-Serve Ad Platform Works” from SocialTimes Pro lead analyst Tameka Kee (@geekychic). The full report is available for download to subscribers. Here’s an excerpt:

Case study: Facebook ads cost less, but perform better than display

As with search, it is important for a Facebook campaign to focus on user interests if it’s going to outperform display. But what if a brand isn’t exactly sure what its target audience is interested in?

Research shows that even minimal interest-based targeting can create effective campaigns, and because Facebook ads cost so much less than display, marketers can afford to experiment and optimize.

Target audience: Facebook users who saw the brand’s commercial spot
Flight time: Eight weeks; Sept/Oct 2010
Brands involved: CPG brand
Agency/Developer: Bulbstorm
Cost: Undisclosed

The CPG brand wanted to support its existing TV campaign with online ads and test the efficacy of Facebook’s targeting platform in the process. The campaign included display ads on Yahoo and other content networks, as well as Facebook ads; all creative drove traffic back to special landing pages.

The TV spots only ran in 12 markets, so that helped to narrow the Facebook target. But according to Matt Simpson, Bulbstorm’s marketing director, the brand only broadly targeted based on “general” interests. “We wanted to get a clean read on the performance vs. display overall,” Simpson said. The results were stellar:

Outcome:

Facebook ads generated 12X the impressions
Facebook ads generated 4X the CTR
Facebook campaign came in at one-fifth the price of display

Why it worked: Simpson attributes some of the Facebook campaign’s over-performance to “banner blindness,” or the idea that most Web users are so accustomed to ordinary display ads that they don’t even acknowledge them on a page.

The other factor was the Facebook ad’s pithy copy, as well as the socially-targeted environment. “Even without intense targeting, the ads only showed up to users that the brand thought had relevant social context.”

Filed Under: All Posts, Digital Marketing Tagged With: advertising, Facebook, metrics

Interview with Social Times Pro, I: Facebook advertising for direct response

February 13, 2011 by Matt Leave a Comment

Social Targeting: Why Facebook's Self-Serve Ad Platform Works

I was recently interviewed for the report “Social Targeting: Why Facebook’s Self-Serve Ad Platform Works” from Social Times Pro lead analyst Tameka Kee (@geekychic). The full report is available for download to subscribers. Here’s an excerpt:

Case study: Facebook for direct response

Facebook’s self-serve ads may be effective at building brand awareness, and less intent-focused than search, but that doesn’t meant they can’t be used for direct response campaigns. Take coupons, for example.

Target audience: “Soccer moms”
Brands involved: CPG food brand
Agency/Developer: Bulbstorm
Flight time: Four weeks; April 2010
Cost: $5,000

Bulbstorm’s client wanted to position itself as a “cost-effective, convenient family meal.” The Facebook ad copy asked users to share tips about how they saved money for their families. The ad drove traffic back to the brand’s Facebook page, where users received a coupon after they posted a money-saving tip.

Outcome:

8,000 new fans over the course of four weeks
4,000 family savings tips submitted

Why it worked: First, Bulbstorm targeted the ads using age, gender and marital status. The ad also featured a call-to-action that focused on encouraging users to engage with others, not just promoting the brand. The addition of the coupon added direct response metrics to the “branding” benefits, since the advertiser could track how many Facebook users actually redeemed the unique code.

“We were especially proud of this campaign from a cost standpoint, because $5,000 was relatively inexpensive for such a competitive demographic,” Bulbstorm marketing director Matt Simpson said.

“These moms spend lots of time on Facebook playing games, among other things, and CPGs with huge budgets go after them. It’s difficult for smaller brands to compete, but the combination of smart targeting and compelling content made it possible.”

The campaign would have also been far more expensive if it had run via paid search on Google or Bing, given the competitive landscape.