Blog Tricks and Tips: Why (And How Much) Should You Spend On Facebook Advertising?

Facebook ads are one of the best ways to instantly grow awareness about anything you're doing. They are a much less complicated, and probably cheaper solution than traditional pay-per-click schemes. And any type of business can benefit from them, from business-to-consumer businesses to local theaters, and even public speakers, musicians etc. But why exactly should these businesses or individuals invest in Facebook ads? What should be the size of this investment, and what can be expected in return?

Why Facebook ads?

Facebook Ads are one of the biggest marketing opportunities you'll come across. They can reach out to a larger audience than radio or television. They have sophisticated targeting like AdWords, albeit on different criteria.

Best of all, they are the cheapest CPM (Cost Per Impression) ad scheme, and average around $0.25 per 1,000 impressions. You can set up Facebook ads for as low as $1 per day, which when compared with advertisement costs on other digital media (TC etc.) is a really good bargain. Hence, Facebook ads are mega-awareness raising, have good targeting, require very little commitment, and are unbelievably affordable.

If you come to think about it, $1 per day means reaching out to 4,000 new people who haven't heard of your business before.

Targeting

There are enough case studies of companies getting positive ROI from Facebook advertising to know that it's feasible. But there are a lot of companies doing Facebook poorly or without sufficient analytics. One stat said that 41% of B2B companies didn't have the tracking in place to know what Facebook was doing for them either way. In fact, as of a 2013 HubSpot survey, 34% of businesses either cannot or do not calculate their inbound ROI at all.

There's Facebook conversion tracking code you can use, and you can create ads that automatically optimize for conversions. Here's how to use it:

Go to the Facebook Ad Manager.

Look on the left for Conversion Tracking, and click on it.

Click on the green box "Create Conversion Pixel."

Give it a name you'll recognize, and choose what kind of conversion it is (e.g. a check, lead, or add to cart).

Copy the JavaScript code and give it to your website person, or place it yourself. They actually recommend placing it in the section.