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To be fooled or not, by event advertising impressions

Let's dive into an online advertising test from 2014. Several details can be unpacked here. But for today, we'll take a high-level 40,000-foot view.

At the time, I was debating with a client on the importance of advertising impressions. During that client debate, I was challenged on the power of what "a million" impressions would do for a local event.

My standard line on advertising impressions goes like this, "impressions don't impress me much!" I believed that a million impressions would not do much for the event.

During the 2014 advertising impressions test, there were several interesting takeaways. Even a few insights that genuinely surprised me. Several of my assumptions on advertising impressions were proven both correct and incorrect.

And so there is no confusion, I'm NOT against advertising or the people who sell it. I am staunchly opposed to people that sell event organizers advertising they know will never help an event. A far too often occurence.

My ultimate goal is to provide clients and EPR subscribers the knowledge to make great advertising and marketing decisions. So here goes ...

Using Facebook in 2014, I was able to get the client over 2 million online impressions for $62.88 USD. Yes, the decimal place is in the correct spot. A three-cent CPM and that's a phenomenal deal! (And another case study as to why event organizers need to master their own media buys!)

Thanks to Facebook's targeting tools we were able to laser target potential event attendees both demographically and geographically, all using a classic direct response advertisement. A click on the Facebook advertisement brought people back to the client's event website.

With 2,044,800 online impressions, guess how many people clicked on the advertisement?

We tested numerous variations spanning 9 different campaigns over 45 days. And there were a total of 130 clicks. That's 130 clicks on two million impressions. Those 130 clicks went on to generated 12 online leads. When you start with two million impressions and only produced 12 online leads, that appears to be an abysmal result. Yet, when you know your marketing math numbers, there could be a silver lining.

Based on the Facebook impressions test, the client had the option of paying approximately $16 USD to generate a $52 average transaction. Does that sound like a good deal to you?

Regardless of my heterodoxy on marketing and advertising, I'm a firm believer in challenging the status quo. That includes my own beliefs and opinions, regardless of experience and track record.

So, make sure you're always testing your own opinions and biases! Because you might be surprised at what you find.

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Posted at 11:14 in Event Promotion and Marketing |

Tags: event advertising impressions, marketing, promotion