Why You Should Invest in Facebook Ads

Why You Should Invest in Facebook Ads

Unlike paid search or SEO or banner ads, advertising on Facebook lacks some of the more confusing and off-putting aspects of marketing. They can reach more people than a television commercial ever will and have a much more receptive audience than ads placed on just about any other forum.

Completely Unique

There is just no other marketing opportunity that has the same amount of reach, for the same low cost. Take, for example, if you were going to try and reach 1000 people with an advertisement in a newspaper. You would have to spend at least $32 in order to make that happen, if you could get an ad in a newspaper that even has a circulation and readership devoted enough to read enough of the newspaper to see your advertisement.

An advertisement in a magazine that would reach 1000 people would cost you around $20. While this might seem like a better deal, consider how jam-packed magazines are with advertisements. Depending on what magazine you select, your ad could easily fade into the noise.

Radio would cost around $8, but again, this platform is saturated with advertisements, most of which are not reaching an engaged audience. Getting an advertisement on cable television might only cost $7 to reach 1000 people, but is that the most effective way to reach your demographic.

Even other digital marketing tactics, like PPC or ads on LinkedIn cannot match Facebook when it comes to price and reach. To get your advertisement in front of those 1000 people with Google AdWords will cost you nearly $3, while a LinkedIn ad will run about $0.75. On Facebook, it will only cost $0.25. And Facebook also has the most even distribution of demographics. It’s where your audience, whatever that audience is, resides on the internet—it’s their home base, and with Facebook ads, you have the ability to inexpensively get your message right into your target audience’s home base.

Here are some basic facts about Facebook ads:

• You can spend as little as $1 per day.
• They have the lowest cost per impression in all of advertising.
• The targeting is akin to AdWords, allowing you to specifically seek out users who are likely to engage with and respond to your marketing message.
• They have a farther reach, allowing you to engage with just about any demographic, in any country, around the world.

What You Can Do with $1

There’s not a lot that one dollar will get you in today’s economy. Even a daily newspaper is going to be more expensive than a dollar, and there are no advertising opportunities that are that inexpensive, right? The truth is that just a dollar a day can get your business in front of upwards of 4000 people—people who never would have heard of your business if you hadn’t spent that dollar and placed the ad.

Being successful in business is all about finding the people who have the need that your product or service fulfills. You can’t find those people if you are not willing to advertise. It’s simple metaphysics. If a consumer doesn’t know about your company, there is no way they can do business with your company. When they do know about your company, you can do business together, especially if the marketing message you present is engaging and compelling.

Here’s what Facebook ads did for these six links in just a month:

What about ROI?

Sure, AdWords has a higher ROI. But most companies completely undervalue the power of brand awareness—which is what Facebook ads truly offer. And some brands do actually achieve a decent return on investment with Facebook. More than a third of brands don’t actually track their Facebook campaign, and therefore don’t actually have any idea how successful (or not) the campaign is, despite the fact that Facebook gives you the code you need to accurately track your clicks. Here’s how:

1. Go to your Facebook Ad Manager.
2. Click on Conversion Tracking, on the left.
3. Click on “Create Conversion Pixel.”
4. Give that conversion pixel a name and pick what kind of conversion you’re going to track.
5. Copy the JavaScript there and place it on your website (or have your developer do it for you). The <head> section is the best location, usually.

In short, Facebook is a great lead generator, with many of the same features of AdWords and the capability to truly improve brand awareness, which is vital to brand success.