We are very focused on PPC at CDFnetworks for ourselves and clients. But I have dabbled in social network content advertising on Facebook and Myspace. There are a ton of opinions out there about social network advertising. Opinions are great, but I wanted to gather hard data on what converts better. I decided to run a case study to see what kind of conversion rates I would get on the Adwords content network versus Facebook.
The campaigns:
It’s very hard to do an exact test of PPC and social network advertising because they are very different animals. I want to single out conversion rate, so I tried to keep as many other variables as possible the same. I ran the Adwords test only on the content network, so both tests were contextual. I used the same ad text on Adwords and Facebook. I also sent both traffic sources to the identical landing pages on the same domain with tracking installed to gather the results. Both campaigns were set up with demographic targeting. Obviously Facebook allowed the use of a photo, which I could not duplicate on Adwords.
Sorry, I can’t show the ads or give away the niche because this is a niche I am still actively promoting.
The total stats for the Adwords content network:
The total stats for the Facebook network:
I was able to get similar spend amounts for the test. However, I received over double the amount of clicks on Adwords due to the lower CPC, and much higher CTR. I had good quality score which allowed me to lower my bids throughout the test. I had to run a pretty high bid price on Facebook to keep the ad running for the duration of the test. But both amounts of clicks are statistically valid for the purposes of the case study.
Conversion results:
The results were surprisingly close:
Adwords:
Total conversions: 1,250
Total overall conversion rate: 4.8%
Facebook:
Total conversions: 449
Total overall conversion rate: 3.9%
I had expected a blowout in conversion rate by Adwords, but they were not that far off. Although 4.8 is a 23.1% increase from 3.9 which is significant. Of course given the lower CPC, the Adwords campaign in this case was much more profitable. If I would have been able to lower the bid prices on the Facebook campaign to a similar amount the profitability would have been closer. The Facebook campaign also produced a huge number of impressions that I could capitalize on with a better CTR.
Bottom line:
Both traffic sources converted, which is the most important thing. But for the money spent, Adwords PPC was clearly a much better result in this case.
What I find most interesting about this case study is the MASSIVE difference in number of impressions (35 million for Facebook; less than 5 million for the content network). Imagine what an increase in CTR could do!
But it appears that your Facebook CTR is almost exactly the average. This blog post says that the average Facebook CTR is 0.04% :
http://valleywag.com/tech/advertising/facebook-consistently-the-worst-performing-site-242234.php
Moe
I can’t say I’m really surprised by that. Facebook is a website where people are laser-focused on the content they are browsing, ie. their friends. Although without knowing what sites were included within the AdWords content network run it is hard to say how similar the two experiences were. If the content network was hitting a lot of MFA blog posts then of course the CTR would be better.
Facebook gives tons of impressions, but CTR is never very good. .02 – .04 is the range of CTR I have seen, I really doubt you can get much higher than that without some odd laser demographic targeting (which would kill your impressions). Conversion is the key here, which has not really been all that impressive on facebook from my experience.
Good stuff Chad, appreciate the example and comparison. Just as an FYI, Myspace has been experiencing some serious billing issues recently so try to avoid new campaigns right now. They’ve over charged some people by as much as $30k, $7k for me which I guess makes me one of the lucky ones.
Nice Test.
You said, your Adwords content campaign had a good Quality Score. I always thought that the content network doesn’t have a QS. The only thing that matters is CTR. Did you mean by having the high CTR you got a good QS or is there a real QS like on search. Like was this campaign a 7/10 QS or something? If so where do we see the QS?
How much days for this test to complete were?
Great case study info! Always interesting to see.
Hey thanks for sharing the case study. I find that it is very enlightening when you compare the two traffic sources. I am wondering if at any, if you took the keywords with the highest numbers of impressions and placed them into their own adgroups with different ads?
What attempts did you make at reducing the number of impressions? How many attempts before you concluded the test was over?
You mentioned that you are still running this campaign, so from the looks of it your ROI was positive?
Let me know.
Darrell
I basically just let the test run once it was going. I wanted to keep everything the same as the only variable I was testing for was conversion rate.
Yes both had positive ROI. The facebook campaign just barely, and the Adwords campaign was very profitable.
Great work Chad. I’m surprised to find out that conversion rates were similar. I would have thought facebook conversions would lower since ads are not targeted(?). Chad, did you try improving your ad image at facebook to get a better CTR? I believe facebook only allows you to lower your cpc if you can get a better CTR.
were they both profitable ?
All you have to do is get your facebook CTR to 0.06 which will cut your click prices in half and then both traffic sources are even. Try better images…
Terrible FB CTR….
Thanks for sharing the results. I think it’s time to try out Facebook – I had feared they’d convert far worse, but it’s really not all that bad.
With such a low CTR on FB I’m surprised you were even able to get that many impressions.
No too surprised with the results but I thought FB would have had a much worse CTR. Very cool study and thanks for making the results public!
Thanks for this information, it confirms my own tests on Facebook.
CTR is a big issue with Facebook, I’ve found it much more difficult to test Facebook adverts, which I think is due to the mindset of the advert viewer.
In Adwords, people have typed a keyword phrase, so it’s easier to tweak the advert to suit.
Eoin
Thanks for giving the results on FB. Now I can try it.
i like to read and explore this kind of site.
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Your figures are the reverse of most other tests I have seen whereby Facebook gets more clicks (which as an advertiser that is what you want).
In my limited tests I am getting far more click throughs with Facebook for less monthyl budget !
Perhaps it is because I am advertising a physical product, so that with Facebook I can include a pic. And as we all know A picture is worth a thousand words.
Also my product is new and unique so people will not be searching for it per se.