I have been doing a lot of research in order to create some Facebook contests for my clients. When I wrote Facebook contests – 14 Apps To Help You Out, I was ready to launch my first contest by using Wildfire.
But, that didn’t happen.
By the way, I am still on vacation, but I’m working every single day, because I am working where I belong.
I tested Wildfire and several other apps. The apps worked great, but I had one major problem, and that was the language. The Facebook contests I was launching should be in Norwegian, and not in English or any other language.
I looked at the options in Wildfire and the other apps, I realized that even though I could have translated some of the text to Norwegian, there are still many words that had to be in English, and I just didn’t want 30% of the text to be in English. It wouldn’t look professional.
I am combining Pagemodo and AWeber
It probably wasn’t the best option, or at least not the solution I was looking for, but it works great, and I am very satisfied with it.
I am using Pagemodo (and a custom html template) to create the Facebook contest, and I have added a form using AWeber (the same service I am using for my newsletter).
It looks great, I can add whatever type of content I want, and it’s very easy to update it. I have embedded a YouTube video with a commercial explaining the prize. My client is a car dealership and they’re giving away a 10-day free trial of the electric car Mitsubishi i-MiEV.
It might be harder to spread the word about the contest by combining Pagemodo and AWeber, but I have total control of the contest and the people who are entering. And the contest is finally in Norwegian.
- sometimes, the best solution is a fairly simple one.
Congrats Jens, looks very slick.
Which metrics are you going to measure for this (apart from subscribers)?
Twitter: berget
Hi John,
It’s basically three things. Subscribers, and how many people will actually test the car (from people entering the contest), and finally, how many will buy the car. The winner will get the car for 10 days, but everybody will get an offer to try it for a few days, and the company will follow up every single one of the leads, and hopefully some will end up buying the car
Wow! I haven’t thought about this great combination, but Pagemodo and AWeber must work! Great job, thanks for sharing the useful tip!
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Twitter: berget
Hi Heidi,
It took me a long time to realize that Pagemodo and AWeber would be a great combination, even though I have been using Pagemodo and AWeber separately for a long time
Thanks a lot for the kind words.
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Twitter: rzive
I’m glad you are doing all of the groundwork on Facebook Contests Jens, cuz I’m almost ready to roll up my sleeves for a client of my own. I’m going to benefit from your trial and error (though at this point, I’m not dealing with a language conflict…)
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Twitter: berget
Hi Ruth,
I wish I wasn’t dealing with a language conflict, because there are so many awesome apps in English and I would love to be using some of them, especially since they have some methods integrated that might help spread the contest and make it go viral.
I’d love to hear more about your contest, please share it at your blog.
Jens-Petter Berget invites you to read.. My experience in marketing
Twitter: bdorman264
Hey, no fair; if it’s Norwegian I probably don’t have a good chance of winning unless it’s a lucky number or something…………
Glad you found something that will work for you; good luck with your efforts.
You must have been really bad to be in the tent this long……..just sayin’………..
(dofollow)
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Twitter: berget
Hey Bill,
Actually this contest you’d have a fair chance of winning even though it’s in Norwegian. All you have to do is enter your contact information. On the other hand, you’d probably wouldn’t know that
I’m not as bad as you think. Right now I’m in a hotel in Gothenburg (Sweden)
Twitter: bdorman264
Gå videre og gjøre konkurransen i norsk, jeg vil finne det ut.
Bill Dorman invites you to read.. What does social networking mean to you?
Twitter: berget
Awesome Bill. Soon you’ll be able to read my novel in Norwegian
Twitter: chrisnpi
Hi Jens, thanks for sharing your experience.
I don’t know if it can works for you, but you may try Facebook ads to boost presence of your contest on FB.
According to http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-advertising/ CPC is in Norway $0.79, but you can try to set it a much lower.
I used FB ads for getting more likes and it worked for me.
BR and have some holidays!
Chris
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Twitter: berget
Hi Chris,
That’s great advice. I am running ads for this contest and I’m paying as low as $0.60
Twitter: chrisnpi
Hi Jens,
you can try to copy this ad (in the same campaign) with CPC=$0.5 or even smaller. I test various texts, CPC rates and even images – everything matters
BR, Chris
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Twitter: berget
Interesting. I have only been using the rates that Facebook suggested.
