You have an active Facebook Page and you’re ready to start promoting to get more people to your page. But how much should you spend on Facebook ads?
Lets break it down a bit and look at the types of expenses you should be considering.
Increase Relevant Page Likes
I list this first because it’s the most important part of your Facebook sales funnel.
Cold sales are incredibly difficult on Facebook. But I've found insane success when selling to people who have chosen to see my content in their News Feeds.
So your priority should be increasing the pool of relevant people who will eventually be interested in buying your product or service. That means increasing your relevant Likes.
“Relevant” is the key word here. Don’t go out looking to see how inexpensively you can get Likes by focusing on irrelevant countries. Yes, you can get insanely cheap Likes, but they won’t lead to more business.
The cost of relevant Likes certainly will depend on your brand and industry. If you are a recognized brand in the entertainment industry, for example, it’s going to be easy. If you are a new law firm, however, it’s going to be tough going.
In general, I say to expect to pay anywhere from $.20 to $1.00 per relevant Facebook Like. The truth is that the less you spend, the lower your Cost Per Like will be. As you begin exhausting your “ideal” audience and upping your budget, success rate will go down.
So here is a basic starting point for what to expect, based on your budget. And keep in mind I’d suggest not spending your entire budget in this area. But if your budget is under $100 per month, you should focus it almost entirely here.
- $100: 200 Likes
- $500: 750 Likes
- $1,000: 1,250 Likes
- $5,000: 5,000 Likes
Again, these are very rough estimates that will depend on many different factors.
Read This: The Secret Process to Increasing Facebook Likes
Promoting Posts
For my business, I will promote posts that drive people to my blog. The priority here is increasing traffic to my website.
However, some brands may not have that priority. They may want to make sure that more Fans see their content, but website traffic isn't the focus. They want more engagement (likes, comments, shares, etc.).
You do this with “Promoted Posts.” I put quotes around this one because I do not want you confusing this with the “Boost Post” button. Do not use that.
This is a matter of promoting your posts with two main goals:
Reach Fans in the News Feed who were missed organically
Reach relevant non-Fans in the sidebar
You may want to reach non-Fans in the News Feed as well, but that’s just not how I roll. Particularly in this case. All I care is that I reach my Fans first. Reaching non-Fans in the sidebar is very cheap and makes for a very small part of the budget.
How much you spend here is largely dependent on the number of Fans you currently have. My goal when promoting posts is to reach my Fans in the News Feed once.
I run these ads four or five times per week and run them for a day at a time. When I do this, I only expect to reach about 20% of my Fans with my ad.
I’d consider this a good starting point. If you try to reach 100% of your Fans, you’re going to start annoying people. This way, only 1/5 of your Fans are seeing ads from you every day.
I’ve found that I can expect an Optimized CPM of close to $5. It could be more or less, but that’s a nice round number to start with.
So with these two things in mind (20% reached and a $5 CPM), following is what you can expect to spend to reach 20% of your Fans in the News Feed with an ad, based on the size of your audience…
- 500 Fans: $.50
- 1,000 Fans: $1.00
- 10,000 Fans: $10.00
- 25,000 Fans: $25.00
- 50,000 Fans: $50.00
- 100,000 Fans: $100.00
This is one post, of course. I wouldn’t promote more than one post per day. But I’d recommend promoting at least one post per week.
As I mentioned, you can also target non-Fans — and I recommend focusing on the sidebar. I’m finding CPM is usually under $.03 for an audience of 400,000 when targeting the sidebar only.
So for a single promoted post, you may do the following with a $.03 CPM…
- 5,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $.15
- 10,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $.30
- 100,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $3.00
- 250,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $7.50
- 500,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $15.00
- 1,000,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $30.00
I make non-Fan reach a very small part of my budget, but you may increase it if you choose.
Note that there are some assumptions baked in here. That $.03 is going to be dependent on competition. And since I don’t typically focus that much on non-Fans, I am assuming that the CPM will continue at the same rate as you up the impressions. But you will very likely need to increase your target audience size to retain that CPM.
Drive Website Traffic
I considered including this within Promoted Posts, but it’s definitely a different focus.
What I’m referring to here is Domain Sponsored Stories. These ads drive traffic to my website by generating ads out of user shares to it on Facebook.
Projecting cost on this is a little more difficult. I tend to see CPM anywhere between $1 and $4. I target mainly non-Fans with these ads, but a very targeted group with specific interests.
So your CPM here is going to depend on the size of your audience. But my ultimate goal is to keep Cost Per Link Click under $.20. I’ve even seen it under $.10, but I think a reasonable goal here is $.20.
Of course, this type of ad will only apply to those with decent website traffic. I get more than 150,000 page views per month, and I spend $5 per day on this.
Here are some expectations on costs:
- 10 Link Clicks: $2.00
- 50 Link Clicks: $10.00
- 100 Link Clicks: $20.00
- 500 Link Clicks: $100.00
These are some very general numbers here that are going to vary wildly based on the size of your target audience and frequency. For example, if you hit the same people repeatedly, success rate will drop.
Read This: How to Get 13 Cents Per Click with Facebook Domain Sponsored Stories
Promote Products and Services
If you still have budget left over, I recommend promoting products and services. That includes, but is not limited to:
- eBooks
- Webinars
- Physical and Virtual Products
- Business Services
- Newsletter Sign-up
As I’ve mentioned before, my focus is mostly on Fans here. This is my sales funnel. The more I expect from the customer (email address > low cost item > high cost item), the harder it is to get non-Fans to convert.
The first tool I use is Conversion Tracking. I create ads targeted at mainly my Fans promoting a relevant product or service. That ad will drive either to a Facebook tab or a landing page on my website.
Another tool I’ve had success with is FBX. This allows me to reach anyone who has visited my website with a Facebook ad. Like Fans, these are users who are more likely to convert.
Fan and non-Fan costs will remain about the same as before. You are essentially promoting a post, whether published or unpublished.
- 500 Fans: $.50
- 1,000 Fans: $1.00
- 10,000 Fans: $10.00
- 25,000 Fans: $25.00
- 50,000 Fans: $50.00
- 100,000 Fans: $100.00
- 5,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $.15
- 10,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $.30
- 100,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $3.00
- 250,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $7.50
- 500,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $15.00
- 1,000,000 Non-Fan Impressions: $30.00
The true tale of cost vs. success here, though, will be cost per conversion.
FBX, of course, is different. This is done through an approved third party (like PerfectAudience or AdRoll) and serving ads will depend on your website traffic. I tend to see about a $.35 CPM for sidebar ads (I’m still testing News Feed).
So you can expect something like this (there tends to be about a $25 weekly minimum):
- 71,429 Impressions: $25.00
- 150,000 Impressions: $52.50
- 500,000 Impressions: $175.00
- 1,000,000 Impressions: $350.00
So there you have it, you don’t need to use all of these advertising methods, there are certainly others you can take on as well. But for anyone curious about what they could or should be spending, this will be a nice starting point.