Facebook Advertising has become an important platform to connect brands and businesses with the target audience. But one of the most common questions that businesses and marketers come across when discussing Facebook advertising is: “How much Does Facebook advertising cost?”.
If you are someone looking to know how much does it cost to put an ad on Facebook? then you have landed on the right article where we are going to highlight every small detail about Facebook advertising cost.
Table of Content:
- An Overview Of Facebook Advertising Cost
- How much does Facebook advertising cost in 2020?
- How does the Facebook Ads Auction Process work?
- 7 Important Factors That Determine Facebook Advertising Cost
- Some Of The Costly Facebook Advertising Mistakes To Avoid In 2020
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
An Overview Of Facebook Advertising Cost
Understanding Facebook advertising cost can be a bit tricky but not difficult. Let’s understand the basics of Facebook advertising with an example, if you are planning to buy decorative items for the upcoming Christmas and have a budget of $100 then you will probably gonna make the purchase within your budget but how many items you are getting for $100 is another story.
The same goes with Facebook advertising cost, the advertisement cost will never cost you more than your budget. If you are planning to run Facebook ads with a budget of $20 then the ad will never cost you more than $20 but it depends on how long you are able to run the ad within your budget.
Putting it in simple words Facebook advertising cost is not limited to one factor. There are multiple factors taken into consideration while deciding the cost of the campaign like the industry you are working in, the location you are trying to target, and the objective. These factors play a major role in deciding how long you will be able to run the ad within the assigned budget.
So more than costing, advertisers should think about what it takes to create an optimized ad? And how business and marketing can leverage Facebook ads to deliver the best results within their budget.
To help get a better understanding of Facebook advertising, in this article we are going to highlight some of the important factors that determine Facebook advertising, Mistakes to avoid while advertising on Facebook, and how you optimize your Facebook ads.
How much does Facebook advertising cost in 2020?
Before we start highlighting some important factors that determine Facebook advertising let’s start with a brief idea about how much do face ads cost? So the average cost of running Facebook ads for most of the industries is considered between $0.97 and $2.00 per click and $7.28 per 1000 impressions.
To get a better idea of how Facebook ads cost, let’s take a look at detailed studies mainly available by WordStream. According to a recent study by WordStream, the average CPC (cost per click) on a Facebook ad costs a minimum of $0.45 and goes up to $3.77.
Mainly industries like finance & insurance, consumer service, home improvement, employment & job training, and more have higher CPC. When it comes to CPA(Cost Per Acquisition) the average for all industries is considered $18.68.
The average cost per acquisition for Facebook ads for Home improvement is considered $44.66 and the auto sector comes second in the rank with an average of $43.84. By looking at the below you can easily recognize the minimum CPA to maximum CPA.
So by now, you might be familiar with the average costing involved in running ads. But it’s not necessary that your business will have to pay the exact same cost. There arFacebook e chances that you may come across higher or lower Facebook ad costs because of some important factors like ad placement, location, industry, target market, and more.
If you are starting to understand Facebook advertising costs then you can make use of the above graphs and numbers as the reference rather than the exact value. Below we are going to highlight some of the important factors that you can consider to know the Facebook ad cost. But before exploring those factors let’s take a look at how the Facebook ads auction process works.
How does the Facebook Ads Auction Process Work?
Understanding how Facebook ads auction work is important as it helps you to optimize your Facebook ads cost. Most of the market and advertisers think that the auction process is all about how much money the publisher is putting in but in reality, the Facebook ad auction is not won by high monetary bids.
Facebook always wants to offer the most relevant, important, and positive experience to its users. So the auction winner is not only dependent on the money but on the overall factor mainly the value created by the ad. That is the reason why before publishing any ad it’s recommended to optimize the ad and be more specific when it comes to targeting.
