Digital

Facebook Ads Manager vs. Boosted Posts

By Ally Schauer

If you’ve been trying to increase your social media engagement and connect with more potential customers, chances are you’ve considered paid promotions. This can seem like a daunting task to take on alone. One look at Facebook Ads Manager can be enough to scare some people away for a lifetime.

Facebook offers a simpler way of promoting your content through boosted posts, but there are differences between these two strategies. Keep reading if you want to learn more about increasing sales, traffic, engagement, leads, and more through paid social media promotion!

What is Facebook Ads Manager?

Facebook Ads Manager is a platform that allows businesses to advertise on Facebook and Instagram. Ads Manager allows advertisers to run campaigns and personalize their content, headline, and call to action. It also allows advertisers to customize their audience, budget, and bidding strategies. Customizing all aspects of a campaign can be confusing and time-consuming, which is why many businesses have professional marketers manage their social media advertising.

What is a Boosted Post?

Paying to “boost” a post on Facebook is the easiest way to reach a new audience. Your previously posted content has a “Boost Post” button on Facebook and a “Promote” button on Instagram. Clicking these buttons will take you to a section where you can select an audience and set a budget. After this is done, Facebook will convert your post into a sponsored ad and promote it to your selected audience. Easy, right? So why do people bother with Facebook Ads Manager in the first place?

Why Ads Manager is Better

Boosting a post is designed to be easy to do, regardless of your experience level. You can simply select the geographic location and basic demographics you want to promote your post to and choose whether you want to send people to your website, encourage them to engage with your post, or ask them to send you a message. Next, define your budget and you’re done! Boosting can be a quick and simple way to increase your post’s reach and engagement, but the options provided for targeting, objectives, and ad creative are limited.

Facebook Ads, on the other hand, allow you to choose from more objectives, optimize your bidding strategy, define your placements, utilize dynamic creative and A/B testing, and adjust your image, headline, and copy. When you create your post, you’re likely gearing it towards an audience that already follows you and is familiar with your brand. When you boost a post, you’re reaching people outside of your Facebook or Instagram “bubble” so it may be beneficial to tailor your ad creative to a fresh audience. Customizing your bidding strategy and placements can result in a higher conversion rate and lower cost per result… if you know what to do.

Using Facebook Ads also opens up new opportunities, such as collecting leads directly within Facebook. With the lead generation objective, there’s no need to create a lead form and drive traffic to your website. Facebook lead generation ads allow you to create a form that can be auto-populated with a user’s Facebook information, making it that much easier and more likely that a potential customer will complete the form. Your team then receives their contact information to follow up and complete the sale.

The bottom line? Facebook Ads are more effective than boosted posts for many businesses. More control and more flexibility lead to better results. Regardless of whether you choose to boost or tackle Facebook Ads Manager, it’s easy to throw away money by choosing the wrong strategies or targeting the wrong audience. Contact a Facebook Ads expert (hint: you’re already on an expert’s website) and see your campaigns improve today!

 

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