Advertising on Facebook & Instagram. The low down on Boosting vs Ad Manager.
For those of us with a business facebook account, the little [boost] button sits there below your posts, tempting you SO BLUDY HARD to just press it and try it out..
Hands up who has thought they don’t need to contract work to an Ad Manager when you can just 'boost' a Facebook post?
These are two versions of buttons to click to 'boost' a post
But - do you actually know the difference between paying to boost a post, and setting up your advertising campaigns within Facebook Ad Manager?
No? Then read on and I’ll try my best to explain..
As an Ad Manager, we spend A LOT of time inside the Facebook Ad Manager platform, but I’m always more than happy to step outside it for a minute and discuss with everyone the differences between ‘boosting’ and ‘advertising campaigns’.
BOOST POST
The main benefit of boosting posts would be to gain social proof on your current facebook and instagram posts. In a nutshell, it's exactly what it says, it's boosting the visibility of one of your posts, to show to a wider range of people that may not have seen it already. When boosting a post, it just looks like your regular feed post but with a Call to Action (CTA) button on the bottom right corner inviting users to take some kind of action (such as ‘read more, learn more, book now’) and you can direct users to a landing page, your website or a form. In terms of audience selection it's more limited than within Ad Manager, and for reporting, the metrics that you can view on these boosted posts, are more basic compared to the detailed reporting within Ad Manager. Ie. You can view ‘clicks’ but not ‘unique clicks’ for example.
Example of the "boost post" setup
AD MANAGER PLATFORM
A Facebook Ad is what advertisers will create to promote products or services as part of a planned advertising strategy. The Meta (previously Facebook) Ad Manager is a platform where you are able to create and manage multiple advertising campaigns, based on high level campaign goals, then drill down into more in depth audience targeting and placement options.
Meta Ad Manager
This provides you with a much better level of control over the content of your ads, target who you actually want to SEE your ads, and how your budget is managed. You also have access to more in depth metrics and reporting so that you can see what is working and what isn’t.
There is a lot of customisation that we can do within Meta Ad Manager, including A/B testing to see which ad creative or copy works best for your campaign goals; re-target your current audience based on their activity, or create ‘lookalike’ audiences from your lists (among other options).
Another benefit of using the Ad Manager platform is the reporting based on Facebook Pixel data. By installing a little bit of code on your website (the Facebook Pixel), this tracks visitors actions to your website and reports back to Facebook (Meta). This then allows more detailed reporting through the Ad Manager by tracking leads, clicks and other actions.
If you do want to use one of your current high performing posts or reels as an ad, you can set this up within the Ad Manager platform as well, and use the same targeting and audience options that I’ve just mentioned.
I could honestly talk all day about advertising on Facebook (or just in general.. ) but in a nutshell, Boost Post does have a place in the world of Facebook, it can end up costing less per viewer and provide more reactions to your posts (that all important social proof).
BUT it often is also more expensive per click and drives less engagement by users (ie for downloads/ action taken), and you have a lot less control over the elements and reporting - which is key for running profitable ad campaigns.
My recommendation is always going to be to run ads for Meta through Ad Manager.
I’d LOVE to know your opinion on this though, and if you’d like more of a chat or for someone to help you out with Digital Ads, connect with me on instagram @jacandcodigital or comment below!