So by analyzing the below points Facebook determines the value created by a Facebook ad:
Bid:
The advertiser bid plays a crucial role as it helps Facebook to determine how interested you are in showcasing your ads to the target audience. Facebook offers two bidding options called the lowest cost and target cost. The lowest cost is more automated and allows Facebook to bid for you with a goal to achieve your desired result (at low cost). On the other hand, the target cost is more manual and directs Facebook to achieve the result at a set goal.
Ad quality/relevance
The quality and relevancy of the ad play a crucial role as it helps Facebook to determine how interested your target audience will be in viewing your ad. If you are targeting a wider range of audiences that are nowhere related to seeing your ads then the pricing is likely to increase. Facebook generally considered positive feedback and negative feedback to determine ad quality and relevance. If your ad continuously gets negative feedback then it can decrease the overall value. Not only that but it also affects your account reputation. Whereas if you are creating a highly relevant and high-quality ad then it increases the chances of getting tons of share and engagement.
Estimated Action rate
Last but not least by analyzing the estimated action rate. The estimated action rate means how likely Facebook thinks that your target audiences will click or take action on the ad you are publishing. The reason why Facebook examines the estimated action rate is that they want to analyze whether the ad is relevant to the target audience and encourages them to take the action you are optimizing for. The estimation is based on the previous ad performance and past action of the person you are trying to target in your ad.
So considering all the above three points Facebook displays the ad with the highest value. That means if you are advertising on Facebook then it’s not important that you have to bid higher to display your ad. Sometimes the ad quality and relevancy also play a crucial factor when it comes to displaying it to the target audience.
If you are able to optimize these metrics then you are probably able to improve the ad quality, relevance and can lower the ad cost. Next, we are going to highlight some of the important factors that determine Facebook advertising cost.
7 Important Factors That Determine Facebook Advertising Cost
The Facebook advertising cost is dependent on various factors (same as PPC ad cost on google Ads). If you are looking to set a realistic budget for your Facebook ad campaign then it’s important to know how these factors determine the Facebook advertising. Below we are going to give detailed information on all eight factors:
1. The Audience you target
There are many studies that reveal the Facebook advertising cost is very much dependent on who you target and the number of people you are trying to target through your ads. Well, it’s very obvious that Facebook is an advertising platform, and to reach out to their user you need to pay them. But the shift in the coast happens depending on the age group, gender, location, or the interest you try to target through your ad campaign.
Not only that but there is a huge competition out there that is trying to reach the same audience. When a group of marketers tries to target the same aunties then the cost bar automatically starts racing. For example, if your business is into selling women’s products then creating a targeted ad for them would cost you $0.15 more than the ad campaign created specifically for men.
The location also plays a crucial role in deciding the Facebook advertising cost. For example, if you plan to create and run an ad campaign targeting a location like Thailand may cost you less than running an ad campaign targeting San Francisco. The same goes with the age group, if your ad campaign is targeting an age group between 50-65 years or older will have a higher cost than the ad campaign specifically created for the age group between 25-40 years.
So what it comes to determining the Facebook advertising cost is age, gender, language, interests, behavior, and more can influence the cost. Mainly targeting the specific interest and behavior can help you to lower the ad cost. If you target broad interest then chances are that your audience size will start increasing so will your ad cost.
Before you make your ad live you can explore the interest, behavior, and other sections to get an understanding of how it works. Remember targeting a broad audience is not a wrong strategy but remember the ad relevance will always play a major role in deciding the cost.
2. Facebook Ad Bid
Facebook ads are being used by thousands of businesses to reach their potential customers. When you step into the Facebook ad world, then you are basically joining a huge community and going to compete with many advertisers and marketers.
If you are familiar with how the auction process works then bidding might also sound familiar to you. The auction process works on a simple strategy the higher you bid the more likely you are going to win the auction. But the Facebook ad auction works not only on the high bid amount but also on the other factors (as mentioned earlier).
