Is facebook dead for getting new customers?

[Deleted member 5762]

Has anyone noticed that having a facebook page for your work has basically died a death when it comes to new customers?

Although you have to filter out the usual cheapskates and one-off's, I used to get the odd very good customer from my facebook page. This was through targeted advertising/boosting to the local area.

It seems the last year or so it doesn't seem to work at all. You can see that your advert has a certain number of impressions, but it gets nobody at all interested.

I understand there's a cost of living crisis but I still used to gain a bit of interest at least.

 

[Iron Giant]

Paying for FB ads has been dead for over 2 years now the chances are the same people are seeing your ads, as for good customers the vast majority of mine do come through FB simply due to people asking on private residents pages, my customers will always put my name forward.

 

[Deleted member 5762]

@Iron Giant I always find that 9 out of 10 of the best customers are word of mouth. I use to get quite alot of engagement with posts and adverts on Facebook, even it was people liking the post etc but seems like a complete waste of money now. The other day I picked a new customer and the lady had asked at her hairdresser's appointment about window cleaners and the hairdresser said "my Mum loves her window cleaner, I'll get his number for you". So it wasn't even a direct recommendation so to speak, but I was chuffed that they liked my service so much. Probably better off now paying for a half decent website, and like you said getting recommended on local pages ?.

 

[Master Jedi Alejandro]

Paying for FB ads has been dead for over 2 years now the chances are the same people are seeing your ads, as for good customers the vast majority of mine do come through FB simply due to people asking on private residents pages, my customers will always put my name forward.

I must disagree with this. I just ran some adverts on Facebook. They weren’t as effective as before, but still very effective, especially compared to what other companies spend to get new customers.
What I found effective was to run A/B tests. This way I was able to figure out what was working the most effective & disable the less effective ads.

 

[Deleted member 5762]

I must disagree with this. I just ran some adverts on Facebook. They weren’t as effective as before, but still very effective, especially compared to what other companies spend to get new customers.
What I found effective was to run A/B tests. This way I was able to figure out what was working the most effective & disable the less effective ads.

Do you mind if I ask what you mean by 'A/B Tests' please? Apologies if it's a silly question, I wasn't sure what it means. Thanks

 

[RickyG]

I ran one last week 1 mile radius of where I’m working, women over 30, mobile devices only set it £1 a day for 7 days, 350 ish reach I got 2x £23 jobs both with £45 first cleans & a £28 job with a £70 first clean, so for my £7 outlay it ain’t done bad

 

[Deleted member 5762]

I ran one last week 1 mile radius of where I’m working, women over 30, mobile devices only set it £1 a day for 7 days, 350 ish reach I got 2x £23 jobs both with £45 first cleans & a £28 job with a £70 first clean, so for my £7 outlay it ain’t done bad

@RickyG that's very good mate ,?. I used to be happy if a £10 advert got me one regular customer so you have done brilliantly. Good to know it's still paying off at times .

 

[Master Jedi Alejandro]

I ran one last week 1 mile radius of where I’m working, women over 30, mobile devices only set it £1 a day for 7 days, 350 ish reach I got 2x £23 jobs both with £45 first cleans & a £28 job with a £70 first clean, so for my £7 outlay it ain’t done bad

That’s not ‘done bad’ that’s insane! For your £7 cost you’ve made, in your first year
£1048 - £7 = £1041. That. Is. Insane!

Edit: Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a 14871.4% increase. I. I actually think I hate you right now. I get nothing like this with my adverts ?

EDIT 2: At these numbers, you could have a entire £5000 round for £500.

 

[Master Jedi Alejandro]

Do you mind if I ask what you mean by 'A/B Tests' please? Apologies if it's a silly question, I wasn't sure what it means. Thanks

Not a silly question at all!

When you run ads do you use the full fat ads manager? It gives you a lot more control. The option to setup a A/B test is there.

Basically you take an existing Ad (A) and you make some changes. As much or as little as you like (B). Facebook runs them both & compares them, which one worked better. You can then take the winner and do it again. Keep making small changes and see how they affect the results.

 

[Deleted member 5762]

Not a silly question at all!

When you run ads do you use the full fat ads manager? It gives you a lot more control. The option to setup a A/B test is there.

Basically you take an existing Ad (A) and you make some changes. As much or as little as you like (B). Facebook runs them both & compares them, which one worked better. You can then take the winner and do it again. Keep making small changes and see how they affect the results.

I do use the ads manager but had no idea you could do this. Thank you very much, I'll take a look at this as it sounds a very good option ?

 

[Master Jedi Alejandro]

I do use the ads manager but had no idea you could do this. Thank you very much, I'll take a look at this as it sounds a very good option ?

No issues man. I only discovered it recently. Might be a idea to Google how to do it, should pull up proper instructions ?

