Are Facebook Ads Worth It?

Social Media Marketing
Are Facebook Ads Worth It?
Article by Bisera Stankovska
Last Updated: April 19, 2023

Facebook has 2.91 billion monthly active users, which makes it a whopping pool of audiences to advertise your offerings to. Hence, the reasons to be on Facebook far extend that of being in touch with your loved ones rather than using it as a marketing platform that reaps incredible results.

With the current Facebook speculations, it is obvious to think that it’s a wrap for the platform. Although the information below can prove that social media isn’t going anywhere.

If you are still wondering if Facebook ads are worth it, then read on.

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What Is Facebook Advertising?

Facebook advertising involves running ads on Facebook. It has a link that lands the prospects on the website or the landing page. A call-to-action is one of the most important aspects of the ads placed towards the end.

These ads appear in various places. The placement of the ad is determined by the device used. Here are a few reasons why Facebook advertising is beneficial:

  • Builds a community and enhances the audience base
  • Amplifying the content to the audiences
  • Expanding the ad reach to more users

Ads can be further refined with Facebook Ads Manager. The tool further evaluates choosing an objective for the ad. The options include:

  • Raise awareness/interest
  • Raise consumer consideration for the product/service
  • Conversions

The following steps include defining the audience and budget.

With the help of multiple questions, Facebook will help you create an ideal audience. This ensures that the ads are not blindly showcased to the masses but to the target audiences.

The placements will depend on the goal chosen for the social media campaign. Advertisers use an intelligent placement that means where the ad will be placed.

The ad placements include:

  • Feeds: These ads appear when people scroll through their Facebook feed.
  • Stories Ads: These will be full-screen vertical ads in between user's stories
  • Search Ads: These are shown alongside the searches on Facebook results on Facebook and Marketplace.
  • InStream Ads: These appear when users usually consume video content on Facebook and Instagram.
  • InArticle Ads: These appear within the article on Facebook’s mobile app.
  • Apps Ads: These are native or video ads across the app on the audience network.
  • Message Ads: These ads are shown as sponsored messages via messenger

Benefits of Facebook Ads

Some of the primary benefits of Facebook ads include reaching a wider audience, increased leads, and an enhanced ROI.

Facebook holds a prominent place not just for users but also for marketers. The data says it all. According to a study, over 3 million advertisers use Facebook’s advertising platform.

Here’s how Facebook Ads are beneficial to businesses:

Targeting Options

Targeting allows businesses to segment the ads and their expenditures on specific audiences. Audiences can be segmented based on demographics, ads previously clicked on, age, location, and the device users used.

This helps to finalize who to show your ads to, allowing further conversions and ROI with a targeted approach.

Below are the types of audiences:

  • Core audiences: Users who have chosen based on demographics, age, location, etc.
  • Custom audiences: Users who have engaged with your business online or offline
  • Lookalike audiences: People who haven't engaged with your business have the same preferences as those who may.

Customizing the Audiences

Custom audiences allow targeting the audience who already know about the business.

By uploading the first-party data, brands can target specific audience segments. An example of the data includes the frequency of purchases made.

Lookalike Audiences

Facebook gathers the source audience and finds users who behave similarly online. This option helps find audiences that are similar to the current audiences, based on the similarity between both groups. Further, the Facebook algorithm shows ads to the new audience.

Making the ad visible to the users who are likely to become your audience increases the possibility of following the business or making a purchase immediately.

Although marketers should note that lookalike audiences are only built post-creating the custom audience. To do this, data can be used from email lists, apps, or website data. These lists improve exposure, engagement, and revenue.

Working with this method is great for getting in touch with users who have abandoned their carts.

Remarketing Assets

With remarketing, businesses can target people who have already engaged with the brand. This helps to always stay fresh in the minds of the users.

It targets users who:

  • Viewed the product on the website
  • Left an abandoned cart
  • People who have engaged in an ad promotion

Not only are these ads most affordable, but they have the potential for more conversions. These retargeting can be done by the percentage of video watched, likes, shares, comments, or saves.