When creating a Facebook ad you get to select and set up your bid i.e. automatic and manual. Sometimes the ad bid also impacts the Facebook advertising cost, mainly when the competition is too high. So let’s take a look at the two popular bid option offered by Facebook:
Automatic Bid:
It is also called the lowest cost bid strategy that is actually built to help businesses and individuals achieve the lowest possible CPC or action. By selecting automatic bidding, you are giving access to Facebook to decide the bidding amount for you. Remember it’s an automatic bid so facebook can use the whole budget with a goal to get the results for you. So if you are unsure about the bid amount then you can always select the automatic bidding option.
Manual Bid:
In the manual bid, you get to assign the maximum amount that you are willing to spend in running your Facebook ad. Manual bidding or target cost bid strategy is used for an app install, conversion, lead generation, and more. If you are selecting the manual bidding option and not sure about how much to bid then you can consider the below points
- Don’t bid too low. There are changes that your amount target may reach its maximum before the ad reaches the right audience. So the campaign you are running may not give you the desired result.
- Even if you are entering a high amount in the bids option you will pay the lowest depending on the auction to get your ad placed. So don’t hesitate to enter the high amount if you’re not sure about the exact amount.
Remember the bidding strategy will play a major role in deciding the Facebook advertising cost. That’s why we recommended making the audience targeting more specific because both the bidding strategy is dependent on what type of audience you are targeting.
3. Facebook Advertising cost dependent on Ad budget
Before you make your camping live for your audience you need to define the advertising budget. The budget you set will play a major role in deciding the performance of your campaign. If you wonder what the maximum budget you can set, the simple answer is there is nothing like a maximum budget you can either set a budget of $100 or $1000, it’s all about how much Facebook advertising costs your business.
If you are setting the budget of $100 and the ad cost is more then it will affect your ad performance and most importantly ad campaign. Almost every marketer and business recommends having a minimum daily budget of $5 but if your monthly budget is $100 then it might be difficult for your business to run the campaign for the month.
It’s not necessary that you need to have a monthly budget of $1000 but depending on your business need the CPC to cost, it’s recommended to set a minimum budget that can work for your business as well as your campaign. Because running a low ad budget may result in lower conversion due to low reach and performance.
4. Facebook Advertising cost dependent on Ad Quality and Relevance
Another factor that affects your Facebook advertising cost is your ad quality and relevancy. Facebook defines the quality and relevance of your ad based on its performance. Not only that but the quality and relevancy of your ad are also judged based on the number of positive and negative feedback you receive.
By positive feedback, we imply the total number of clicks, views, and other actions) and negative feedback is given by users who rejected your ad by listing it under “I don’t want to see this’ ‘ and more. If the ad created by you is highly relevant then you will probably see the low ad cost.
When you create your ad, Facebook offers you a relevance score metric to check how relevant your ad is to the user you are targeting. If the score is high then it means Facebook will ensure that your ad appears over the ad with a low relevance score. The relevance and engagement rating is between 1 to 10. The better your ad quality and relevance are to the user the higher the rating will be.
To check your ad relevance and engagement score
- You can navigate to the ad manager
- Next click on the ad you wish to check the score
- Select the column dropdown menu
- Then hit the customize column button
- In that select the relevance score
- Click on apply to check your relevance and engagement score.
If you are starting new then facebook will monitor your ad performance and how it’s interacting with the targeted user. Based on the interaction and actions on Facebook will determine how relevant your ad campaign is to the user. If you are running the campaign on a monthly basis then we recommend to keep a track of campaign performance and make the necessary changes if needed.
