November 11th, 2008
The following quote found within a Wall Street Journal article on Facebook advertising really jumped out at me:
“I haven’t heard of anyone purchasing something off an ad on Facebook,” says Angie Tulgetske, vice president of RE/MAX Preferred Choice Properties, which resells timeshares and spends thousands of dollars a month on search ads but avoids social-networking sites. “I wouldn’t think any of my marketing dollars would be spent advantageously there.”
Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence and hunches, why not test it? It’s pretty clear that a ton of people who own or can afford to buy homes are spending a significant part of their day on Facebook.
It would have been nice to see a quote in the WSJ from someone who is seeing success with their Facebook ad spend (they do mention that FOX is spending a ton of money and they’re not stupid) but it’s clearly going to be tough to find someone willing to go on the record in front of all of their competition.
This reminds me of earlier resistance to pay per click advertising. People would say, “I never click on ads,” which somehow translated into, “no one clicks on ads” which clearly isn’t the case based on Google’s revenues.
With ad networks like this, early adopters tend to see amazing returns because the competition among advertisers is so much lower. Can you imagine how amazing it must have been for real estate agents back when they could pay ten cents a click rather than a couple dollars?
That’s where Facebook is today.
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Posted by:
Brad on
November 11th, 2008 12:30 pm
I use Facebook quite frequently to stay in touch with friends and I find the ads there to be very unobtrusive. I would not be against buying a product/service from an ad on Facebook. Some of them look very interesting.
I’m not sure if social network sites like Facebook will revolutionize online advertising like Google did, but the real estate agent quoted in the WSJ article is certainly doing herself a disservice with her thinking: Because I don’t know anyone who buys from ads on Facebook, then no one does.
Great post, thanks!
Posted by:
Graeme Thickins on
November 12th, 2008 8:49 am
I totally agree with you, Ed. That same quote jumped out at me, too. The article was not this reporter’s best work…
cheers,
Graeme
Posted by:
Ken Montville on
November 12th, 2008 7:23 pm
Interesting. I once heard the rationale that people on Facebook are either not looking for homes, per se, or are in the wrong demographic to be in the market for homes.
My guess is that people don’t surf Facebook specifically looking for homes. After all, it’s not a real estate centric site. It’d be more like they’re on Facebook and happen to see an ad that catches their eye and they also just happen to be in the market. Not to say it couldn’t happen but what are the odds?
Posted by:
Ed Kohler on
November 13th, 2008 1:30 am
Ken, by that rationale, almost every type of advertising other than search would fall short. At least Facebook is measurable, since you can pay by impressions or clicks, then track the performance of what you pay for in terms of traffic and leads.
Posted by:
ryanl on
November 14th, 2008 2:46 pm
Am I the only one to get the stupid “rolling razor” ads…can that be that profitable of a new product?
I would assume that you can get ads hella cheap though..looks like they got a fair amount of inventory available.
Posted by:
ryanl on
November 19th, 2008 10:33 am
If facebook allowed me to target ads by groups they would have my money right now.
But frankly demographics just aren’t a hard enough target.
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