You might be wondering what the heck a conference ad is. Essentially, a conference ad is an ad that you run for a limited period of time (depending on the event’s duration) to bring a lot of exposure to your products and brand and potentially acquire many of your ideal target customers.
Think about these ads as the Super Bowl commercials, for instance. Big-budget companies know for a fact there are going to be millions of people watching the Super Bowl and that their target market is most likely going to be there. So they will make sure to plan ad campaigns for it.
The event you target might not be as big or as popular as the Super Bowl, but it sure will be an excellent chance for you to catch the attention of the big fish in your market. So you better be prepared when the time comes!
This type of ad campaign can be a huge opportunity for you if you meet the following conditions:
- There are going to be conferences or significant events held in your specific industry.
- Many potential customers are going to be attending this event.
- You have an offer that is attractive to your target market.
- You have a fully set up Facebook Ads account.
In the history of 5K | Formerly Conklin Media, we have run over 30 conference ad campaigns for clients in different industries. For the most part, we have run conference campaigns for B2B products/services, but if you are running an eCommerce business, you’ll find great value in this article.
The Advantages of Running Facebook Ads at Conferences
It’s also important to mention we have had a lot of success running conference ad campaigns, from bringing significant awareness to our client’s products and services to starting new long-term relationships for our clients.
Now, to better show you what this type of campaign can do for you and your business, I’m going to go through a conference campaign we recently made. Additionally, I will give you some crucial tips on setting this campaign up.
Facebook Conference Ad Case Study
Event: PestWorld 2021 in Las Vegas.
This event consisted of a series of educational sessions covering the latest pest management research and business tactics to grow and improve a pest control business. As you can already imagine, many pest control professionals and companies from all over the country attended this conference. This event was the perfect opportunity for our client, which sells a natural tick & mosquito control solution, to promote its products and services to their ideal target audience.
Psssst… conference ads aren’t the only ways to run unique Facebook ads. Learn more about recruitment ads here.
How to Run a Conference Advertisement
Pest World 2021 lasted only four days (Nov 2-5), but we started running this campaign on October 31st (Sunday) because we knew a lot of these pest control professionals and companies would get to Las Vegas the weekend before the event started. Our goal with this ad campaign was to put our client’s offer in front of PestWorld’s attendees from the moment they got to their hotels in Las Vegas until the event ended.
Choose Your Location Target
When running this type of campaign, an essential factor is the location target you choose. In this case, we targeted a 3-mile radius around the event’s location (MGM Grand Las Vegas). See the screenshot below for more details on why we chose that specific targeting.
When running this type of campaign, you want to make sure your location targeting is neither too broad nor too narrow. People who attend a conference are likely staying at hotels near the conference location. So you want to make sure these hotels are in the radius you target.
Consider the Number of Attendees at the Event
The number of attendees is also a significant factor to consider. If there are going to be 3,000 people at an event, there’s no reason for you to expand your audience size to 2 million people because you mainly want to reach people who will be attending the event. Essentially, the more specific your targeting is, the better results you will get.
Set Your Budget
Your campaign budget will depend on many factors like how long the event is, what your general budget looks like, the number of attendees, etc. The higher the number of people attending the event, the more you will want to spend on this campaign because you will have a higher chance of acquiring new customers.
Our Facebook Ad Campaign Results
In 6 days, we reached 16,311 people (primarily pest control experts) and got five good leads at an average cost per lead of $159.17. Considering the total amount we spent ($795.84) and lead quality (all of the leads would later translate into long-term customer relationships), this conference ads campaign was a total success.
Five total leads might not seem like a good number when you first look at it. However, even if we had only gotten one good lead from this campaign, it would have still been worth running. If you know some of the big fish in your industry will be showing up to a conference or other event, you should be planning on running this campaign. Even if you catch just one of them, both the budget and time spent on this campaign would have been more than worth it.
If you’re interested in running a conference ad campaign at your next conference, trade show, or other big event, we’re here to help!
Ready to experience the magic of conference ads yourself?