Advertisements on Dual Platforms

If you are considering if automated Facebook ads are worth it, read on:

1.6 billion Facebook users are connected to small businesses on a platform. And here’s the catch - since Instagram is also a part of Facebook, you can advertise on both platforms for the price of one. To do so, marketers can use Facebook Business Manager, which helps display ads on Instagram too!

Apart from being a powerful social media platform, Instagram is a powerful shopping platform with options such as live video shopping.

Additionally, using the same ad creatives will lead to a lesser budget, maximizing the reach at lesser costs. When running ads, businesses can also use automatic placements. Automatic placements allow Facebook to choose the ad placement for maximum performance. Manual placements are yet another option for marketers to test what works for them.

Ability to Track and Analyze Performance

Are Facebook ads worth it for small businesses? Absolutely yes! Here’s why!

Regardless of the industry, data is vital to making insight-driven decisions. The insights could be invaluable and help to refine the campaign further.

While juggling with analyzing vital data, there are multiple aspects at play. Analytics helps with metrics related to performance.

Analytics can help to gauge:

  • Conversion rate ranking
  • Cost Per Click (CPC)
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR)
  • Cost per action

On a comprehensive level, you can see:

  • Page and ad analytics
  • Group Analytics
  • Outreach and engagement
  • Audience insight
  • Facebook live analytics
  • Facebook video analytics

Paid Advertising

Ads are indispensable when brands want audiences to know more about them. With a comprehensive strategy and content that strikes the right chord, brands can easily stand out from their competitors.

This can help derive more value from the content.

Paid ads will reach more people compared to when done organically. This can help scale marketing operations with ease. Showcasing a consistent presence across social media platforms can also boost brand loyalty.

Drawbacks of Facebook Ads

While Facebook showcases limitless potential to position your brand, things might often go south.

Besides being an excellent platform to communicate with the masses, Facebook advertising comes with certain drawbacks too. They are:

iOS 14 Updates

Users might not always be happy about the way their data is used. And that’s why Apple’s iOS 14 updates can affect Facebook’s updates directly. These updates prohibit data collection or sharing unless the users allow tracking.

This limits the brands to track the ads’ performance significantly, making targeting difficult. As most of the ad revenue comes from mobile devices, these updates can further hurt revenues.

However, Facebook is also great at keeping up. It can adapt by keeping up with the Facebook advertising guidelines. However, iOS still makes up for a minute portion, leaving a significant chunk of mobile users on Facebook unaffected.

Growing Costs

Advertising on Facebook is becoming increasingly costly with each passing year. As more advertisers crowd the space, the bids for space are going up, leading the prices to sky-rocket. Nonetheless, Facebook is still cheaper than advertising on other platforms.

Marketers should harness Google analytics proficiently to keep up budget streamlined, and its effectiveness maintained. This helps specifically target the audience and refrain from wasting time on users who are not the audience. Another way to do this is with A/B testing.

Getting the Basics Right

As time progresses, learning strategies from scratch can be challenging.

Figuring out how the metrics work, the target audience, getting the strategies and content right, and areas that require improvement. This can be done over some time after mastering the basics.

While other brands might grow without direction, it is essential to have the vision to pivot to the right path. A pocket-friendly way to do so is to opt for the ‘invite to follow’ option, which can derive free engagement.

Besides being free from other limitations, it only allows businesses to send 200 invites per day to your friends on Facebook, who may not even be your target audience. This strategy could fit a small business rather than those who want to reach a higher level.

Rather than wasting time and money to get these aspects right, another way is to seek professional help and let their expertise and experience handle it all.

Are Facebook Ads Worth it – Key Takeaways

Are Facebook ads worth it in 2023? The simple answer is – yes!

Competition from multiple directions may make it difficult for brands to sustain and deliver their offerings. There also may be continuous anxiety about doing it right or simply pondering if you are spending each dollar right, the results are worth taking the plunge.

Being a result-driven strategy, Facebook advertising is a powerful tool for marketers.

Professional social media marketing agencies can also help you with this process, so we advise looking for the right agency to partner with for your project.

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