5. Facebook Advertising cost dependent on Ad objective & goal
When you open the ad manager to create a new ad campaign, you need to select an ad objective:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
After selecting the objection you can select the particular goal for your ad:
If you have select the objects Awareness then you get to select the goal as
- Brand awareness
- Reach
If you are looking to encourage users to perform action then you can select objective as Consideration and goal as:
- Traffic
- App Install
- Engagement
- Video views
- Lead Generation
- Messages
- Product Catalog Sales
If you have selected conversion as the objective then the gaol can be
- Store Visit
- Conversion
Among all the above goals, store visits, and product sales are considered to be more valuable goals and the ad placement cost is a bit higher. Because by taking these types of actions the user is adding immediate value to the advertiser’s business. On the other hand, if you are running tight on budget then you can also start your ad campaign with reach and awareness
Once the user starts interacting with your ad and with your post then from the awareness stage you can move them down in the buying funnel. These types of campaigns may not offer you immediate results but with the right strategy, you can convert the user into buying customers.
So depending on your need you can select the objective and goal to create and run your campaign. Each goal can offer you different advertisement costs so make sure you know what is best for your business.
6. Facebook Advertising cost dependent on Ad placement
Apart from ad quality, audience, and bidding strategy the Facebook advertising cost is also dependent on Ad placement. Facebook owns Instagram and messenger both and both the platform has a huge user base so when you create your ad you get an option to select where you would like to place the ad. So you can make your ad appear in the six spots:
- Instagram Stories
- Facebook Right Column
- Facebook newsfeed
- Facebook messenger
- Audience network
Depending on your target audience you can decide which one among the above spots may offer you the desired results. If you think your ad can perform better on Instagram then you can schedule or publish your ad either on Instagram or in the Instagram stories
7. Facebook Advertising cost dependent on Season
When it comes to Facebook advertising cost then it can also depend on “Season”. If you are planning to make your ad live in the peak shopping season where users are likely to convert then the Facebook advertising cost may fluctuate. Mainly during holidays or on important days like
- Christmas
- Thanksgiving
- Boxing Day
- Cyber Monday
- New Year’s Eve
- New Years Day
The season or important days can increase the Facebook cost but remember you are also going to get the return based on your investments. So even though the cost is high on expensive days make sure you run your ad to get the full benefit from it.
Some Of The Costly Facebook Advertising Mistakes To Avoid In 2020:
By now you might have a clear idea about the factors that help to determine the Facebook advertising cost. Next, we are going to highlight some of the important points on the most common Facebook ad mistakes that most of the marketer makes while creating the ads.
1. Lack of clear objectives
Most of the people plan to create and publish ads on Facebook without having a clear and measurable objective. If you are jumping into the Facebook advertising world without any strategy then your whole efforts can go in vain. Having a clear objective of what you want to achieve by running the Facebook ad will help you to create an effective strategy that matches your goal. Facebook advertising can have one of the following objectives:
- Look to drive traffic on their website
- Few may want the user to download their app
- Other may look to increase conversion or direct leads
- And many other advertisers may look to spread awareness.
Knowing your objecting will help you to measure how your campaign is performing and what changes you can make to optimize your campaign. If things are not going according to your plan then you can pause your campaign and make the changes without wasting the wallet balance.
So if wonder how you can set business objectives and goals then you can follow the below steps
- Define goals
- While setting goal create an action plan or strategy
- Next Set KPIs (Key performance indicator)
If you are confused about what goal you need to set before creating your Facebook ads then look at some of the common goals selected by marketers:
- Drive traffic to the website
- Increase brand/product/services awareness among potential buyers
- Generate more ROI from Facebook ads
- Drive more traffic on a landing page with a goal to increase sales and leads
- Increase community engagement and many more.
2. Targeting too broadly
One of the most common traps that every Facebook advertiser falls into is targeting a wide range of audiences. Facebook offers full freedom to target its millions of users but targeting too broadly can make your ad cost expensive and there are chances that you may run out of your budget sooner than you expected.
So If you don’t want to get into this trap then we recommend paying attention to a few things while outlining generating targeting because that doesn’t benefit you is equal to a waste of money. That’s why if you don’t want to waste the money you are putting in then consider the below points while optimizing your ads:
Age range
Most of the businesses are not sure about what age group they are going to target. So doing prior research will help you to determine what age group is right for your product and services. Once you are aware of them then select the age range depending on your target demographics. These types of practices make your Facebook ad more specific and relevant.
