How to Create Cheap Facebook Ads?

Today we will discuss the topic some people love, others hate, and some don’t know how to approach. It’s Facebook advertising. Ever-changing, sometimes harmful and occasionally buggy.

Let’s talk about a specific type of advertising, promoting individual posts. The so-called post engagement is a useful tool that is not available on some social networks. It allows you to target custom audiences in a natural way with each post you make.

Facebook advertising had long been a battle for us (and, probably, for some of you as well). We had struggled with the support, the layout, the moderation, and the settings before we finally worked out all the dos and don’ts of this system. Let us save your time and share with you what we have learned.

3 benefits of targeting custom audiences

First, it makes you think long-term, highlight the key aspects of your content, and predict the reach. Right at the stage of creating a content plan for the next week you already know what target group you will show each post to, and why these people exactly will find it helpful. Each post should serve the interests of your readers and solve their problems. If it doesn’t, get rid of it!

Next, it helps you succeed in situational marketing. After writing a post about a current event immediately inform your target audience about it.

And finally, it is a cheap way to increase the number of your followers. Social media managers that are experienced in Facebook targeting know that boosting a post is cheaper than getting a follower. Showing interesting posts to your target audience is the most genuine way to attract new followers. They come because they like your content! And the final cost of such followers is lower.

How much should you spend on Facebook ads a month?

The answer to this question is unique for each company. It depends on your resources and goals. We believe that your budget should be at least $90-170. If done wisely, it’s enough to make a good start to an advertising campaign. How to do it wisely? Follow the tips below.

9 life hacks to make Facebook ads more effective

1. Boost every post. This way you will get rid of posts you are uncertain about and don’t want to spend money on. As a result the quality of your content will grow.

2. Posts that encourage engagement cost less. If they contain a call for action such as “Share this with your friends” or “Click the like button”, or a bunch of interesting photos the readers will feel the urge to view. For example, we spent $4.2 on this post, which means that the cost per post engagement was negligible.

3. Monitor cost per post engagement rates. If advertising is cheap for you, spend more money on it. If it gets too pricy, turn down the campaign. How to understand whether your ads are cheap? Through experience. The average cost per post engagement in your segment may be 1 cent or 8 cents, it depends. Determine your spending limit and try not to cross it. For example, here is a promotional post with a link to the website. The cost per post engagement is $0,006. Not bad. It will keep the campaign running and fuel it with more money.

4.  Narrow and segment your audience. Don’t randomly show your post to the whole world. Instead, make several customized advertising campaigns for different cities, interests, or ages. This way you will get more accurate results. You will be able to compare the effectiveness of different campaigns and will eventually find the golden core of your audience.

5. Use situational marketing to highlight notable events in your country and around the world. People react to this stuff. A post with the Victory Day symbol in Russia cost us just $5, but we reached 130 048 people.

6. Sometimes ads get buggy. Deal with it. It’s typical Facebook. Just go on. For instance, one of possible ad-measurement glitches is your estimate reach dropping from 1000 to 50 people in a day.

7. Play with settings, but don’t get too carried away. Did you know that when it comes to age settings just 2 years can make a huge difference? For example, if  if you target women living in St. Petersburg, aged 24-51, and not 25-50, you will reach 20 000 more people, which will directly affect the campaign cost.

8. Use tools that parse active social media audience like Perfect Audience. Show your posts to active content consumers. It will make your ads cheaper.

9. Enjoy the results. Targeted Israel? Get ready for a question from Israel. (A woman in the screenshot lives in Israel, but she wants to order flowers for her mother in Russia).

Final word

When it comes to Facebook ads the key is to remain determined and try, try, try. Experiment, test, and finally you will become friends with this advertising platform and will enjoy the results!