Last week, some of you may have noticed the word “Sponsored” showing up below the SlopeFillers Facebook posts you saw in your news feeds.

Reach Generator is a type of Facebook promotion I really wanted to see some data on (shocking, right) so I ran a quick, three-day test. The results are hardly conclusive, but they are interesting and carried a few, simple lessons. In case you haven’t given this a whirl, let me quickly walk through these steps.

The Setup
The first step came while creating the post. You simply select “Promote” at the same time you share content or soon after. It will give you a few pricing options to reach an estimated number of your fans above and beyond what would normally be shown in news feeds via Facebook’s algorithm.

After posting, this is what it looks like for the publisher.

As the promotion progresses you can check stats by hovering over the “people reached” count or clicking the “Promoted for…” link.

Clicks by Day
Promotion for each post lasted three days. First, let’s look at if this extra reach actually generated any traffic. The graph shows average clicks per day for each type of post.

The sample was small, I took the previous week’s posts (5 total) and the three that I promoted and compared averages. What is clear, though, is that the reach generated in the days after the initial posts did translate to clicks down the road even though the initial clicks counts were initially lower (probably due to post popularity, not anything within the promotional system).

My “estimated reach” was 1,100 for my first post at 1,200 for the other two. I spent a total of $15 which got me:

• 2,374 total people reached – 68% of the “estimate” I paid for
• 1,232 extra people reached (alone, 1.2 cents per person reached)
• 29 extra link clicks (alone $0.52 per link click)
• 5 extra “likes” (alone, $3.00 per “like”)

The first two days averaged a $0.40 CPC but even $0.52 was a smaller number than I expected.

What I Learned
With this test, I learned a few, simple lessons:

First, if you have an important post you want to make sure more than just the “usuals” see which is not time sensitive (or it’s posted at least 3 days in advance), Reach Generator might be a good choice.

Second, when broken down, the CPC for my test was at or below the CPC of other paid campaigns I’ve looked at. The goal of my Facebook posts is first and foremost to get people over to SlopeFillers to read that specific post. With that goal in mind, Reach Generator would make sense.

Third, the “estimated” reach is not a guarantee. I paid for an estimated reach of 3,500 and ended up with 2,374 (68%). I’m not sure how they are calculating the estimate, but be aware there is a chance your total reach will not reach Facebook’s guess.

Would I Use it Again?
Yes. Some of the content resorts create is more important, needs to reach more eyes, or simply took longer to create and justifies a greater reach. This tool gives you a simple way to get that content in front of more of those people that might find it relevant for a fairly affordable price.

So, those are my results. Anyone else willing to share how it went for some of their campaigns?

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.