So you’re suggesting that I could use a copy of the same ad but with lower cpc?
Twitter: chrisnpi
Yes. I did so – for my campaign FB also suggested to set it between 0.5-1.2$. But for some nationalities I set $0.02 and I still got clicks (in commentLuv comment you can find some more details). Of course you should monitor your ads (after 4-5 days some ads “burned out” and I must change almost everything, expect CPC
BR, Chris
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Twitter: berget
That’s awesome. Thanks a lot.
I’ll visit the article as soon as I get home
I have been planning to start some competitions for my Facebook pages, but being new to the business I was really not sure how to move ahead. Thank you for the wonderful post, I am sure it will give me the push I needed
Twitter: berget
Hi Molly,
I have created several contests on Facebook, and I have both failed and had some success. To me, it’s about having a goal and a strategy before you launch the contest. Like now, I am helping my client to get leads that would like to try their electric car. I have “created” a follow-up system that they can use to get in touch with the people after the contest is finished.
Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you might have
Twitter: wonderoftech
Good luck with your Facebook contest, Jens. I hope you’re the winner by driving more business to your client!
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Twitter: berget
Thank you so much. I’m hoping that they see the real benefits from this and that they’ll hire me again and again
Twitter: mark_harai
This is some great info Jens;
Another thing you can do with the ads space you’re buying is test several versions of the ad.
Different images, different text., target demographics, etc. You may be surprises with the results.
This is an ongoing process if you want to maximize your ROI on ad spend.
Even after a solid producing ad is up for a couple weeks, banner blindness does kick in, so you need to change things up a bit to maintain good click through rates.
You start where you start as far as what you’re paying for your ads – but if test several versions of the ad and pay attention to the analytic s, you’ll see which ads are producing the greatest click-through rate, which can significantly reduce what you’re paying.
The more clicks from impressions you get, the lower price you pay for clicks.
I’ve started some ad campaigns at .60 cents per click and got below .10 cents.
It does take some work though.
(dofollow)
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Twitter: berget
Hi Mark,
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing, but I haven’t been able to get below $.50. I have only been using two different images, but right now I’m thinking that I should create two more images and not just add several types of text.
Thanks a lot.
Twitter: mark_harai
I would normally create up to 50+ ads for one campaign in one months time; using different text, images and demographic targets. I said it took work – LOL!
It’s not easy, but definitely doable if you invest the time.
(dofollow)
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Twitter: berget
50+ ? Wow. I have created 10, and I thought I had done an awesome job
Twitter: mark_harai
Creating 10 ads is a good amount of work… Now you know what I mean when I say it takes work to optimize a Facebook campaign
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Twitter: berget
I need to do some more work on the ads tomorrow
Twitter: abdulisbest
hi Jens.. Congratulations on your achievement. Well Its great you combine Pagemodo and AWeber but what did you do to spread a word about this contest because you mentioned it would be really tough to spread a news of contest with this mechanism.
2ndly I must say most of the time solutions are fairly simple.
Twitter: berget
Hi Abdul,
I’ve been spreading the word about the contest by using Facebook ads. It works great, the only problem is that I need to pay for it to spread, it’s not a built in viral mechanism
I have a carpet cleaning website, and I always try to find new ideas to get customer to visit my site, I thing it’s a great idea to try and post a contests in Facebook, I will try it
Twitter: berget
Hi Glenn,
The great thing about Facebook ads is that you can target them to only show to people in your city.
What will your contest be, free carpet cleaning?
I’m not sure yet I will have a to think about it some more, but I maybe it will carpet cleaning, or maybe some package of cleaning products, I’m still checking my options.
Twitter: berget
I would do several, but not at the same time. This way you’ll test and see which will work better.
Twitter: quickblogtips
Hi Jens
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Twitter: berget
Hey Ben,
I didn’t do much. I just added one of their preformatted forms, deleted some of the stuff I didn’t want, and that was it. I didn’t do anything with the code, I just did everything in design mode
I know it’s only slightly on topic, Jens, but I keep hearing more and more about Awebber of late. It seems that they are the go-to choice for most people when it comes to making mailing lists and forms for webpages. I’ve got zero-coding background though so, in your opinion, is there a more ‘newbie-friendly’ alternative to Awebber when it comes to installing some forms onto my sites? I appreciate any feedback