Why you shouldn't use the Facebook Boost button
We recently did a blog post on why the Facebook reach of your posts is declining, and why this is going to continue to decline without adding some budget. You can read this article here. However, the way to put budget behind your Facebook, is NOT by boosting your posts. Have you ever done this? If you have, you are probably throwing money away. Let us explain how.
The Facebook boost button has grown in popularity since the organic (or free) posts from businesses are reaching far less people. In essence, it is an easy way to add budget to a post which can be promoted to a certain audience to get your message across.
Navigate to your page, find the post you want to promote and choose boost. You will then choose if you want to add a button to your post, the audience, budget and duration, and how you will pay. If you have boosted a post before, this will be a familiar screen:
It is a really easy way to promote your posts – but don’t be fooled. Always remember that Facebook wants you to spend money, and the easier they make this process, the more you will be inclined to do so.
So, what’s wrong with it I hear you ask? A few things.
When you boost a post, Facebook creates a campaign in your ad account with the objective of post engagement. Facebook optimises all campaigns based on the objective set. If you select the objective of website clicks it will optimise for clicks of the link you’re promoting, if you select website conversions it will optimise the campaign toward users who will be more inclined to convert – if you boost a post, your campaign objective is always post engagement. Post engagement means more likes, shares etc. If you are promoting products, new content on your website etc. post engagement is not what you want. You want to be getting sales of the product or clicks to your website. Very often we will see businesses with high engagement on their product posts – but very few clicks, and as a result, very few sales.
You limit your targeting options. With boosted posts, you can promote your ads to:
People you choose through targeting
People who like your Page
People who like your Page and their friends
For the people who like your page and the people who like your page and their friend’s options you are immediately wasting some of your budget (unless you spent a long time building high quality likes which very few do) as Facebook likes will always have people uninterested in your business. When you include their friends (which could run into the millions) it is impossible for Facebook to find the relevant people to show you ads to.
For the people you choose through targeting option, the targeting options you have are very limited. You cannot use behavioural targeting, or detailed targeting for example. You can’t exclude people who already like your page. You can’t choose the placement – which means Facebook by default will always show your post on desktop news feeds and mobile news feed. It will push as much as 99% of your budget towards mobile news feed as this is a lot less expensive than desktop. But desktop (for most) will be a lot more valuable audience. People are more inclined to purchase, or take in content on desktop, and the conversion rate on mobile tends to be poorer. Again, this is wasted budget for you.
You are always going to be better taking a bit more time over your promoted content by setting up your campaigns in the Ad manager. You will be able to set a clear campaign objective, have complete control over targeting and complete control over the placement. This will result in a lot of advertising money saved, and much better return on investment.
If you want any help with your Facebook advertising, or want any more information on how to set up campaigns in the Ad Manager, please get in touch :)
