Have you Tried Facebook Ads for Marketing?

[Joshua Dorkin]

I was at a mortgage technology conference yesterday and sat in on a session about advertising with Facebook Ads. I learned a few things about the possible targeting abilities and was very impressed. Given the vast number of people there, it seems like this could be a very effective marketing channel for investors and other RE pros.

I'm curious if anyone is using Facebook Ads for marketing their business?

If not, why?

Any experts, please chime in....

[Dennis F.]

Absolutely! I have FB ad campaigns running just about all the time. Like twitter, I have sold products, filled events, found deals, deal partners, and private investors from using ads to drive traffic to my fan page and web site.

The best thing about using them is that the ads are highly targetable, so some run against groups as small as couple of thousand people. That keeps the cost extremely reasonable as well.

I HIGHLY recommend them.

[Max Drizin]

As far as Facebook advertising goes against other advertising, like AdSense or another system, it's the most targeted, and thus the best.

I have a background in tech, and I've helped people spend untold thousands upon thousands of dollars in internet advertising. The main issue is how to target the people you want to target.

It's the same way that you can get very targeted mailing lists, down to specific areas. Places like Google can target a perceived specific group of people based on the content of a web page. If you invest in real estate keywords, your ads will show up on places that have those words or related content, the same way that searches are ranked.

However, you are still only guessing. You can't actually know that the people you are advertising to are X-Y age, Z gender, and so on. At most, you are approximating.

With Facebook, however, you know exactly who these people are, because they have volunteered that information. You can target people who are 25-35 because Facebook knows everyone's birthday. You can target men because they know their age.

You can target people who listen to a certain kind of music, people who have "real estate" listed as a job or an interest, who are involved in real estate Facebook pages, and so on.

There is so much information that we provide to Facebook that it's almost scary, but that is what makes advertising with them such a lucrative business. There are half a billion people who have volunteered such an incredible amount of personal information that the advertising that goes on will be the most successful possible advertising you can get on the web.

That being said, there are also high-traffic sites that, instead of using something like Google AdSense, do deals directly with people who want to advertise. These are also lucrative resources, but you end up paying a good amount more.

[Tracy McCarthy]

I see ads on my Facebook page about Real Estate investing all the time and have actually clicked on them. Seems to work well.

[Danny Day]

I've been experimenting with Facebook Ads. I can't get a CTR over 0.019 on my ads directed to the website. My CTR is much higher that sends to friends who are connected to my Facebook Fan page (CTR of 0.047%).

I have changed the picture in my ad (removed my headshot) and we'll see what happens. I'll let you know..

[Brian Daly]

I have limited experience with Facebook ads not related to real estate, but I can say that they are definitely very powerful. The detail in which you can target is amazing.

Danny - the CTR is very hard to judge since we don't know what you are selling or how big your target market is. I believe the conversion rate from the clicks is more important. You may just need to refine your target market?

[Carey Chan]

We haven't tried Facebook ads, seems a lot like Google Adsense and it is very target specific if you know how to use it.

Our Facebook Page however is a great place for client testimonials and contacts! As a Property Manager our Facebook Page is also used to display our properties of course.