Facebook Ads have become an effective way for business owners to advertise their products and services. People spend most of their time on social media platforms, therefore it makes sense to use these platforms for marketing purposes. Facebook alone has more than 3 billion monthly users. By using Facebook ads, companies can bring more eyes to their products by using the right strategies and targeting the right demographic. Many businesses take advantage of Facebook’s reach to improve their product exposure. There are currently more than 7 million advertisers present on the social media platform that is actively involved in advertising activities. So, how much does it cost to advertise on Facebook? The answer is not as simple, as the final price usually depends on a multitude of factors. Many people will be surprised at the fact that how easy it is to blow away all of your marketing budgets in a few weeks. Ad campaigns that are not well optimized usually result in increased marketing costs, which can be harmful to the business in the long run. Unlike other advertising platforms, the ads with the highest monetary bid don’t always win the auction. Facebook usually selects ads based on the quality of the ad and the overall value created by the ad for its target audience. This means that you can achieve great results without having to spend too much money on your marketing campaigns. Let’s take a look! Learn More: Facebook Ad Budget Calculator
Table of Contents
Tips for lowering Facebook Ad costs
You can adopt the following tactics to lower your Facebook advertising costs:
Targeting a specific audience
Believe it or not, your target audience can impact your overall advertising cost when running an ad campaign. Certain aspects of your target audience like their gender, age, and interest can increase or decrease your expenditures. Statistics have shown that a CPC ad campaign targeted toward women can cost $0.15 more, compared to a similar campaign targeting men. Similarly, an ad campaign targeting old users (age 55-64) can cost way more than an ad campaign targeting young people. This is because users of this age group are fewer in number as compared to say users between ages 25-34. Also, having a target audience with high-value attributes will also inflate your marketing costs. However, targeting these people ends up being more beneficial in the long run as they are likely to produce better results (leads, sales, etc.). Overall, it is much better to narrow down your target audience and target them with highly relevant ads. This will produce better results than targeting a broader audience or letting Facebook decide your audience and their interests for you.
Use Facebook pixel
Another thing you can do to reduce your Facebook ads expenses is to install a Facebook pixel on your website. Technically, the pixel is a small piece of code that tracks information like when people land on your website, your customer’s behavior or activity on your website, any leads generated and any sales you make. Installing a Facebook pixel can prove to be ideal in the long run as Facebook can use the data gathered by the pixel to optimize and improve your marketing campaigns and better target your customers. You can see which ads are performing better, which can allow you to make any necessary changes. Make sure to install the pixel before running your first ad campaign, as this will allow Facebook to track the kinds of people that are converting into full-time customers and optimize your campaigns for the better.
Focus on video content
While your image ads or stills can serve as an excellent explanation of what products your store has to offer, you can go the extra mile by creating video ads. Video ads cost 10% of the cost of a single image ad and often produce better results. The average CPC cost for video ads ranges from $0.15-$0.50 while image ads can have a CPC of $2.00 or higher. It is possible that some people might not understand the full benefits of your products by just viewing the images, or certain people don’t like reading descriptions at all. Creating a short 10-20 seconds video ad can do a good job at piquing the interest of potential customers. It is also a good way to get your point across without confusing your audience. Video ads allow you to create videos that can run in stories, News feed, and as a part of videos during streaming.
Use audience retargeting
Audience retargeting involves displaying ads to individuals that are familiar with your product. As these people are aware of your business, they are more likely to interact with your ads. This will result in increased CTRs which will lower the overall CPC (Click per cost). You can create a custom audience and then target this audience with your ad campaigns. A Custom Audience is an ad targeting option that lets you find your existing audiences among people who are on Facebook. You can use sources. Such as customer lists, website or app traffic, or engagement on Facebook, to create Custom Audiences of people who already know your business. You can create up to 500 Custom Audiences per ad account.
Improve your ad relevance score
When creating an ad campaign, it is necessary that the ad must be of good quality and should be relevant to better target your potential customers. Not only are these factors instrumental in your winning the auction, but they are also evaluated by Facebook based on how well your ad is performing. A poor-quality ad is likely to generate low scores in this category. This in turn is harmful to the advertiser. Facebook prioritizes ads with high relevance scores. Such ads are more likely to be shown and can reach their intended audiences easily. Ads with high relevance scores also cost less, which decreases your ad expenses. Facebook lowers the CPC of ads with a high relevance score. Therefore, it is a good practice to constantly monitor the relevance score of your ads. You can then make necessary adjustments to your ad campaigns to improve their relevance score.
