If you’re a business owner that has a Facebook account, we’re sure that you’ve come across Facebook notifications that suggest that you boost a Facebook post. Usually, they suggest boosting a post that was most popular among your followers. Boosting a post is the first baby step into advertising on Facebook but, it’s not comparable to actually running a true advertising campaign through Facebook or Instagram using the ad manager. Instagram will also make these suggestions but they call it promoting a post. It’s the exact same thing but, with a different name. We need to keep in mind that Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram so there are a few commonalities between the two social media platforms.
What’s the difference between a boosted post vs running an advertising campaign on Facebook or Instagram?
Boosting a post and running an ad on Facebook and Instagram are two different methods of promoting content with the goal of reaching a wider audience on these platforms. Specifically, there are 5 core differences you should know:
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The Purpose:
Boosted posts are designed to increase the reach and engagement on a specific post you have already created as an organic social post while running ads allows you to create customized campaigns with specific objectives. A boosted post will have the general goal of reaching more people whereas an advertising campaign could have goals such as: driving website traffic, generating leads, or promoting a product or service with the intent of creating a sale, or starting a conversation that could lead to a sale.
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The Ad Creation Process:
When boosting a post, you simply select the post you want to promote and choose the basic audience you want to target. The options for customization and targeting are limited compared to running full advertising campaigns. With Facebook or Instagram ads, you have more flexibility to create and design your ad from scratch being able to use different ad formats, images, video, instant experiences, headlines, and ad copy. You can also set specific targeting parameters, such as demographics, interests, and behaviors as well as have the tools to a/b test your creative against each other to fine-tune your results.
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Ad Placement:
Boosted posts are shown to users within the platform’s main newsfeed. When running ads, you have more control over ad placements, allowing you to choose which of the following places your ads will appear: newsfeed, profile feed, marketplace, video feeds, right column, explore page, messenger inbox, business explorer, stories, messenger stories, reels, in-stream videos, search results, and within their audience network of external websites and apps with ads. The effectiveness of these ad placements varies depending on what you are trying to achieve with your ads but having these options gives you greater flexibility in reaching your target audience across multiple platforms.
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Objectives and Optimization:
Boosted posts have limited objectives, typically focusing on maximizing reach, engagement (likes, comments, shares), or video views. Running ads provides a wider range of objectives, such as awareness, traffic, engagement, conversions, app installs, lead generation, and sales. Ads also offer advanced optimization options, enabling you to strategically optimize your campaigns for specific outcomes, like link clicks, lead form submissions, or purchases.
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Budget and Duration:
Boosted posts allow you to set a budget and duration for your promotion, but the options are relatively simple. Running ads provides more control over budgeting, allowing you to set daily or lifetime budgets, cap the number of times a person sees your ad, retargeting, and you can also adjust bids and pacing strategies to optimize the delivery of your ads depending on the day of the week or how a person has interacted with your ad.
Overall, boosting a post is a quick and easy way to promote existing content and increase its visibility but, running actual advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram provides more customization, targeting options, and objectives to meet specific marketing goals. Depending on your needs, budget, and campaign objectives, you can choose between these two options or even use a combination of both to achieve the desired results. However, we highly suggest running an ad over boosting a post. We’ll go into more detail.
What are the main objective options you can use when making a new ad campaign on Facebook or Instagram?
When running an ad on Facebook or Instagram, you first create an objective for your ad. To discover what main objective to use, think about the goals of your business. As your business expands, your campaign objectives may evolve. Initially, your focus might be on increasing brand recognition and attracting new customers. However, as you progress, you may aim to drive purchases or encourage sign-ups for events. It is essential to evaluate the actions that potential customers can take and think about how valuable that action will be in relation to achieving your current business goals.
At the moment, there are 6 ad objectives to choose from:
SPOILER ALERT, as a marketing company, we use traffic ads and lead generation ads the most as it reduces cost per lead and conversions. Just because a robot suggested something doesn’t always mean you should follow that direction. Sometimes it’s a bad suggestion so although we support testing new tools, make sure you pay attention to the cause and effect of those actions and decide whether or not they help or hinder your results.
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Awareness
This objective will help you reach the largest number of people who are most likely to remember your ad. For example, if your business is brand new or has been recently renamed, an awareness objective may help potential customers become more familiar with your business.