 

[Deleted member 5762]

No issues man. I only discovered it recently. Might be a idea to Google how to do it, should pull up proper instructions ?

I will do. Thanks very much for your help ?

 

[RickyG]

That’s not ‘done bad’ that’s insane! For your £7 cost you’ve made, in your first year
£1048 - £7 = £1041. That. Is. Insane!

Edit: Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a 14871.4% increase. I. I actually think I hate you right now. I get nothing like this with my adverts ?

EDIT 2: At these numbers, you could have a entire £5000 round for £500.

I was a bit surprised tbh I would have been over the moon with just one as I know Facebook is full of messers & I only ran the ad cos in my head I thought I’d try to see if I’d get a nibble from a street where there’s no windy to save a bit of time hitting doors as the 3 areas I want to be are a bit saturated but all those windys can only do so much in a day & that still leaves a lot houses,
I’m sure drilling down to a very specific audience helped like a worm on a hook rather than casting a big net
I try not to look at the figures like that cos if they fell off I’d be £1048 down and a dent like that would feel a bit depressing ?
Feel free to pm me mate il go through with you what I done ??

 

[RickyG]

@RickyG that's very good mate ,?. I used to be happy if a £10 advert got me one regular customer so you have done brilliantly. Good to know it's still paying off at times .

I’m very happy how it’s gone I didn’t expect it to do so well ??

Paying for FB ads has been dead for over 2 years now the chances are the same people are seeing your ads, as for good customers the vast majority of mine do come through FB simply due to people asking on private residents pages, my customers will always put my name forward.

That’s priceless & better than any advert, it’s like the difference of seeing an ad for beer and your mate in a pub with a pint in his hand saying “this is lovely try a drop of that” it’s a sort of guarantee

 

[Iron Giant]

I must disagree with this. I just ran some adverts on Facebook. They weren’t as effective as before, but still very effective, especially compared to what other companies spend to get new customers.
What I found effective was to run A/B tests. This way I was able to figure out what was working the most effective & disable the less effective ads.

They may have tweaked how you can set up ads years ago it was a bit of a pain for me, but I'm not and never have wanted to have my work over a 5-10-mile radius I mainly concentrate on one town as it's the proverbial honeypot

 

[Master Jedi Alejandro]

I was a bit surprised tbh I would have been over the moon with just one as I know Facebook is full of messers & I only ran the ad cos in my head I thought I’d try to see if I’d get a nibble from a street where there’s no windy to save a bit of time hitting doors as the 3 areas I want to be are a bit saturated but all those windys can only do so much in a day & that still leaves a lot houses,
I’m sure drilling down to a very specific audience helped like a worm on a hook rather than casting a big net
I try not to look at the figures like that cos if they fell off I’d be £1048 down and a dent like that would feel a bit depressing ?
Feel free to pm me mate il go through with you what I done ??

This is what adverts are great for. Like you I setup the adverts to target woman, over a certain age (but also under a certain age). Then I target the areas I work. I honestly have built an amazing round off the back of advertising. Picking up customers who want a reliable window cleaner but cannot seem to find one.
If I was you, and you want more work, just run the exact same ad again but put more money into it. At my height of adverting I think I was spending £100 a day. I would run an advert for say a week, book all the work in (alongside existing work) do it, then repeat.

I’ll also add, it’s good to know what your cost vs return is. I’ll be honest, as time goes on your return probably won’t be as great. You’ve probably got a honeypot at the moment of an area needing another window cleaner but no one ever having run adverts. So you’ve got first pickings of all these potential customers. But even as the return isn’t as great, you’ll still be doing extremely well. Most companies will spend 5-15+ x the value of a new customer to get them in the door. Because they view it as multi year, long term. At my worst, it was 2 cleans and I was breaking even. That’s a still an amazing return! Keep that in mind if things start to drop off a bit.

 

[Master Jedi Alejandro]

They may have tweaked how you can set up ads years ago it was a bit of a pain for me, but I'm not and never have wanted to have my work over a 5-10-mile radius I mainly concentrate on one town as it's the proverbial honeypot

You can target just your town. Put in your towns postcodes and set them to ‘this area only’. I have had to do that since the whole ‘drop a pin ? x miles around it’ doenst work as we’re licensed up here and I was always catching folk I don’t cover.

 

[Iron Giant]

You can target just your town. Put in your towns postcodes and set them to ‘this area only’. I have had to do that since the whole ‘drop a pin ? x miles around it’ doenst work as we’re licensed up here and I was always catching folk I don’t cover.

Most of my enquires are towns or estates down to streets that I don't cover must have had over 5 inquiries in the last few days all turned down bar one, even had very nice phone call from a lady in London last week unfortunately I had to let her down