Q: How do you kill a Facebook campaign?

A: Treat it like search.

Facebook is different enough from search that even Pay Per Click ninjas get confounded and waste dinero. Even worse, you may give up and miss some amazing opportunities.

If you learned AdWords from me, your mistakes should be small, measurable, and easy to recognize. But they will still be mistakes. Fortunately for you, we’ve already made those same mistakes so we can show you how to get out of them.

Seriously, really do this exercise: Ask ten different people why they go to Facebook. What sort of answers do you hear?

“I’m bored.”

“See what friends are up to?”

“To look at pictures.”

“Because my family posts messages.”

Did you notice anything special?

Nobody is going on Facebook to buy anything. They are not going for search. They are not looking for answers. They go to be entertained. They go because they can’t think of anything better to do with their time!

Ask people, why do they go to Google?

“To find things,” comes back the singular answer.

“How do you use it?”

“I just type in what I am looking for in the little box.”

People go to Google because they have a specific itch they are trying to scratch and they believe Google will do a better job than anyone else at helping them scratch it. Everyone understands Google.

Google, as huge as it has become, is still easy.

Facebook, depending on what you are trying to sell, can be a lot trickier. Still, for the right business and the right approach, it can be dramatically BETTER than Google Search.

Google is “rifle shot.” Facebook *appears* to be “buck shot.” It’s not. Facebook is rifle shots too. When you treat it that way . . . that’s when it brings you the customers you want.

Perry Marshall

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.