Comments on: Will Facebook Flyers Fly?

By: Linus Kendall

Linus Kendall — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:23:29 +0000

As from a perspective of both a student organisation leader as well as working with social marketing I feel that these could be useful for my student organisation in the sense that there are very few other well targetted ad-mediums available to me (I would value the way that you can choose which campus it's displayed at).

Also I would probably also publish all the info on the event in the flyer text and require less click-through (even though it would be beneficial). However - I still agree with many here that the cost is too high and it's hard to follow-up on results.

By: matt

matt — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:21:30 +0000

I think Facebook users learn relatively quickly to tune the banner ads out. Ads embedded in the mini news feed seem much more effective for them.

By: Peter Parkes

Peter Parkes — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:10:04 +0000

I've run a few Flyer campaigns with varying success; the genre of the ad seemed to be the biggest driver of success (or lack of), with some ads getting hundreds of clicks in a batch of 5000, and others getting fewer than 10.

Admittedly, my experimental data isn't exactly wonderful, but I suspect davidu (above) is right...

By: davidu

davidu — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 06:09:00 +0000

Om,

Of course not. That's why they aren't doing a CPC advertising model. There are no C's happening. :-)

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 05:49:44 +0000

Just a little question: with all of us noobs coming to Facebook, do you think that these flyers will become more effective in terms of driving click throughs etc.

By: Sameer

Sameer — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 05:11:09 +0000

Jack is correct to say flyers have been around 18-24 months... maybe even longer. However in the past you could only buy flyers within college networks and to buy flyers at a network that you were not a member of was more expensive than your own network.

I believe now you can buy flyers at any network (college, regional, work, etc... maybe not high school) and its all the same price.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:40:05 +0000

matt, maybe i just have discovered the flyers - i am not sure if they were this obvious. at least for past six months when i have used facebook prior to this current push!

By: matt

matt — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:36:12 +0000

Why is this news? Flyers have been up for the last year at least. My startup purchased a bunch of them before we realized that click-throughs are almost non existant. From that 5000 impressions you might only get 1 or 2 click-throughs.

By: Aswath

Aswath — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:54:36 +0000

A couple of noteworthy conditions are: 1. Even if the site was down during the campaign, a refund will not be issued; 2. The charge is based on CPM and not click through action. It is not clear to me why they would make these conditions. I will be interested in knowing yours and other readers thoughts on these.

By: Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:48:18 +0000

Yeah! $2 CPM is pretty inexpensive considering that they allow 200 characters plus a proper image in the flyer ad. Unfortunately, it's not open for people outside the US yet.

By: SIG

SIG — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:34:09 +0000

CPM of $2, that is not too expensive. If you are able to target specific items such as users interests and specific groups than I could see this service getting a lot of traction.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:24:23 +0000

Not sure about the 18-24 months, but it seems that there has been some serious push towards this end. i might actually try them out for the heck of it... and do a little promotion for one of our sites.

By: Jack Stahl

Jack Stahl — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:12:53 +0000

What's new, exactly? There have been facebook flyers for something like 18-24 months now.

By: Julia Wilkinson

Julia Wilkinson — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:42:09 +0000

$10 for 5000 people seeing their flyer (assuming they actually look at it and read it) seems like a good deal for groups like bands playing a gig in a college town, e.g., targeting a specific college with the ad.

I wonder if and how other types of groups will use the ads - restaurants? festivals? and if other ads will evolve on facebook.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:37:02 +0000

This is an interesting idea. I took a look at it and I think it will be a great tool to promote events. I would also like to see the option to not only target colleges and areas but also companies.