What happens when you Boost a post

What happens when you boost a post?

Facebook gives amateur advertisers the option to 'Boost' a post – it was devised as a way for Facebook to obtain advertising revenue from people who had absolutely no knowledge of running ads.

It was designed to be 'idiot proof' – and it is!

Even someone with zero knowledge of ads can manage to 'Boost' a post – they have already written the Ad (the organic post) and they want to pay Facebook for more people to see it. That's essentially what Boosting a post is.

There is no funnel, no strategy, no objective setting, no multiple ad sets, or multiple creatives – it is a simple campaign with one ad set and one ad.

The main limitations of boosting a post

  • You only have a choice of 3 Objectives (Engagement, Messages, Traffic) and that's if you spot them – most people don't notice and hit 'more engagement'

  • You cannot select Lead Generation or Conversion (amongst other Objectives)

  • You only get one ad set  – preventing you from being able to run a campaign to various audiences to see which one responds best

  • You only get one ad – preventing you from being able to tweak the offer / image / copy various times to see which one your audiences respond best to

  • 99% of people Boosting a post do not have any Custom Audiences set up – therefore they are ALWAYS using 'cold' funnel audiences with a 'buy my stuff' message

  • Most people who are boosting posts are running ads using their mobile phone – they are not seeing the granular details of reporting on their ads

  • You do not have the option to add/remove placements in a meaningful way – there is only a very basic option of excluding instagram