Online Advertising: Facebook vs AdWords vs Twitter vs Pinterest

On the 1st of June I had a review of my list building and reach goals and I needed to up my game plan. So, I set my sights on creating a little online experiment. I created a mini battle of the big guns. An advertising play-off if you like.

I know a portion of my ideal audience are frequenting these platforms on a regular basis, and I was curious to see which platform would deliver more engagement, more reach, and more leads, so that I could put my limited advertising budget into action on the best performing platform.

The Experiment: 1 ad for the same lead magnet, $5/day per platform, similar targeting (as close as possible), set to run for 14 days.

The Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & AdWords

The Content: Free Guide:  Top 10 DIY SEO Basics

Note: The ad graphics were slightly different on each platform as different sizes and rules apply for each advertising platform.

Targeting: These ads were all to cold traffic. I kept my targeting and messaging as close as possible on each platform for the purposes of the experiment.

The Advertising Campaign Results

Facebook Ad Campaign

Reach: 34,181

Clicks: 207

Conversion: 3

Twitter Ad Campaign

Reach: 15059

Clicks: 20

Conversion: 3

In comparison I ran another ad for the Analytics Starter Guide and that received reach of 13,340 and 62 clicks, so clearly the platform wasn’t the issue, it was my image and/or messaging for the SEO Starter Guide needs work.

Google Adwords Campaign

Reach: 2282

Clicks: 22

Conversion: 2

Very high competition in the SEO niche hence the low reach for spend.

Pinterest Ad Campaign

This was slow to start as I had a couple of rejected ad images. However, once it finally got approved the results were:

Impressions: 45138

Clicks: 105

Saved Pins: 12

Conversion: 1

Non-Paid Organic Opt-ins

Conversion: 5

Campaign Conclusions

1. My ad messaging needed to be more outcome specific to encourage more clicks
2. The landing page needs a review for load time, accessibility & copy as conversions were very low
3. Greater reach does not necessarily more conversions
4. Organic conversion was free and converted just as well if there is traffic coming to the site
5. I need a minimum of 2 leads to convert to clients to deem this campaign a successful
6. I need to let the ads run a little longer as they were all starting to gain traction as the campaign concluded

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