> The other advantage that I didn't fully realize until I started running the ads is how the activity within the Facebook Event serves as a reminder for people to show up - we see tons of ads for events every day that we want to go to, but very few of them ever make it onto our calendar the way that Facebook Events do with one click.
That's a very legit point. The various features of FB events make them "stickier" (or whatever the buzzword is) than regular advertising...the feedback options, with prospective attendees asking questions and seeing how you respond to them, is also likely to boost interest. It's not quite fair to say "Oh, this is the same as Craigslist ad postings, except you paid" just as it would be silly to ignore Airbnb because it seems just like paid Craigslist ad postings.
That said, given the nature of the niche market here (though you probably know better than anyone), it's not clear that the success would easily apply to other kinds of businesses...or phases (i.e. a startup trying to get attention vs. a business having a out-of-business clearance sale).
Yeah - I think the real challenge for startups is often that the communities and audiences for what they do, particularly early in the game, aren't often well-defined. Even when they are, they are often fragmented, and the precise interest targeting in Facebook Ads only works for Pages above a certain size threshold (unclear what exactly this is) - so if your target audience likes a few dozen smaller, scattered Pages, you can't necessarily target them directly.
For some startups/companies, though, there is a pretty clearly defined audience, or a big competitor with an audience to target. If I'm Hipmunk, I can run ads targeting Kayak, Hotwire, Expedia, to go after people who I know book travel online (and then, of that subset of people, target only people who match certain demographic/geographic parameters).
Also relevant is the nature of the product being advertised - in this case, it was a specific event - not a call to visit a website or even to visit a store that holds regular business hours. Clearly, this was a very effective way of drawing customers to the event but the lessons learned hardly apply to other businesses.
Lots of businesses can host events, IRL and online - a brick-and-mortar shop can host a sale or a meetup, an online business can host a webinar or a conference - in fact it's tough for me to think of a business that, by nature, could not host any type of event.
Whether it makes sense for them to advertise on Facebook - that'll be up to them to test, but events are a pretty tried and true marketing technique.
That's a very legit point. The various features of FB events make them "stickier" (or whatever the buzzword is) than regular advertising...the feedback options, with prospective attendees asking questions and seeing how you respond to them, is also likely to boost interest. It's not quite fair to say "Oh, this is the same as Craigslist ad postings, except you paid" just as it would be silly to ignore Airbnb because it seems just like paid Craigslist ad postings.
That said, given the nature of the niche market here (though you probably know better than anyone), it's not clear that the success would easily apply to other kinds of businesses...or phases (i.e. a startup trying to get attention vs. a business having a out-of-business clearance sale).