Facebook Ads

[Breakfast Diva]

Have you tried them? What has been your experience?

 

[paulavery]

Have not. The ads I see most are weight loss, get rich quick, real estate, books,... have not seen a lot of travel.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Have not. The ads I see most are weight loss, get rich quick, real estate, books,... have not seen a lot of travel..

One innkeeper I know did an ad for Valentine's weekend/day and it worked within a couple hours, but I don't know anyone else who has done it.

 

[swirt]

The ads can be very targeted by location, age, gender and interests. They ought to be fairly powerful if used in a targetted manner. I personally have not used them though.

 

[muirford]

The M ast F arm I nn in NC has done some, and I think maybe An don R eid. You might email them with questions. I have not tried it yet, although I think I will sometime in the future.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!

 

[Red Handed Jill]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

Hi Red,
I do my own text editing on my website, but I would have to pay my designer to create a whole new page (landing page) to do what you suggest. If this FB actually works, that's a good suggestion for some time in the future.

 

[Morticia]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

I've seen a lot of that lately with the B&B's I'm fans of. It's an excellent idea!
Oops, sorry, not a FB ad, just a blurb on their page to their followers. Still an excellent idea.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

I've seen a lot of that lately with the B&B's I'm fans of. It's an excellent idea!
Oops, sorry, not a FB ad, just a blurb on their page to their followers. Still an excellent idea.
.

I'm pretty new to the whole FB thing, but I can see the benefits already. I did one last minute special for a single Friday night on FB (the only one so far), but it was really last minute and nobody booked it. My concern is that if I do very many specials on FB, my loyal followers will not book as readily at the regular rates and will wait until they see a special. On the FB ad, I was able to have the ad shown only on the FB members that were not my fans. I really like this because it targets people who are not familiar with us and offers them an incentive. I was also able to target according to key words, location area, interests, relationship status, etc.
I recently did a newsletter to our previous guests and encouraged them to become our FB fans, and within 2 days our fans increased by 80 new fans. I was pretty impressed with that because these are guests who have stayed with us and liked us enough to invite us to communicate with them. I definitely want to keep them happy, but I don't want to give away the farm!

 

[Morticia]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

I've seen a lot of that lately with the B&B's I'm fans of. It's an excellent idea!
Oops, sorry, not a FB ad, just a blurb on their page to their followers. Still an excellent idea.
.

I'm pretty new to the whole FB thing, but I can see the benefits already. I did one last minute special for a single Friday night on FB (the only one so far), but it was really last minute and nobody booked it. My concern is that if I do very many specials on FB, my loyal followers will not book as readily at the regular rates and will wait until they see a special. On the FB ad, I was able to have the ad shown only on the FB members that were not my fans. I really like this because it targets people who are not familiar with us and offers them an incentive. I was also able to target according to key words, location area, interests, relationship status, etc.
I recently did a newsletter to our previous guests and encouraged them to become our FB fans, and within 2 days our fans increased by 80 new fans. I was pretty impressed with that because these are guests who have stayed with us and liked us enough to invite us to communicate with them. I definitely want to keep them happy, but I don't want to give away the farm!
.

Good point on 'disallowing' your fans for this particular ad. Altho, good idea to offer some sort of perk only to them at some point.
My guests are not FB people nor are they Twitter people. I've put the link to FB & Twitter in the emails and not a single person has clicked on the link. You've probably got a totally different market!

 

[swirt]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

Hi Red,
I do my own text editing on my website, but I would have to pay my designer to create a whole new page (landing page) to do what you suggest. If this FB actually works, that's a good suggestion for some time in the future.
.

A landing page from the ad can be a good idea... at least to see where they came from and to offer special deals.
One word of caution. Landing pages are one of those things that the major search engines frown upon ... they stand out to search engines because they have only links into your site, but not links from your site to that page. So if you go the route of the landing page, make sure your web person blocks it from the search engines with an entry in your site's robots.txt file (caution: make sure the block is just THAT page and not the rest of the pages of your site.)

 

[Morticia]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

Hi Red,
I do my own text editing on my website, but I would have to pay my designer to create a whole new page (landing page) to do what you suggest. If this FB actually works, that's a good suggestion for some time in the future.
.

A landing page from the ad can be a good idea... at least to see where they came from and to offer special deals.
One word of caution. Landing pages are one of those things that the major search engines frown upon ... they stand out to search engines because they have only links into your site, but not links from your site to that page. So if you go the route of the landing page, make sure your web person blocks it from the search engines with an entry in your site's robots.txt file (caution: make sure the block is just THAT page and not the rest of the pages of your site.)
.

Even if the page is only up for a couple of days? Possibly not even long enough to be found by search engines?

 

[swirt]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

Hi Red,
I do my own text editing on my website, but I would have to pay my designer to create a whole new page (landing page) to do what you suggest. If this FB actually works, that's a good suggestion for some time in the future.
.

A landing page from the ad can be a good idea... at least to see where they came from and to offer special deals.
One word of caution. Landing pages are one of those things that the major search engines frown upon ... they stand out to search engines because they have only links into your site, but not links from your site to that page. So if you go the route of the landing page, make sure your web person blocks it from the search engines with an entry in your site's robots.txt file (caution: make sure the block is just THAT page and not the rest of the pages of your site.)
.

Even if the page is only up for a couple of days? Possibly not even long enough to be found by search engines?
.

Even if the page is only up for a couple of days? Possibly not even long enough to be found by search engines?

Search engines are a funny thing ... when you don't want them to find something you are only putting up for a few days, they will find it within hours. Something you want found immediately will go undiscovered for weeks. It is SEO Murphy's Law.
Even if the spiders don't find it naturally, the various toolbars everyone installs to make their browsers more useful, quite often report back to the mother ship as to where they have been.

