I am always saying to people online, in person, and pretty much everywhere I go – ‘Don’t boost your Facebook posts!’ and on occasion, this really upsets people!
Sometimes I come across people who think they know how to do Facebook Ads. Their boyfriend works in Digital Marketing, their brother does a bit of drop shipping from his spare bedroom, or they’re an avid reader of Hootuite. Whatever the reason – some people don’t take too kindly to being told, directly or indirectly, that they haven’t a clue what they’re doing!
They’ve been Boosting posts for years and God-dammit they KNOW it works, because their mum, best friend, Aunty Margaret and a handful of others ‘like’ their posts when they spend £10 boosting it!
I’m regularly invited to business events, and once people know I specialise in Facebook Ads it opens conversation to paid advertising. I’m not exaggerating when I say that finding out Boosting posts is a really bad idea, is on a par with finding out Santa Claus isn’t real for some people.
If you are that person, and you’re reading this – I’m sorry. You’ll get over it.
So, what exactly is wrong with ‘Boosting’ your posts?
#1 You have no control over your Campaign Objective
When you do ads ‘the right way’ you select a Campaign Objective that best aligns with what you are trying to achieve. This might be to collect contact details with a Lead Gen form to follow up later or it might be to drive traffic to your website, but when you Boost a post you are relieved of that choice.
If you want to drive traffic to your website, you may want to pay Facebook per Click (CPC) rather than for Impressions (CPM) but when you Boost a post, you don’t get that choice either. You can only pay for Impressions and that could mean exhausting your entire budget without achieving anything whatsoever.
#2 You have no control over where your ad is placed
Your ad might work really well in Messenger, or Marketplace, or if may be absolutely hopeless in those placements. Unfortunately you don’t get to control where the ad appears when you Boost a post.
By giving Facebook control over how and where to spend your budget – it will exhaust your money on Placements that benefit Facebook. The Mobile Newsfeed and Messenger are arguable the most expensive/valuable Placements and Audience Network the least. So guess where your ad is likely to appear most? That’s right. Audience Network. Because that placement makes Facebook a whole lot more margin than the Newsfeed, and that’s because the Conversion is poor.
It’s a bit like when you do your grocery shopping online, and when it arrives you’ve been given three packs of meat that need eating by tomorrow. If you’d been there yourself, you’d have picked the good meat with long dates, but when you let the supermarket choose for you they try to offload the cr*p that nobody else wants.
#3 You cannot target Custom Audience
The audience options you have at your disposal in Facebook Advertising are Core Audiences, Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences. Seasoned advertisers will rarely use Core Audiences unless they have little else to go off.
Re-targeting a warm audience who already visited your website, watched your videos or your looked at your Facebook page is a lot cheaper and more effective than trying to convert someone who has never heard of you, but you don’t have this option when you Boost a post.
Are you shell shocked right now?
Don’t despair – Yes Facebook Ads is way more complex than you first thought. There’s a whole Kingdom underneath the surface that you don’t know about, and that is why I have developed my Facebook Group and my Courses, to help small business owners to acquire accurate and helpful training – at a price they can afford.
And that’s why they’re a Sell Out!