Paid Advertising – Is it worth it?
I’ve often wondered whether forking out my hard-earned money to pay for advertising on Facebook/Instagram was worth it. I decided to run a little experiment at the end of September to see whether it made a difference to my regular traffic and if I would get the promised 86-240 odd viewers a day for my advert.
To try and maximise the potential, I tried to choose a very neutral post – one that would appeal to as many people as possible. I wanted to stay away from reviews to avoid genre bias. In the end, I opted for my recent Book Blogger Problems tag. I paid $5 for the advert to last five days, which reached viewers on both Facebook and Instagram. Shall we see how both did?
Facebook indicated that I could expect between 80 and 240 odd viewers a day for this advert. I was grossly disappointed with it. At the end of the five days, these are the stats.
Yes, I got a measly 37 engagements. I didn’t even get the suggested minimum per day over the span of the advert! I dread to think how an advert performed if you picked more selective content. The more niche you go then in theory you’ll get less viewers. I barely got any as it is.
As of writing this post, I have had just over 4,550 views in the 900 days since beginning my blog. That averages at 5 views a day. In the five day advert period, my page views varied from 3 – 21.
Comparing this advert period with the first few days of October, I’ve had nearly as many page views and interactions organically compared with the advert period. Okay, Blogtober will be having a bit of an effect on the figures as I have fresh content every day, but still, not massive. Only 7 of 37 actually went on to look at my blog, and I have no new subscribers for the trouble.
Could do better, Facebook.
The stats for Instagram don’t look any better either, I am sad to say. The post received 21 likes in the period.
I would say that normally isn’t to be sniffed at… but this is how my posts perform normally WITHOUT advertising. In fact, I have posts which have performed better, such as my post about winning a signed copy of The Testaments.
My promoted post didn’t refer anyone to my blog, either. I didn’t expect as many from Instagram as Facebook, but as it happens I got none at all.
So – Is it worth it?
In my experience and opinion, absolutely not! I won’t be bothering again. I know for a fact that if I put the effort into blog hopping and reading new blogs etc, I could get more viewers to my blog and my content myself.
Sure, I am sure advertising is great if you don’t have the time to do this. Maybe if I had spent more it would have had a bigger impact. As it stands, the traffic to my blog and the “boost” my content got was so paltry that it isn’t even worth it.
I’ll save my money to buy something else more exciting in future… like more books!
Have you or would you ever paid for advertising? Did it work for you?