Is Facebook advertising really worth it?
On the surface, Facebook ads seem like a great value. With startup costs as little as $5/day, most business owners jump on the opportunity to start advertising for such a minimal expenditure.
Looking for a low cost alternative to social advertising? Maybe email marketing is the right fit for you. Learn more about it here.
The truth is that advertising on Facebook can work for almost any type of business – but the catch is that it takes a well-planned campaign, a clear objective, and an appropriate budget to make it worth the investment. Before starting your first campaign, you’ll want to:
Learn how to properly use the Facebook Ads Manager (or hire someone who knows how to use it)
Determine a clear budget
Narrow down an objective for your campaign
Set a timeline for your campaign, including check-in points where you can retool your creative if needed
Design and write your ad creative (don’t forget to consider A/B testing for your creative)
Carefully target your ads before launching them
How much do they cost?
While it’s true that you can start advertising for just a few dollars, that doesn’t necessarily mean that this is money well spent – or that social advertising will be more cost effective than traditional advertising in the long run.
The real questions you should be asking here are:
How much do I have to spend?
What are my goals?
What cost per click (CPC) do I need to make this worthwhile?
The fact of the matter is that $5 is going to buy you nothing… in fact, if done poorly a low budget campaign may even hurt your brand. At a bare minimum, we suggest setting aside $500 -$1k for each product or service campaign you plan to do (and this doesn’t include creative development costs). The appropriate budget will be influenced by your objectives, how large of a target audience you want to reach, and the length of your campaign.
Setting a goal
While direct sales goal is one clear cut way to make sure you’ll be able to measure your investment, it’s not the only metric that’s worthwhile. In addition to social media sales (for products), you can also measure:
New page “Likes”
Post-level engagement
Email opt-ins
Website click-throughs
On-site sales or lead generations
Picking the proper objective is going to depend on your specific business. If you’re a new business, brand awareness may be an important piece of your marketing strategy. But if you’re a tried and true brand who is looking to boost sales, you should hone in on conversions or direct sales.
6 mistakes to avoid
Use little to no text on your ad creative. Facebook’s 20% text rule has been the rule of thumb for as long as any social media marketer can remember. In general, the less text means the higher the reach.
Using the wrong ad format. Using the wrong ad format is typically a newbie mistake. The ad manager has numerous options and if you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s a good chance you may not be using the most effective format. Let your objective guide your ad format – and be sure to do plenty of research on the different options before even kicking off your first campaign!
Boosting a post and calling it advertising. While boosting a post may get a few extra eyes on it, this is not the same thing as creating a Facebook campaign. You won’t have any of the targeting or format options available through the ads manager if you simply boost a post.
Not regularly monitoring and retooling. Facebook advertising isn’t a set it and forget it medium. You should plan to regularly check-in on your campaigns to measure their success. If something’s not working or performing the way you expected, don’t be afraid to rework it and try again. Live monitoring is one of the benefits of social advertising because it ensures you won’t continue to spend money on something that isn’t working… so don’t let this important feature go to waste!
Only running one ad. Facebook Campaigns are based around sets of ads which are made of individual ads. Limit ad sets to no more than 5 ads so you can compare and contrast what’s working well.
Targeting a wide range. Targeting a broad audience is a big mistake – by casting a wide net, you lower the chances that people are going to respond positively to your ad or engage with it at all. Facebook’s unparalleled targeting is what makes it such a successful platform – and not utilizing these features practically ensures you won’t see a return on your investment.
The bottom line: are they worth it?
Want to learn more about Facebook’s targeting options? Facebook has a number of valuable resources available for your use!!
It’s important to not view Facebook as a silver bullet that will fix all your advertising woes for a minimal cost and labor investment. If done well, your Facebook campaigns will require a lot of careful planning, research, and investment.
Social advertising should be just one part of a carefully planned and comprehensive digital marketing strategy – and they require as much care and attention as everything else that bears your brand name.
Hue & Tone Creative: Your digital marketing partner
Feeling overwhelmed by all the options? Don’t worry – that’s what we’re here for. We’ll help you determine how best to spend your digital marketing budget. Once we’ve decided on the right fit, we can help you take the plan from idea to reality. We’ll help you write, design, and launch everything you need to boost sales.