Entrepreneur: How I made $10K in one day with Facebook Ads
Forget about the bots, says Brendan Irvine-Broque -- Facebook Ads really do work.
As a counterpoint to the company that claimed its Facebook Ads didn't work because most clicks came from bots, entrepreneur Brendan Irvine-Broque decided to tell the story of how he used the social network's advertising platform to make five figures in one day.
After deciding to get rid of a record collection consisting of 6,000 vinyl records, Irvine-Broque created a Facebook Event titled "MASSIVE Vinyl Sale in the East Bay!" He then spent $150 to promote it using Facebook Ads, which simply said "6000 Vinyl Records, $3 Each" and pointed to the event. Here's the description in full (sans address):
I used to be a record dealer, specializing in rare and private press LPs and 45s, and have thousands of vinyl records sitting in storage, many of which I've never even seen. It's time to let go of them, and now that it's warm outside, I figured it'd be a good time to setup some tables outside and have folks over to dig through.
There are well over 6000 records, including tons of private press of all genres, obscure 12-inch singles, etc. Everything is $3 each, save for 1-2 boxes of heavily discounted rarities.
I'll have snacks and drinks, feel free to bring your own too. Lots of good food just up the street in case you get hungry.
Hope to see you there!
Irvine-Broque wrote that 341 people said they'd come, and 104 said maybe. At the end of the day, he had sold over half his stash and had over $10,000 in cash. Here's what he learned:
The majority of my customers came from Facebook Ads, so what is the calculated ROI, 2000%? 3000%? You do the math.
No optimization, no professional consultant, no special relationship with an account manager. As far as I'm concerned, clicks coming from Facebook are the realest clicks in the game right now. Need to track them on your site, Limited Pressing? That's what UTM tags and Mixpanel are for, dude.
Argue over bots and javascript tracking on HN all you want - I'm busy growing another business. Actually, we've been thinking about running a few ads...wonder which platform we'll choose...
Of course, one could argue that Irvine-Broque isn't your ordinary entrepreneur. He's the Director of Growth at PageLever, a Facebook Analytics firm. Then again, he only joined PageLever after his little sales journey on Facebook, not before. You could say his little escapade is what got him excited about Facebook as an advertising platform.