 

[happyjacks]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

I've seen a lot of that lately with the B&B's I'm fans of. It's an excellent idea!
Oops, sorry, not a FB ad, just a blurb on their page to their followers. Still an excellent idea.
.

I'm pretty new to the whole FB thing, but I can see the benefits already. I did one last minute special for a single Friday night on FB (the only one so far), but it was really last minute and nobody booked it. My concern is that if I do very many specials on FB, my loyal followers will not book as readily at the regular rates and will wait until they see a special. On the FB ad, I was able to have the ad shown only on the FB members that were not my fans. I really like this because it targets people who are not familiar with us and offers them an incentive. I was also able to target according to key words, location area, interests, relationship status, etc.
I recently did a newsletter to our previous guests and encouraged them to become our FB fans, and within 2 days our fans increased by 80 new fans. I was pretty impressed with that because these are guests who have stayed with us and liked us enough to invite us to communicate with them. I definitely want to keep them happy, but I don't want to give away the farm!
.

My concern is that if I do very many specials on FB, my loyal followers will not book as readily at the regular rates and will wait until they see a special.

That's my concern, too (and not just on FB). I don't want to train followers/guests to wait for a discount before they book. I like that you can omit your current FB fans from your ad, though. That helps alleviate that concern.
What I've been doing instead of discounts is offering value-added extras for fans. I don't know if they have resulted in bookings that I wouldn't have had anyway, but they have enticed pre-stay guests to become fans, which helps build the guest relationship, which is important to me since a significant portion of my business is from repeats.
I look forward to hearing the results of your ad. I've been thinking about it myself but haven't sussed it out yet.

 

[Red Handed Jill]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

Hi Red,
I do my own text editing on my website, but I would have to pay my designer to create a whole new page (landing page) to do what you suggest. If this FB actually works, that's a good suggestion for some time in the future.
.

A landing page from the ad can be a good idea... at least to see where they came from and to offer special deals.
One word of caution. Landing pages are one of those things that the major search engines frown upon ... they stand out to search engines because they have only links into your site, but not links from your site to that page. So if you go the route of the landing page, make sure your web person blocks it from the search engines with an entry in your site's robots.txt file (caution: make sure the block is just THAT page and not the rest of the pages of your site.)
.

Even if the page is only up for a couple of days? Possibly not even long enough to be found by search engines?
.

Even if the page is only up for a couple of days? Possibly not even long enough to be found by search engines?

Search engines are a funny thing ... when you don't want them to find something you are only putting up for a few days, they will find it within hours. Something you want found immediately will go undiscovered for weeks. It is SEO Murphy's Law.
Even if the spiders don't find it naturally, the various toolbars everyone installs to make their browsers more useful, quite often report back to the mother ship as to where they have been.
.

Okay, question about creating a landing page...what if I create the page for the special outside my regular site...say, I register on yola, make up a page, and then pull (delete) the page after all is said and done...is that risky?
Hope this isn't an annoying question. I think I may know just enough to be dangerous.

 

[swirt]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

BD - could you create a "special" page within your website that could only be navigated to from the FB ad? No links anywhere within your site. With the thought you would pull the page after the 10 days.
Just wondered if this might work. SO not the web person here.
.

Hi Red,
I do my own text editing on my website, but I would have to pay my designer to create a whole new page (landing page) to do what you suggest. If this FB actually works, that's a good suggestion for some time in the future.
.

A landing page from the ad can be a good idea... at least to see where they came from and to offer special deals.
One word of caution. Landing pages are one of those things that the major search engines frown upon ... they stand out to search engines because they have only links into your site, but not links from your site to that page. So if you go the route of the landing page, make sure your web person blocks it from the search engines with an entry in your site's robots.txt file (caution: make sure the block is just THAT page and not the rest of the pages of your site.)
.

Even if the page is only up for a couple of days? Possibly not even long enough to be found by search engines?
.

Even if the page is only up for a couple of days? Possibly not even long enough to be found by search engines?

Search engines are a funny thing ... when you don't want them to find something you are only putting up for a few days, they will find it within hours. Something you want found immediately will go undiscovered for weeks. It is SEO Murphy's Law.
Even if the spiders don't find it naturally, the various toolbars everyone installs to make their browsers more useful, quite often report back to the mother ship as to where they have been.
.

Okay, question about creating a landing page...what if I create the page for the special outside my regular site...say, I register on yola, make up a page, and then pull (delete) the page after all is said and done...is that risky?
Hope this isn't an annoying question. I think I may know just enough to be dangerous.
.

If you create a page that is not part of your regular site, then it can't really hurt you. The liklihood that even if it was on your site that it would hurt you is small...though better safe than sorry. If you just block the page as part of your robots.txt file, you'd be fine.

 

[Baygirl]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

Have you seen much action with your FB ad that you placed last week?

 

[Breakfast Diva]

I just created a FB ad to try it out. I used a very targeted market and will run it for 10 days. I'll let you know if I get anything. One negative is that they will have to call to get the special since there is very limited text space. I couldn't figure out how to have them do an online reservation without offering the special to everyone else. I want this just to be FB.
We'll see!.

Have you seen much action with your FB ad that you placed last week?
.

I've had a lot of click throughs, but no reservations or calls yet

The ads will run until the 1st.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

The FB campaign is over. It created no current bookings, but I did get 249 clicks at an average of $.44 per click. It's difficult to tell if this was really "worth it" or not. I targeted to my "perfect guest", so who knows how many of those 249 clicks added us to their "Like" list for possible bookings in the future. The campaign cost $110
Would I do it again? Probably not.