The $10 Difference - Facebook Ads on a Budget

Overwhelmed by Facebook Ads and feel like you've wasted money in the past? You're not alone, this experience is pretty common...

Many people have a view that Facebook ads are 'expensive' or a waste of money.  They absolutely can be, and NZ business owners waste millions of dollars each year on poorly target or poorly written ads. However there is lots of potential for small businesses to reach more people with Facebook Ads, when done well.

​Social media can be an echo chamber with only your existing page followers seeing your posts (likely friends, family and past customers) more so than any new customers. It's hard to reach new customers at scale on social media without some kind of advertising.

So how much do you need to spend to reach more people? I've seen success with just allocating $10 towards a post to reach significantly more people. Most businesses have $10 to spare.

Just $10? Really?

Yes really, $10 is enough to make a tangible difference to your social media reach (compared to not spending anything), especially so if you're wanting to target a relatively smaller service area such as a regional city (like Palmerston North) or even a particular suburb.

With just a $10 spend you can easy be reaching 1,000s of people instead of just 100's with your organic (unpaid) posting.

The trick to reaching as many people as possible on a smaller budget is to go through Ads Manager rather than boosting your posts. Using Ads Manager, you can select the ‘Awareness’ goal to show your post to as many different people as possible, perfect for businesses wanting to maximise reach, especially on a tight budget and within a specific location.

You can use your existing page post as the ad creative, in theory this is the same as boosting but Ads Manager gives you more options.

Below is an example from my own reporting of me allocating $10 towards one of the posts on my Facebook page. Organic post impressions is how many times my post appeared with no ad spend. The Paid post impressions is how many times the post appeared with $10 behind it. 31 vs 6,000+ is a significant difference! 

To ensure your $10 is spend wisely: 

• Your post should be a good first impression of your business. 
• You should have a well defined target audience.
• You should have a clear and compelling call-to-action.

This approach is ideal for businesses / business owners who: 

•  want to reach people within a specific location or radius.
• don't enjoy posting on social media but want to use it to reach people.
• have fewer than 250 page followers where organic (unpaid) post reach is likely very low.
• know their competitors are running Facebook ads and want to do the same.
• are confident in their product/service and just need more people to know about their business. 
• want to get more people visiting their website from Facebook.

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If you’d like support with getting started with Facebook Ads feel free to reach out. 

I offer free advice on whether a post is worth boosting or not and a free Meta Ads audience estimate to see how well target options match your ideal customer. ​

The reality is it's not necessarily the most effective use of you time to be doing little $10 ad runs all the time, $25 or $50 are better budgets to work with but the point remains than Facebook Ads has a much lower entry point than any other form of advertising.

Getting Started...

​You'll need a Meta Ad Account, or access to one. With small amounts like $10 it's possible to set things up so Facebook charges my ad account and I pass this on to you as a reimbursement - this way you don't need to worry about handing your payment info over to Facebook for infrequent advertising. I'm only able to do this for a few businesses at a time though so can't guarantee this option.

​If you’d like a done-for-you service, $10 ad runs are included in my social media reporting package from $95+GST/month. This package provides an overview of your online presence and is well worth the investment if you're serious about growing your business.