As a Facebook Ad Agency if there is one saying which is sure to send shivers down our spine it is, "but we can just boost a post right?"
We understand the attraction of boosting Facebook posts. You've crafted a great piece of content and Facebook is suggesting that for just a few pounds you can get this in front of thousands of people.
Tempting
How can you lose, this sounds great - thousands of people reading about your product or service. You start picturing riches falling from the sky, as you harness the power of the Facebook marketing juggernaut. Thousands of people! Your finger hovers over the little blue button of dreams, and then, ...click.
You've gone and wasted £20.
The problem is, even though you could have gotten more engagement, more traffic, more sales - like anything else, there are no shortcuts with Facebook marketing.
Everything has it's place.
Now boosting Facebook posts has its place, we won't for a second deny that.
However, there are some key considerations to bear in mind which will help ensure that if and when you choose this approach - it has the best chance of success, and you don't waste your money.
Here we go.
- Only boost as part of a strategy
Boosting a post does not take very long, but, that convenience should not mean it does not come as part of a wider plan. Ask yourself, why are you boosting it? Is it to reach more people? To increase engagement? It needs to be tied to a specific goal, a strategy, not vanity metrics.
The Facebook Ad Platform has many goal objectives and although you get a smaller toolset when you are boosting posts, you can still; increase traffic to your website, increase your Facebook Page likes, increase the number of leads into your business or simply raise awareness of your brand.
- Ensure your posts have the right structure
When you've chosen your objective, you need to ensure that you have the right structure to your ad. Bear in mind the following;
- If you have one, is your image compliant with the Best Practice 20% text rule?
- Is your video in the correct format?
- Does your copy include a clear Call-to-Action, an instruction on what you want potential customers to do?
- Should you be including special characters or emoji's to grab people's attention?
- Only boost posts with social proof
Facebook uses a number of factors to decide which ad to show. The price you pay is not everything when it comes to deciding which advert to display.
Relevance is also key. If Facebook thinks users will have a better experience because they saw one ad over another, it will show that one first.
Part of our work as Facebook advertisers is to help the algorithm understand that our advert is better than the next. One of the ways we do that is to only boost posts that have 'Social Proof' i.e organic reach and engagement.
If your post is not getting any traction, there's probably a good reason for that. As Obama said, you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig.
You must also give your post enough time to get engagement before making a decision on whether or not to boost it. The minimum is 2 hours, we prefer at least half a day, although a set number of engagements is ideal.
Only boosting posts with Social Proof will help move you closer to achieving your objectives.
- Still set up Business Manager
Chances are, if you are just boosting posts you do not have Business Manager set up because you haven't delved too deeply into advertising on Facebook. And no Business Manager means no Pixel which means no Tracking data.
Having no tracking data will hamper your marketing efforts greatly, it is like trying to win a sprint when you're on crutches, and your competitors are on motorcycles.
Our ability as marketers to track and target customers throughout the entire Sales Funnel is a huge advantage, and Facebook Ad's can do that when used correctly.
So our final tip is, even if you are still simply boosting posts, set up Business Manager and add your Tracking Codes to your web properties. It will not give you full control, but at least it'll get rid of those crutches!
- Recognise when it's better to go large
As a Facebook Ad Agency, it can come as no surprise to say that we advise people to use the Facebook Ad Platform instead of simply boosting posts.
Boosting a post is a quick and easy process but - quick and easy is how you make a cake or clean a toilet bowl or shop by mail - it is not, how you best advertise on Facebook.
Yes, I did just use a quote from a Stallone movie to make a marketing point.
There are though some clear advantages to using the full platform over boosting posts, including;
- A greater number of audience targetting options
- More types of campaign goals
- Additional ways to schedule your campaign
- Better creative control of your advert
- More control of your bidding strategy
In 99% of cases, it is better to use the full Facebook Ad Platform because of the flexibility it gives you. It makes you think more about your Ad Campaigns, what they are trying to achieve and how you will go about that doing that.
That being said, even with the limitations of boosting posts and the differences above, if you still want to boost your posts and not have anyone craft ad campaigns on your behalf - you can still achieve a good ROI if you use our tips above.
The results will just not ever be as good as the full Ad Platform, but they will still probably be a lot better than you get elsewhere!
