Will My Marketing Budget Cover Social Media Advertising? Busting the Myths About the Cost of Facebook Advertising

In the evolving world of digital marketing, Meta platforms, formerly named Facebook, are still a great way to reach your target audience, no matter the type of business you have. However, many businesses hesitate to allocate their marketing budget to social media advertising, as they think it’s too expensive. In reality, Meta or Facebook advertising costs less than you think.

Things like audience size, ad placement, competition, creative and copy quality can affect costs, but Facebook gives you plenty of optimisation tools to manage your spending. Plus, just like any advertising platform, poor targeting and strategy can drive up costs. 

Let's explore some common myths and provide a clearer picture of what Facebook advertising really costs.

Myth 1: Facebook/Meta is an expensive channel to advertise on

A lot of people think Facebook is an expensive advertising channel, as its cost per action (CPA) is high. Before we get into why this simply isn’t true, let’s take a moment to figure out what CPA actually means. The cost per action (CPA) is a metric that measures how much it costs to generate an action through advertising.

While it's true that some ad objectives can cost more than others, businesses are often surprised by how affordable advertising on Meta platforms can be, when supported by the right approach. With the right campaign objective and a considered strategy, you can get cost-effective results.

Myth 2: You need a big budget to advertise on Facebook

No way! In part, the size of your budget relates to your overall objective and the CPA, but also the size of your audience you’re targeting. Increasing the size of your audience for no reason other than “bigger is better” rarely means more results. Targeting a broad audience without precision actually wastes your budget and brings in lower returns.

Instead, it’s important to have a solid understanding of your market, what connects those people, the characteristics or behaviours they share, and the different targeting options that Meta makes available to you.

Facebook’s targeting options let you reach specific demographics by age, location and gender, lifestyle, interests and behaviours. You can make your ad spending more efficient and see better returns on your investment when you focus on your ideal customer profile.

Defining your target audience before you start advertising can increase the effectiveness of your ads, helping you reach your business goals. To help define your audience, ask yourself the following questions:

• What does a typical customer need?

• What are the characteristics of a typical customer?

• What are the motivations of a typical customer?

Myth 3: You don't know where your money has been spent

Being clear about where your social media advertising spending goes, is important, and some people think Facebook is not transparent enough. But actually, Facebook gives you detailed analytics and reporting tools to track your spending and see the results of your campaigns.

In fact, you can break this down per day, per week or month, or view the spending across demographics, regions, and times of day - there are lots of ways to view exactly how your budget is being spent.

Description: Budget and spending tracking on Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager lets you track your visitors’ activity on your websites and see which ads are doing well and driving conversions. This data helps you make smart decisions, optimise your campaigns and use your budget effectively. To track your users’ actions, you need to properly set up a Meta pixel, which is a piece of code you install on your website. Once it’s set up, you’ll be able to see relevant information like the number of purchases, leads, contact form submissions and much more.

Bonus: Metrics you should be tracking with your Facebook campaigns

If you want to know more about the metrics you should be focusing on in Meta Ads Manager, read our article 3 Must-Track Metrics in Meta (Facebook) Ads Manager, where we explain the key metrics that measure how well your ads are performing.

If you think about it, Facebook isn’t that expensive. You can really stretch your marketing budget on this platform with the right strategy, precise targeting and good tracking. By understanding what drives costs and using Facebook advertising tools, you can get great results without spending too much money.

To learn about the most common mistakes businesses make when using Facebook advertising, don’t miss out on our article on 5 common Facebook Advertising mistakes that you can easily fix.