Is Facebook Advertising Worth the Money?

Online advertising has spilled over into social media, because of the incredible opportunity it presents. This is where your potential customers spend a majority of their time online. One of the largest and most powerful social media channels is Facebook.

Facebook advertising provides a unique opportunity because the amount of information users share allows advertisers to target specific audiences appropriately. This enables businesses to be very accurate in targeting their ads to the right audience. Additionally, Facebook allows you to start with a low budget, which is especially useful if you are uncertain about its usefulness. You can try it out without breaking the bank to determine if it will achieve your desired goals. (Though, we do recommend setting a large enough budget to get you viable results.)

As is constantly the question with advertising tactics, “Is it worth the money?” Take into consideration some of the following things when deciding if Facebook advertising is worth your money.

Your Goals

What are you trying to accomplish through your marketing and advertising efforts? If you don’t have any goals, any money you spend on these efforts will appear wasted. Setting goals provides a benchmark for success – if you reach your goals, your efforts were likely successful. If not, your efforts may have fallen short, for a wide variety of reasons – inefficient campaign, budget was too low, etc.

Here are some very general example goals that Facebook advertising may help you achieve:

• Raise awareness – of your organization, an event, an article, etc.
• Increase customer interaction with your company
• Generate leads
• Share news, events or information about your company

Your Advertising Options

With Facebook advertising you can advertise your Facebook page or an external website. You can get people to “Like” your page, visit your website, register for your event or enter your contest, for example. What you are trying to do will affect the type of advertisement you create. If any of the following advertising options align to meet your goals, Facebook advertising is likely worth the money.

Ads

Facebook allows paid advertisements to show up on news feeds for any Facebook user, which you can narrow by targeting specific interests, genders, age ranges, etc. These ads appear in the right column on a user’s newsfeed or wall and allow you to interact with target audience members that haven’t connected with you, yet. Additionally, you can advertise to users you have connected with you, encouraging and motivating them to engage with you on another level (purchasing an additional product or visiting their website to learn more).

Facebook ads can be used to advertise a specific page on your website, your Facebook page or an event. If you are advertising something that exists on Facebook, i.e. a contest or event, a user has the opportunity to convert and engage directly with the ad. This means, they don’t have to stop what they are doing to visit your page to take action. Generally, the easier it is for users, the more likely they are to take action.

Sponsored Stories

Sponsored stories show up directly within news feeds – making them more prominent and noteworthy in the minds of Facebook users – publicizing interactions with your company taking place on Facebook. They allow you to advertise individual events, activity, web pages and more to the Facebook friends of those who are interacting with your Facebook page. Ads and Sponsored Stories in the News Feed may not include images comprised of more than 20% text. Think of it like paid endorsements or referrals.

Promoted Posts

Facebook is a timely advertising outlet. When you post will determine how many people see it, and if it is at an inopportune time, it may get missed completely because it gets lost in the shuffle. Promoted posts continue to get pushed to the top of users’ news feeds, creating a greater chance for viewing and engaging.

Prohibited Advertisements

Facebook sets fairly strict rules about what you are permitted to advertise. For example, the sale of adult products or services, the consumption of drugs and alcohol or the promotion of gambling are not allowed or must comply to very strict guidelines. The entire list can be found on Facebook’s Ad Guidelines.

Clicks vs. Impressions

Your Facebook advertising budget can be used to gain clicks or impressions. It’s easy to get lots of impressions on Facebook, but getting clicks can be challenging. What you choose will be based on your goals – are you aiming for awareness (choose impressions) or action (choose clicks)? However, it isn’t always as simple and straightforward as this. Developing a social media strategy will help define what overall goals you desire and how to achieve those through Facebook advertising. 

Finding the right balance and mix of advertising options is a continual process. Facebook Advertising may or may not be the right advertising outlet for your business, based on your goals and your available budget. Every company will find different results, so the decision whether or not to move forward needs to depend on your situation, not what everyone else is doing. So our answer to the question, “Is Facebook advertising worth the money?” isn’t a one size fits all. This answer will vary based on who is asking.