Is Facebook “Post Boost” advertising a Catch 22?

Let’s start out by saying that we are avid believers in Facebook advertising and believe it currently offers the most advanced method of targeting in the history of marketing. With that being said, we are going to talk about one of those Facebook advertising avenues that doesn’t offer the same ultra-targeting options as Facebook sponsored ads, or post engagement ads on Facebook.

The Facebook advertising option we will be zeroing in more in this post is known as “Boost Post”. After updating your pages status you will see the option in the lower right of the post. (See below)

One of the allures of Facebook “Post Boost” advertising is it doesn’t require business page owners to utilize the Facebook ads power editor. (Which can be a good and bad thing) Owners can simply run an ad with just the click of a button, targeting their fans and friends of their current fans.

Boost Posts are shown exclusively in News Feed, both on desktop and mobile. The goal of these ads is to reach more of a pages existing audience and also their friends. These help get a page’s content seen but generally do not result in very many new page Likes. However they can create more revenue and also raise brand awareness depending on your budget.

Once you click on this option titles “Post Boost” you have the opportunity to select a budget so you can reach more of your fans, and even reach their friends also. In exploring the advertising option we see two distinct problems from Facebook. The first one is the obvious issue that in theory, you may be paying to reach a fan who has already “liked” your page and whom your company has possibly already paid to reach by getting them to like you in the first place by using Sponsored or Post Engagement ads on the Facebook ad editor platform.  Therefore you may be paying to have your post reach someone that you have already previously paid to reach. No one likes paying to reach customers that they could have already paid for prior to the “Post Boost”. This issue is something that we will continue to see as we move into the future and something Facebook won’t be changing anytime soon. It’s bad for a business owner, but good for Facebook stock holders.

The second and more pressing issue we are seeing with this “Page Boost” ad option is that it does not allow for more advanced targeting. You are simply targeting your current fan base and their friends with no control of targeting demographics such as psychographics, geographical targeting, or behavioral targeting. The best thing we like about Facebook is its vast targeting options, but when it comes to this particular Facebook ad known as “boost posts’ the targeting of your current fan base and their friends is non existent.   See the audience section in the screenshot below to see what I am referring to:

In theory this means that if one of your fans friends that you are paying to reach with “Post Boost” is outside of your target market, then you could be paying to reach someone who is not even a potential customer. Are you starting to see the serious problem with the targeting in “Post Boosts”? Until Facebook offers a more advanced target method for “Post Boost” advertising it will be a challenge to convince companies (Particularly small ones with a limited advertising budget) to pay more to reach a person they possibly already paid to reach. It will also be hard to convince companies  with a smaller budget to pay to reach their friends fan base some of whom will not even reside in your target market or meet quality targeting guidelines for your industry  On the other hand if you want to reach more of your loyal fan base and increase customer value then not running “Post Boost” advertising may not be an option for your company.

We have run many successful ad campaigns across the Facebook platform and truly believe in the success of Facebook advertising. It is the most advanced form of customized marketing in the history of mankind and will not be going away anytime soon.

Mktg4thefuture® provides Facebook marketing and ad creation at unbeatable rates. One of our favorite things about creating Facebook ads is the fact that the audience crowd source approves your ads and make it easy to tell within the first few days of your campign if you have a successful or unsuccessful ad running. Anyone that has run ads on Facebook and have not seen a response  should contact us so we can walk you through what you are doing wrong within the Facebook ad platform, and get you back on track.

When we are pitching Facebook ads to our pest control clients.We often get a response like “Why would anyone click on a pest control ad on Facebook?”  The simple answer to that question is you have to make them want to click on the add by first building buzz around the ad, then presenting them with the opportunity to click on it. Like we mentioned before the ads on Facebook are crowd sourced approved which makes it easier to find ads that work for your market. Keep in mind if you approach Facebook adverting like you have approached other advertising opportunities for your business in the last 25 years you will undoubtedly fail and be wasting your companies precious resources. The advertising opportunity Facebook provides  is unlike any other one available to pest control companies in the past, and knowing how to take advantage of it can be the difference maker in your organization. Still don’t think Facebook ads are an effective way to reach customers and get your name out there? On just a $100.00 budget in December of 2012 our team generated over 1,400 likes and  over 150 shares around one single advertisement. The estimated reach for the campaign was well over 20,000 people  and only cost $100.00. Can you remember the last time you paid just $0.005/person to get your message out to the masses? We didn’t think so…please give us a call today at 520-245-3138  to start taking advantage of Facebook Advertisements. Mention to us that you learned about the Facebook advertising opportunities in this newsletter and we will waive the initial advertisement setup fees. This will not last long, so call today!