Facebook Ads vs. Boosted Posts: Which Is Right For Your Business?
Facebook has two advertising options: boosted posts and paid ads. This commonly confuses business owners since the difference between the two isn’t immediately clear. Let’s discuss the main differences to help you determine which option will best fit your marketing needs.
Boosted Posts
Boosted posts are a basic form of advertising on Facebook by using advertising budget to promote a post that is already on the business’ page. You have the option to choose a target audience, budget and duration. This post will appear higher in the newsfeed of your target audience and is more likely to be seen compared to an organic (unpaid) post. Due to the platform’s algorithm, an organic post won’t necessarily show up on a follower’s newsfeed each time a business posts. Thus, boosting a post can increase post visibility and engagement.
Facebook allows you to boost status updates, photos, videos and offers from your business page. As you might have seen, Facebook will recommend business owners to boost well-performing content by prompting a blue “boost” button next to the post.
Facebook Ads
If you want to take your advertising one step further, paid ads are a more advanced option. Ads allow business owners to run a targeting campaign to meet a specific goal. Goal options include page likes, website clicks, app installations, post engagement, video views, event responses, website conversions, and much more. Once you have selected a goal, you can begin targeting specific audiences based on age, gender, hobbies and location.
Differences Between The Two:
- Facebook ads give you the option to hone in your targeting at a more granular level compared to boosted posts.
- Ads can include call to action buttons such as “call now” or “request a quote”, etc. while boosted posts cannot.
- Boosted posts will exist on both the business page and on user’s newsfeeds while Ads only show up on specified ad placements.
- Boosted posts give you the option to place the post on Instagram, desktop and mobile newsfeed placements. Facebook ads have much more flexibility and offer placements on newsfeeds, side ads, Instagram feeds, stories, instant articles, messenger ads and audience network ads.
- Paid ads allow manual bidding which will allow you to choose a maximum average bid for impressions or clicks. This could be more cost effective for your marketing campaign.
Which Is Right For Your Business?
Now that we have covered the differences between boosted posts and paid ads, which route is better in achieving your marketing goals?
Boosted posts are a great way to increase impressions and can be an effective strategy to grow awareness around your company and products. Boosted posts can also increase audience engagement such as post and page likes, shares and comments. This would be a great option for example: if a clothing company just launched a new line and wants to raise brand awareness around their new products.
Facebook Ads offer much more flexibility, customization and are tailored to help reach a specific goal. This can be a great option if you are looking to achieve goals outside of post engagement and brand awareness.
For many businesses, using a combination of both tactics is usually an effective approach. You can increase visibility and engagement on your Facebook content as well as drive specific user actions. Going back to our clothing line example, the company could use boosted posts to announce their new line and simultaneously run a paid ad on a specific pair of shoes they are running a sale on and track the number of sales produced by that campaign.
Social media has come a long way over the years and Facebook has developed a robust advertising platform. Whether you go with boosted posts or paid ads, social media advertising helps businesses reach larger audiences with shared interests to help support business growth. If you’re still unsure on which option is right for your business or need help running your advertisements, our marketing experts can help.
