Facebook Boost vs. Facebook Ad: Which One Should You Use?

You pay for both of them – so what’s the difference? I’ll sum it up here:

Facebook Ad (a good choice – for some)

✨ Choose your goal: Awareness, Consideration, Conversion ✨

Those sound like good things, right?

Well… 🫠

What they don’t tell you is that you need a gigantic audience to make a lot of these goals actually work.

If you “only” have, say, 500 followers on your page, the machine learning of Facebook doesn’t have enough data to work with – you might just be throwing money away.

However…

You can compensate for a small audience by running your ad for a long time with a big budget. You’ll need a minimum of 50 actions taken in 7 days for Facebook to exit the “learning phase.” The learning phase is a real thing, I promise (click for more info).​

Then, once you exit the learning phase, you need to keep the ad running to continue the momentum and feed the machine.

My two cents: If you want to use the awesome targeting features of a Facebook Ad, select Traffic as your conversion action. Then, be willing to put enough money down to get 50 link clicks in the first 7 days. Then, be willing to keep your ad on for a few more weeks. Expect to drop a couple hundred dollars easily.

So, unless you think you can afford those kind of numbers, I’d suggest you move along to…

Facebook Boosted Post (a decent choice – for most)

✨ Choose your goal: Post Engagements, Messages, Link Clicks ✨

One could describe a boosted post as a facebook ad for dummies. With the boosted post, Facebook put the ability to run ads in the average-joe’s hands.

👎 There are wayyy fewer targeting options. This is bad because you’re paying to show your ad to more people who probably don’t care.

👍 There are wayyy fewer requirements. This is good because you don’t have to expend as much money or time.

A nutshell:

If it doesn’t work, you only spent $10. But… it’s more likely to not work.

Boosted posts are good for raising broad community awareness – but don’t expect miracles. Let’s be real: a majority of your money will be spent showing your ad to people that will scroll right past it. I know 95% of the time I scroll past boosted posts – don’t you?

My two cents: Run boosted posts regularly with a small budget – but ONLY if you’re advertising something that is relevant to the majority of the population – since you can’t target as tightly.

Wow – I bet you’re feeling really encouraged right now! NOT!

If neither of the options above sound good to you, check out Google Ads – it’s a little more complex to learn, but, in my opinion, it’s the sweet spot between these two options.