Online Advertising
Every answered question under an ad is advertising you do not pay for. Every unanswered one is a recommendation you prevent.
Beneath every paid ad a second, free advertising space appears: the comment section. It has the same reach as the ad and most advertisers ignore it.
People believe other people more than they believe advertisers. A question in the comments and a good answer to it do more for the undecided than three extra ads. Conversely, an unanswered critical question reads as confirmation.
Observable in practice: ads with an actively managed comment section reach measurably lower cost per enquiry at the same budget, because social proof lowers the barrier.
Set a target and measure it.
| Channel | Target, weekdays | Target, weekends |
|---|---|---|
| Comment under an ad | under 2 hours | under 12 hours |
| Direct message | under 1 hour | under 6 hours |
| Review | under 24 hours | under 48 hours |
| Critical comment | under 30 minutes | under 2 hours |
The last line matters most. Criticism left standing for two hours collects agreement. Criticism answered factually within twenty minutes usually does not.
A good answer has three parts: acknowledgement, substance, next step. It is short, signed by name, and does not immediately move the conversation into a private message.
The reflex to ask for a DM straight away is understandable and usually wrong. Answering publicly answers the question for all the silent readers, and there are a hundred times more of them than there are askers.
An example on a price question: give a range and the reason for the range. Answering a price question with a request to get in touch loses the silent readers.
Build an answer bank covering twelve to twenty recurring cases: price, service area, lead times, guarantee, payment methods, comparison with competitors, criticism of price, criticism of quality.
Important: that bank supplies building blocks, not finished texts. Identical answers copied under several comments are spotted immediately and do more harm than a later but personal reply.
Hiding a comment is invisible to its author, who still sees their post. That is an effective tool against spam and abuse and a very poor one against reasoned criticism, because it comes out sooner or later.
Legally you may exercise house rules in your own space. You must also expect deleted criticism to be documented and shared elsewhere. A reputation for deleting criticism costs more than the criticism.
The comment section is the cheapest market research available. Once a quarter, collect every question asked and sort by frequency. The ten most common questions are your next ten articles, your next ad texts and the missing sections on your website.
Firms that do this rarely need an agency to find topics. The topics are already there; somebody just has to write them down.
Only for abuse, legal breaches or obvious spam. Deleting reasoned criticism regularly does more damage than the comment.
At mid-range budgets, 15 to 30 minutes. That time usually returns more than any budget increase.
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