Jumping right into digital advertising can be tricky, especially if you’re not exactly sure how to go about it. You want to get started trying to advertise on Facebook and Instagram, and so you decide to click on that little button on your page that says, “Boost Post”.
Before you go through with it, though, keep in mind that boosting a post is a very different method from what more experienced Facebook marketers use to advertise on Facebook. While it’s a good way to dip your toe into advertising on Facebook’s platforms, it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles you might need to get the most out of your advertising campaign.
What are those bells and whistles? We’ve put together a list of some of the most essential tools on Facebook’s Ads Manager that you won’t find when you’re just boosting a post.
1. Advanced Targeting
One of the most important elements to a successful Facebook ad campaign is the ability to be as detailed as possible with your targeting.
When you boost a post, the only targets available to you are general categories in terms of demographics, interests, and behaviours. For example, if you want to target people interested in health and fitness, you’ll only be able to target very general interests like: bodybuilding, running, weight training, physical fitness, or physical exercise.
If you go into Ads Manager, on the other hand, you have a more comprehensive list available. Not to mention it’s much easier to navigate the listings. On Ads Manager, everything is more organised to go through as compared to simply boosting your post.
Another important targeting option you don’t get when boosting a post is your Custom Audiences.
Custom Audiences are audiences that you’ve built up over time. One example of a custom audience is the people who’ve engaged with your Facebook Page in the past. Re-targeting people who are already familiar with your brand is essential to Facebook Ads success.
Another custom audience you’ll be missing out on is one that can be built from a list of existing customers. If, for example, you have the names and email addresses of some of your loyal customers, you can upload that to Facebook, and if those people have Facebook profiles under that address, you can target them directly with your ads.
2. Customising Your Ad and Ad Placements
Another important tool that the Facebook Ads Manager has that boosting posts doesn’t, is the ability to customise how your ad creatives are set up.
Going through Facebook Ads Manager allows you to choose where you want your ads to show up. Do you want them on the feed, as a Story, as video in-stream ads? You can pick and choose where you think the ad will fit the most, and then edit and make adjustments to your ad so that it’s optimised for each placement.
One other thing that’s not present in boosting posts is A/B Testing. Simply put, A/B Testing is when you include different variations of the same ad in a single ad campaign. If you want to test out which photos and images are more effective, for example, you can easily set that up on Ads Manager.
And while you may be able to just run two boosted posts simultaneously as a way to split test your creatives, there’s a big difference in the way that Facebook delivers those ads to your audience compared to two ads optimised for A/B testing on Ads Manager.
For one thing, if your split-testing is done through Ads Manager, Facebook’s algorithm is put to work with the task of figuring out which image is more likely to be engaged with, and then primarily go with that particular ad. If one ad variation isn’t engaging your target audience, the algorithm automatically switches over and disseminates the more effective ad instead.
This is part of another tool that’s not present in boosting posts…
3. Campaign Budget Optimization
If you’re on a tight budget, and you’re not sure what a good budget is for your individual ads, the campaign budget optimization tool on Ads Manager is a big help.
Simply put, all that this does is it allocates and distributes your entire budget into all the ads and ad sets you’ve created. If your budget, for example, is $20 a day, and you want to run 5 different ads, the campaign budget optimisation option automatically distributes that daily budget between those ads without you setting them up individually like you would when boosting a post.
If done through Ads Manager, Facebook’s algorithm does all the work for you. It will choose and determine which ads are more likely to be engaged with, and spend most of your budget on those ads over the others that will just end up burning a hole through your pocket.
When it comes to digital advertising, every dollar counts. You want to get the most out of your ad spend, especially if you’re on a tight budget. That’s why detailing your ads on Facebook Ads Manager is 100x better than just boosting a post.
For some business owners, though, Facebook Ads Manager can look incredibly daunting. But that’s where agencies like ours come into the picture.
If you’re looking for seasoned experts to help you get started with Facebook advertising, feel free to contact us today! Our lines are always open to help small businesses achieve amazing results.