Influencer marketing
Affiliate or influencer marketing involves affiliating yourself with well-known influencers or a social network to promote your products. In turn, the affiliates receive a commission for every click or sale made. Affiliate marketing can be highly advantageous as the influencers have an already in-built audience and can use their social media reach to build brand awareness. This can then translate into new leads or customers. You can also receive information from your affiliates regarding the behavior of their audience to construct ads that can deliver the most optimal results. The data received from these campaigns can then be used to determine which affiliates delivered the most efficient results. This can provide you with a plan on how to move forward with your Facebook marketing strategies for the foreseeable future. This can boost your click-through rate and reduce your CPC significantly depending on the results.
Use dynamic ads
Dynamic product ads are one of the most effective ads in generating sales and attracting new customers. For those not in the know, dynamic ads automatically change the content of the ads based on individual activity. This means that each customer sees the ads which are relevant to their needs. Such ads track the individual’s behavioral data and browsing activity to deliver them a personalized ads experience. Dynamic product ads display products that were viewed, added to the cart, or purchased by the customer. They are also a great way to bring back customers that might not have completed their purchase due to certain reasons (hesitation, reluctance to try new products, etc.). The best thing about dynamic ads is that you don’t have to create a new ad for each product. Instead, these ads pull all the relevant information (product name, image, and price) from the data you have already uploaded. You can create dynamic ads by creating a Facebook business manager account and uploading all the products with their relevant information. This will give you the option to create dynamic ad templates. Facebook will then add relevant information in these templates based on your added ad titles, keywords, images, etc. Dynamic ads have a high success ratio, which can lead to great results. This can then reduce your overall CPC cost.
Avoid overlapping audiences
Another way to reduce your Facebook costs is by avoiding overlap in your audiences. You can use the Facebook Audience Overlap tool to see how much your audiences are overlapping. Audience overlapping is detrimental to your ad campaigns as a whole. Most people create multiple ads, which only differ in one or two factors. This results in the business or brand bidding against itself, which harms the overall results. In this case, the best strategy is to choose the audience that is better suited to your goals or most relevant to your products and services. This will reduce any unnecessary self-competition and reduce marketing costs.
Use different ad creatives
Facebook gives you a lot of options when it comes to the types of ads you want to use in your marketing campaign. Different kinds of ads allow companies to be creative with their ads. And do their best to capture a person’s attention. By trying different formats, you can see which formats work best for you or those performing the best. Try combining different formats into one and see which trends give better results over time. As usual, better-performing ads will reduce your marketing costs. If you are looking to advertise on Facebook, then the following are some of the ad formats you can use:
- Image ads: The most simple, plain, and effective type of ads. These serve as a great jumping point if you are new to the world of Facebook ads.
- Video ads: The next logical step, video ads allow you to create videos that can run in stories, News feed, and as a part of videos during streaming.
- Carousel ads: These ads pop up in the form of a collection of images or videos, which can be up to 10 in number. These are effective for highlighting multiple products or multiple aspects of a single product.
- Messenger ads: With more than 1 billion monthly users, the messenger app is also an effective platform for showcasing your products.
- Dynamic ads: These ads allow companies to target customers based on their interests. This is based on the kind of pages and posts visited by a potential customer.
Segment your campaigns by device
While designing your ad campaigns, it is also recommended that you segment your ad campaigns depending on the target device. CPC for ads designed for desktops is usually higher than for ads designed for mobile phones. Similarly, ads should also be planned differently for phones due to multiple factors. The image size, text size, the way the ad is displayed, etc. will be different for mobile phones and desktops. Using the same strategy for all the different platforms is not a good idea. This will drive better traffic and reduce your overall CPC expenditures.
How much does Facebook advertising cost?
The average cost per click (CPC) for Facebook ads across all industries is around $1.72, while the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) is around $11.20. However, these costs can vary significantly depending on the industry, audience targeting, and other factors.
Conclusion
Overall, Facebook Ad cost management is a slow learning process. There is no definitive way to lower your Ad costs overnight. Data obtained from running campaigns can be used to optimize your campaigns in the future. The effectiveness of your ads is going to depend upon how well-made they are. And how effectively they target your target audience.