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Lead generation ads
This objective will help you create leads via messages, phone calls, lead form submissions, or signups. For example, this would be a great ad objective choice for businesses that want their potential customers to sign up for their monthly newsletter and helps to build an email list.
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App Promotion
This objective is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s primarily used to get people on mobile devices to install your app or take a specific action within your app.
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Sales
This objective is designed specifically to help find people likely to purchase your goods or services. You can reach your target audience through an e-commerce site and optimize the ad for other options like adding an item to their cart through the ad. It’s important to keep in mind that it’s aligned with e-commerce platforms and won’t necessarily be effective when it comes to generating in-store sales at a brick-and-mortar location.
There are also various types of ad formats to choose from.
Now that you know which ad objective to use, it’s time to determine what type of ad format to choose. This helps tell your business’s story and gives a reason for someone to purchase from your brand.
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Photos
A photo is worth 1000 words; which will capture your audience’s attention and direct them to your destination website or app if you use compelling visuals. You can achieve this by leveraging your own captivating images or crafting an ad using stock photos that effectively communicate your story.
Top Tip: Make sure the photos are high-quality, show people using your product, have a single focus point, and maintain visual consistency.
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Videos
Using a video allows you to highlight your product’s distinctive features and engage your audience with captivating narratives using the combination of sight, sound, and motion. You can either upload a video you’ve already created or utilize the video creation tools within the Ads Manager to craft one that aligns perfectly with your vision.
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Stories
Stories create impactful and immersive experiences. This is a customizable ad format that captivates and engages your audience much like organic stories you would post do. With edge-to-edge visuals, stories enable you to fully immerse people in your content, providing a seamless and compelling viewing experience that they are likely to see as native content on the app instead of looking more like a traditional advertisement.
Harness the power of Stories to tap into the passions of your audience and ignite their motivation to take action, all within the mobile environment. By leveraging this dynamic format, you can inspire and encourage meaningful engagement, driving your desired outcomes.
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Messenger Ads
Messenger ads initiate meaningful conversations with your potential customers. Your ads connect on a personal level with existing or potential customers, incorporating interactive elements and automated functionalities to enhance the buying or relationship-nurturing experience.
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Carousel Ads
Taking advantage of carousel ads allows you to present up to 10 captivating images or videos within a single ad, with each item accompanied by its own unique link. Seamlessly showcase a variety of products or you can craft a compelling brand narrative that unfolds across each card.
Top Tip: Carousel ads show off more in one ad. It’s great when you want to showcase more than one item and/or you want to explain the process.
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Slideshow
The power of slideshow ads lies in their dynamic video-like advertising qualities that combine motion, sound, and text. These lightweight clips enable you to artfully narrate your story across various devices and connection speeds, ensuring a captivating experience for your audience.
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Collections
Collection ads have a ton of potential, providing people with the opportunity to explore, browse, and purchase the offerings or products you sell. With a simple tap on the ad, individuals can delve deeper into a specific product category or a specific product, all within a seamlessly fast-loading experience on their mobile device.
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Playable Ads
Playable ads offer people an interactive preview before they download an app. These are like demo ads that get people to take your game for a test drive before downloading the actual app of the game.
Types of Ad Placements
On each platform, there are different types of ad placements.
These include:
- Ads on the feed
- Ads that pop up while streaming a video
- Video ads
- Ads on Facebook Marketplace
- Ads on the stories
- Ads on reels
- Ads on search results
- Ads on business explore
- Audience Network Native, Banner, and Interstitial
- Ads on the Instagram Explore page
When you pay for an ad on Facebook and Instagram, your ad can pop up on a variety of these different ad placements to reach a wider audience across social media platforms.
Overall, boosting a post isn’t really comparable to what you can achieve running an actual advertising campaign with us through Facebook & Instagram
While boosting a post can be a quick and easy way to give your content a boost in visibility, running a dedicated advertising campaign on Facebook and Instagram offers far more flexibility, targeting options, customization, and optimization opportunities to help you achieve specific marketing goals. We know that trying to navigate all the tools at hand can be overwhelming and time-consuming to learn which is we are ready and waiting to help you run your advertising campaigns. You tell us what your goals are, and what you want to promote, and our team will get to work designing your strategy, and creative, and we’ll even execute and optimize the campaigns weekly to help you maximize your results.
Ready to get started?
Sign up for a free consultation or give us a call at 705-242-8964 and together let’s make a plan to grow your business in a tangible, incremental way.
