How Many Business Owners Are Taking Advantage of Facebook Ads?

We admin over 100 Facebook Pages for clients, and at least half use us to run their facebook ads. Budgets range from as little as $50/mo to $1000/mo. I can tell you from years of experience, back to 2012 when FB launched ads in it's infancy, that they DO work when you put the time into them to target, read analytics, refine the targeting and adjust budget. Not just once, but continually. Just clicking the Boost button and using the general targeting isn't going to work for many businesses. Go into Ads Manager and the rest of the ads dashboard and REALLY dig into the deeper targeting. Use the other tools as well!
ROI is there when done properly- for the most part. Of course there are exceptions. This is not a silver bullet to solve all of your sales needs. Content needs to be there as well! Your website needs to be up to par!
Ads will generate interest and traffic. That is ALL they do. If what follows the ad is broken or not relevant, you can spend thousands of dollars and get nothing.
So the ads DO work, but they are NOT stand alone products.

I've been Using Facebook and a few other Social media sites to promote and advertise my Company for almost 10 years now. I must say it is one of the best tools I still use today to generate new customers daily! I recommend to every small business owner to utilize this medium to grow and generate more revenue for your company hands down!

I have a company that does it for me and I get emailed loan requests through it.

I am. For all 4 of my companies. I measure the value of my ad by clicks and shares. My adds don't generally request a purchase, rather, they build visibility and credibility, as they are viewed and shared.

I have a facebook page but have not paid anything for Ads. The only way to truly track how our customers found us is to ask. Do you have a way of capturing that data? POS system perhaps

Note there trackers can show clicks and such but do not show conversion to who really came in and did business. At least that is my experience.

A way to build your facebook page likes is to friend on you own and then invite them to join the page. I just do friend request for ever suggested friend especially those who have mutual friends then. On your facebook business page hit the invite every so often. I went to about 30 page likes to over 500 in a couple of weeks this way. All free no costs.

I have spent several thousand dollars over the years on Facebook. It depends on what niche you are in. Home contractors do well during their busy season, but B2B not so much unless you have an app to attract attention. Also, if you are doing a brand campaign introduction locally or a contest, it can be effective.

It is all about choosing the right audience, having the right message, and selecting the right assets. 

Testing is what makes FB ads work most of the time. When we train businesses and other agencies who run FB ads we find they miss out on how to properly to the research and testing in order to generate conversions.

The FB pixel and Google AdWords is how we track and is part of the foundation of setting up campaigns. 

You also need landing pages to test to generate the best results. 

This is what we do for a product or service:

Develop 3 different landing pages to test

Developer three ad sets in FB with different targeted audiences for specific product or service

Develop 6 ads in each ad set. 

Use 3 different images (conservative, semi-relative, unrelative but catchy). One set of images and videos with and without text. 

Use 3 different messaging styles (text, text and emojis, different buttons).

Run the ads and narrow down the winners. 

Then create a lookalike audience based on the winning audience for an optimal campaign.

I've been using page and website promotion through facebook and the first week or so it was more than worth the money. The ad manager offers the tracker that will break down for you how many people the ad was displayed to and how many took an action on the ad and then even break down who your audience was by gender, age, etc. I did the $2.00 a day promotions and got 100 page follows within a week. When I went to renew the add however even increasing the area and interests to advertise to my results tanked to 1 follow a day. Not sure what was going on with that.

I would say facebook is certainly worth the money for it and I'm probably just experiencing a fluke, but be mindful.

yes

I like them, the platform is pretty intuitive and allows you to target very specifically. The analytics make it simple to see what your audience is responding to. The budgets are flexible and the integration with Instagram is definitely a bonus for me.