Interest
When you want your ads to get viewed by a specific group of people that share the same internet as Facebook ads, it helps you to do that. But make sure you’re being specific because every user in the plant doesn’t share the same interest. While selecting age may be a bit easier but when it comes to defining interest we recommend spending some time and making your target interest as relevant as possible.
Using interest targeting you can make your ad perform better against your competitor by targeting the right set of audiences. For example, if your business is into selling boats then you can plan to target every user that is either buying beach-related items or interested in going to beaches. You make use of google and other platforms and use your expertise as well to brainstorm all the possible topics that could relate to your target audience.
Location
Marketers often make a mistake by targeting a wide range of audiences in different locations, sometimes they even go beyond by targeting outside of their market. These types of practices don’t help but increase the ad cost. If your target market is located in a particular state or area then we recommend not to target the whole country. It is considered one of the biggest mistakes, by doing this you are increasing your ad price unnecessarily.
Facebook continuously optimizes the ad and manages to offer better targeting options. That is the reason why Facebook allows marketers to target based on the radius, zip code, country, state, and more. If you have previously run Facebook ads then you can make use of the data to identify which locating is performing better and offering your desired results. Depending on that you can make changes in your strategy and targeting.
Behavior
Facebook offers an attractive tool called a Facebook pixel. If you include the pixel in your website then Facebook will showcase you to all the users who visited your website recently. So using behavior you can target all the people who visited your website recently to make a purchase but left the website without making any purchase or taking action.
3. Not using the right image
The visuals you offer in your Facebook ads will play a major role in deciding the performance of your ad campaign. More than 75% to 90% of your ad performance is dependent on the image you add to your ads.
While selecting an ad format you will get the option to add a minimum of one image. But if you are selecting another ad format like carousel or slideshow then you can add multiple images in your ad and make the campaign more engaging and attractive. So before we move ahead let’s take a look at some of the common type of Facebook ad format:
- Videos
- Photo
- Stories
- Messenger ‘
- Carousel
- Slideshow
- Collection
- Playable
Compared to text, images garb more user attention and makes your ad more engaging. Not only that but before any person takes a look at the text in your ad first they start interacting with the image. Because images and videos are considered the best way to grab any user’s eye. Creating attractive images can stop users from scrolling and spend some time understanding your image and text.
The image should clearly showcase your ad objective and purpose. If you ask us what is a well-crafted image? Then in short a well-crafted image not only grabs user attention but helps the user to understand the purpose without reading the text. The image you are offering should have a clear connection with the product, service, or brand you are trying to promote.
Selecting a random stack photo may grab user attention but the engagement rate will be too low and will not add any value. That’s its importance as a girl when it comes to picking the right image for your Facebook ad.
4. Not using video content
According to Hubspot, today more than 72% of the users on the internet prefer to learn about any product or service with their video content. Mainly in Facebook advertising users prefer to interact more with video content. If you are not using video content in your Facebook ad then your competitor’s ads might be performing better than yours.
The use of video content is continuously growing across all digital platforms (mainly from mobile devices). And with the amazing video creation tools to anyone with less to no knowledge about video creation can create an attractive video for their ads.
Well to create a more engaging video you might need the help of a creator. But at the basic level where your goal is to spread awareness and educate users about your product and services you can make use of online video creation tools to create a video for your Facebook ads.
Use caption in video ads
Many research shows that videos that automatically start playing with sound annoy users. If you are a Facebook user then you might have noticed that the videos start playing without any sound as you hover over the screen or when you stop scrolling the screen.
It happened because Facebook figured out that users don’t like video automatically getting played with sound without their permission. Not only that but Facebook also found that videos without sound don’t leave any message and turn out to be a meaningless campaign.
