At our digital marketing agency, we work with a lot of businesses that understand the value of online advertising – especially social media advertising like Facebook ads. However, it often comes down to a matter of budget, which is understandable. As a result, our team works hard to make these ads as affordable as possible while still accessing the right target audience. Here are some tips from our social media advertising team on how to get the costs down on Facebook ads.
How Are Costs Set for Facebook Ads?
The cost of online advertising is not as straightforward to most types of print advertising – the formula depends on a variety of factors, much like the way costs are set for TV or newspaper print advertising. Here are the factors that are taken into consideration for pricing Facebook ads and how to use them to your advantage:
- Audience: Some target markets are simply more expensive to advertise to than others just because of who they are and how many businesses are competing for their attention. The larger your audience, the cheaper (usually) the cost. The smaller but more heavily targeted your audience, the steeper your costs will be.
- Time of day: The times that you want your Facebook ads to become active on your audience’s timeline also influences cost. While it’s important to ensure that they go live at the right time to ensure it gets maximum exposure, there are sometimes ways to time your social media advertising to slightly reduce the costs. You can always expect higher costs around holidays and big retail dates, however.
- Relevance: This is a metric you can see on your account after your ad has been seen over 500 times, and it’s how Facebook reports on engagements with your ads. Ideally, you want high engagement because it means your ads are getting results from your target audience – and this means you’re getting good value for money.
- Bidding strategies: Facebook’s online advertising essentially holds an auction for ad spots each month, with the costs scaling as demand for those spots increases – which is why time periods around Black Friday are so costly, for example. This bidding process is usually handled automatically by the platform’s algorithm using parameters you set yourself. It may be a good idea to switch to manual bidding if you have an experienced team to handle this, as it’s a less generalised approach that can help you save.
More Facebook Ad Cost-Saving Measures
In addition to following the above advice, our social media advertising team also recommends:
- Making your Facebook ad content specifically relevant to a well-defined target audience for your brand. This makes sure every ad counts, bringing you closer to your sales or brand engagement targets.
- Use retargeting. Retargeting is very useful and rewarding and is really about turning “almost” customers into buying customers. Essentially, it’s a function that ensures your ads are seen again by people who have already engaged with your brand – they subscribe to your newsletter, belong to your loyalty program, or liked/asked a question on an ad. They’re one of your segments that are most likely to buy, so this function offers very good value.
- Choose your platform. Facebook offers a few different platforms for advertising, like the newsfeed, stories or video channel, and your Facebook ad will display on all these channels by default. Monitor your ads for a while and see which platforms are getting engagement and which aren’t (looking at cost per 1,000 impressions and cost per result), then de-select non-performers to reduce your costs.
- Set bid caps. The last thing you want to happen is to blow your entire budget on some high-value position that everyone bid for! If you are using an automated bid process, never forget to set your bid caps. That way, you’ll only get the ad placement if it’s within your budget. If you find your online advertising campaign isn’t performing over a couple of weeks or months, it may be a good idea to look at your budget to see if you should increase it.
- Analyse ad performance. As with all advertising campaigns – print or digital – analysis is key to understanding and optimising your marketing processes, especially when it comes to budgeting. This will help you find the best times to schedule ads, which platforms are performing better than others, who is engaging with your ads, and what types of content is getting the most engagement. It’s key to refining your online advertising process and making it more rewarding for your business and your customers.
Need Help Getting the Most Out of Your Facebook Ads?
As you can see, online advertising is pretty complex and it takes time and resources to manage it effectively. If you’d like guidance with any part of your organisation’s digital marketing strategy, including Facebook ads, our team in Melbourne is ready to help! Let’s meet up and find out how rewarding online advertising can be for your brand.
I’m all about making your online ads pay. As a PPC pro, I spend my days and nights creating, optimising, and analysing client strategies so they deliver the clicks. With a mix of creative and analytical strategies, I’ll make sure your campaigns land your business the top spot – and that customers see you first.
