Facebook Ads? Are they effective for any of you guys?

PumpinIron

PumpinIron

Well-known member
First off, I apologize if this is the wrong forum. I wasn't 100% certain which one this should go in.

Anyways, I've been running Google AdWords for a few months (I'm really good with AdWords as well) but finding it mostly ineffective for my newer forum (http://wranglertjforum.com). I've only been spending $500 a month and it has been driving visitors my way, but getting them to register is the tricky part.

I'm considering switching that AdWords budget over to Facebook to see if I get any better results from Facebook ads as oppose to Google ads. My question is to anyone who has used Facebook ads to promote their forum before: Have you noticed any good results from Facebook ads?
 
Current strategy:

1. Enable https://xenforo.com/community/resources/external-accounts-extended.2877/
2. Run competitions with https://xenforo.com/community/resources/competitions-for-xenforo.2344/
3. Post competition link to facebook & boost the post. €1 a day for 5 days, with very specific audience targeting, should easily reach 1,500-3,500 people. Should also nab a few likes in the process (bonus!)
4. The important bit: Restrict competition entries to registered members only

This pretty much guarantees a steady stream of new signups. The trick, of course, is finding a way to hang on to them... For now I'm using https://xenforo.com/community/resources/inactive-members.2916/ once a week to coax everyone back who's been away for more than 30 days.

So this one for example:
https://www.facebook.com/thumped/ph...741824.112577072541/10154292598312542/?type=3

1,495 Paid Reach (plus 36 - yes, thirty six - organic)
39 Actions
€4.00 Budget Spent

I got maybe half a dozen new signups, plus a handful of people who hadn't logged in for a while or had been lurking.

Can't really complain for €4 (ok the competition add on costs money) and about 15 minutes work.
 
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GOOD ADVICE!

Thanks so much, I'm going to test this out and see how it works.

I think if I offer a gift card or something it should get people to be more involved.
 
well i don't know if it's *good* advice, but it's all I gots... have to say, it absolutely kills me to be giving money to facebook.
 
Well, I think it's a good way to engage people.

I was considering just running ads to promote my forum. However, the competition gives them one more reason to join the forum.
 
I'm also a bit uneasy about people signing up with their full real names from facebook. that sort of thing should generally be discouraged, but I can't imagine the complete lack of pseudo-anonymity from the off can encourage people to post on a message board. Maybe that's just me.
 
It still puzzles the crap out of me... I'm the owner and admin for the LARGEST Jeep Wrangler TJ Facebook Group. Over 2000 members and I post links to the forum at least once a day. Not one single person signs up to become a member, but almost everyone clicks the links.

It just bothers the crap out of me. It's like I'm dealing with complete idiots or something. Ugh... Stupid Facebook.
 
Competition add-on is my best channel for getting users to sign-up as well.
And strangely enough, Google searches is about 30% of my visits every month, and some of them actually do the last step of registration.
 
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