Seeing that Facebook realized how important it was for advertisee to add a caption in their video as they did so they introduced an inbuilt power editor that allows advertisers to auto caption the video. Captions help users to determine the purpose of the video and get a short insight about the video. Adding captions can help you to improve your ad performance by increasing the view time, reach, reaction, and more.
5. Selecting the right headline
Most of the advertisers think headlines are the easiest part of the ad campaign. Just you have to describe what the ad is about and that’s all, you are good to go. If you think the same then you might not be getting the desired result from the campaign.
Creating the headline of the ad campaign is not as easy as you may think. More than explaining about your product and brand, your ad headline should address how users will benefit from it. These types of practices will help you to grab user attention, engage, and encourage them to learn more about your brand and services.
If your headline is addressing users’ pain points then your ad automatically becomes relevant and helps you to set a strong connection with the user and sometimes it creates a long-lasting memory. On the other hand, if you are directly marketing your products and services then there are chances that your ad may start getting negative feedback from users.
So focus on creating short and attractive headlines that focus more on setting up connections with users by addressing their pain points.
6. Avoid targeting the same individual again and again
One of the commonly made mistakes by most advertisers is addressing people who have already converted by the previous marketing effort. These types of mistakes not only impact customer experience but also impacts your ongoing Facebook budget.
There are times when companies offer a huge discount on their product and to promote that they run multiple campaigns with the same goal, same objective, and same content. SO it’s always recommended to exclude individuals who already converted previously by taking action on your Facebook ad or through other channels.
The best way to do this is by creating the list of individuals who have already visited your website or your offer and performed the desired action by filling up the signup form or by purchasing the product. Once you have the list, next you can navigate to Facebook custom audience and upload the list to exclude all the individuals who have already taken action.
By doing this you are creating a positive impact on your existing customer and not wasting the money in targeting the same person who already took action.
Conclusion
Thanks for staying till the last. By now you might have a good idea about how much it costs to run Facebook ads. Facebook advertisement is not a small topic to cover but we have listed all the points that you can consider before making Facebook ad budgets. In our upcoming belong we will be giving more details about how you can optimize your Facebook ads for better reach and conversion.
If you need any help related to Facebook ads then you can always reach out to our marketing professionals that can help you to optimize your ad by creating result-driven and conversion-centric strategies.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Are Facebook ads worth it?
In today’s tech-driven world where people are giving out feedback about Facebook advertising, many individuals and advertisers started to believe that Facebook ads don’t worth spending money on. Well the CPC is low compared to other performances but it all comes down to how effectively you are optimizing your ads before making it like. A well-targeted and research-based ad campaign always drive clicks and results. In short, Facebook ads are still effective and can offer you desired results, if you optimize and run each campaign.
2. What Is the cheapest way to advertise on Facebook?
Every advert on Facebook looks to operate with less ad cost, mainly those who are really tight marketing budgets. So below we are going to highlight some tips that you can consider to reduce the Facebook ad cost.
- Instead of targeting a wide range of audience go for a specific group of audience that is actually interested in your product
- Make use of Facebook audience overlap tool (to avoid audience overlapping)
- Don’t forget to set up Facebook pixel
- Make sure to use a bid cap
- Keep a track of your campaign performance (Test the ads regularly)
- Take advantage of various ad formats like (photo, video, carousel, and more)
- Retargeting segment
3. How do I pay for Facebook ads?
To add money to the Facebook ads:
- Go to the ad manager
- Click on the payment setting
- Next click on the pay now button
- Insert the amount you want to pay
- Select the payment method
- Click on pay now
4. Can I use Paypal for Facebook ads?
Yes, you can add the money to your wallet using PayPal. Just you need to connect the PayPal account with your Facebook ad account. After successfully adding the amount you can use it to make payments.
5. Can I withdraw money from my Facebook account?
No, once you successfully add the money into your Facebook ad account then you won’t be able to withdraw the money. Even if your account holds the money after running a successful campaign you will not be able to withdraw but you can use it later as the amount won’t expire.