Have you used Facebook ads for your ministry and/or non-profit? How did it go? Was it actually worth the time and investment?
I’ve used it a few times for various properties and I’ll admit that the return was quite limited. But here’s a story and example of how it was used well and had a healthy “return.”
The advertisement for some Christmas productions were shown nearly one million times, clicked 600 times, and cost $475 dollars. 144 tickets were reserved from the productions and one of the families is now active in the local church’s small group.
Sounds like a “win,” right? What’s your take?
dannyjbixby says
We use it to promote every other series or so. Sometimes more often. Each promotion runs us around $400-600 as you said, and we’ve had people who have specifically said that the ad got their feet in the door.
Not just 1 or 2, but we hear it quite often that people heard of us through facebook before another method. And they’re now active members of our church.
I see it like a direct mailer. It gets people in the door. That’s its job. Getting them connected is not the job of an ad.
Seems like a win to me. 🙂
John Saddington says
WOW! that’s sweet. your campaigning is obviously pretty good.
i’m really impressed.
dannyjbixby says
To be honest, I’m usually amazed by the results.
I used to work under the presumption that people who saw the ad and responded would be those whom were already connected with us in some way. Fans of one of the pages, connected through friends, etc.
False.
That’s what presumptions will get ya.
John Saddington says
pwned.!
Kyle Reed says
Did you get anyone from Missouri State?
John Saddington says
eh?
Kyle Reed says
I was talking to danny
Scott Magdalein says
I’m sure targeting has a lot to do with the results. But honestly, I think the usefulness of Facebook ads has diminished. They were once pretty relevant, but they’ve deteriorated to something akin to late night infomercials. :~)
John Saddington says
yeah. you guys have used them for a while now. have you kicked back on the spending?
Paul Steinbrueck says
Scott, I double checked and the Facebook ads our church ran did no demographic targeting. The geographic targeting was anyone within 50 miles of the church.
It’s surprising to me & I would definitely recommend narrowing the targeting.
John Saddington says
thanks paul!
John Saddington says
test
John Saddington says
test2
Jim Gray says
that’s interesting…it definitely gets the awareness piece going.i’ve seen it be effective for campaigns,but not for church services yet.
John Saddington says
the future? or not.
PhillipGibb says
Well, $475 is a bargain for someone’s soul.
However if it was a Facebook Ad for your blog then it’s a bad ROI. For me it is too expensive, besides I have tried this sort of thing with StumbleUpon advertising which generates lot of traffic but no returning visitors or investment of the visitor past the page view.
John Saddington says
a bargain for someone’s soul. haha… but yes.
Paul Steinbrueck says
John, thanks for writing about this. What I think makes this case compelling (in addition to the spiritual implications of reaching that many people with the gospel) is that there are real numbers involved. I heard quite a few people talk about using Facebook ads, but very few effectively measure the results, so the church as a whole is still really unsure of how effective FB ads are and in what circumstances.
My hope is that more churches will measure the results of their social networking campaigns and share the numbers with the larger Christian community.
John Saddington says
sure thing. your blog is getting better and better each month!
Kyle Reed says
I definitely think for a college ministry (anyone really works, but more specifically college ministry) this is a great idea. I can think of advertising to the network here in STL and the college students seeing the advertisement for a college service would be great. I know I would be interested if I saw that.
John Saddington says
that would be pretty neat.
Daniel Decker says
We use Facebook ads all the time with success. We track it, we split test multiple ads with varied headlines and words then we alter and use the best performing click through ad for the full push.
We seeless success with general sermon series pushes unless the series has a response component to it (like the interactive ASK GOD series we did a few months back).
We see a lot of response when we use FB ads for community connection events, specific outreach initiatives, etc.
Oddly enough, we just had a new member class where 40% said they heard about us firs on FB (via one of the community events we promoted).
John Saddington says
wow, i’d love to hear more about this. that’s awesome!
Paul Steinbrueck says
That sounds great! Daniel I’d like to ask you some questions about your Facebook ad campaigns. Would you contact me?
Daniel Decker says
What happens for our church may not be the same for others just due to the nature of the events we have and things we promote on FB. We have an intentional “community connection” outreach that serves more to simply connect people with each other and our church. We don’t try to do “religious” events but rather wholesome, fun, opportunities for people and families (families are a huge core of our church). With these evenst we’re not trying to “convert” someone without a relationship first. Relationships take time. These events are just ice breakers so to speak. A way to invite someone, no matter who they are and what they beleive – to get together. Of course we showcase various ministries of the church at these events and we make sure attendees have a clear “What’s Next…” in hopes they will come back and visit with us on Sundays or contact us for help with issues in their lives or faith. Having said all that…
We usually have some sort of “community connection” per quarter. These range from a “Pumpkin Patch Party” in the fall (had 7,000 people show last year) to a “Big Bunny Party” in the Spring (had 6,000 show last year), to a “4th of July Spectacular.” Each of these events are very intentionally crafted. We also have smaller or niche focused happenings that we promote on FB such as Women’s Conferences, Coffee House Jazz Night (just a relaxed evening for people to come hang out and get to know each other), etc. We do promote sermon series too but rarely. One things we did a while back with success was simply a “Can we pray for you?” page. Made a landing page on our site that tied in to a sermon series and pushed people there via FB to have them submit their prayer requests online or make a call to someone on staff. We saw great response from that too. If we would have promoted the series itself head on without leading in with serving the NEED (prayer) then it wouldn’t have worked as well.
FB ads alone aren’t what make our efforts a success but they contribute to it. Whenever I run an ad, I think of the end-user “What’s in it for me?” mentality and craft the copy or headline as such. We’ve had some campaigns that are duds but because we split test ads before lauching them fully, I’m able to see what is working and what is not before we waste too much $. BTW… Our church is a nondenominational church in Jacksonville, FL. We have about 3500 attendees each week at one campus. We work an email newsletter quite heavily that has 10,000 subscribers (prospects, members and people who just are on the fence but want to stay in the know.)
If anyone wants to chat on this specifically, you can hit me up at [email protected] or 904.230.7529. I handle communications for my home church (not on staff, contracted).
John Saddington says
thanks for the clarification! i hope you get some phone call.s