How To Properly ‘Boost’ Your Local Business with Facebook

If you have ever done Meta Ads you will know how confusing they can be.

If you haven’t, just look at the ads manager.

Right now, if you went to run an ad campaign you are first met with 6no. options. Not too long ago this was 11no. options. This is the added layer of complexity in that Meta is always updating the ads manager. Maybe this will go back to 11no. options or even more in the future.

You may think 6no. options isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, that is page number 1 of the 3no. advertising levels you need to set up for your campaign. You are talking an easy 50 choices that need to be made to get your ad live.

Not all choices are critical (some do barely anything), but others can make a huge difference to your ad’s performance. Not a straightforward task to figure out which is which when you first start out – even when you are a seasoned veteran it can be difficult.

The ‘NEW’ Meta Ad Alternative

The ads manager isn’t something you want to take lightly.

Meta is aware of this difficultly for some businesses. Although their platform sees yearly ad revenue exceeding 100 billion dollars (that is right, billion, not million) not all businesses are in on the action.

It makes sense for Meta to want more people to spend money on their platform, they are a business after all.

Even though ads yield great results for countless businesses they noticed others not reaping the benefits. They decided to come up with an easier solution for people to adopt.

The ‘Boost’.

Are Boosts Bad?

If you use Facebook or Instagram, you would have seen the ‘boost’ button. You are prompted to ‘boost’ whenever you make a post.

Most businesses are at least somewhat intrigued and realise you basically click the button, and your post is shown to people who don’t follow you.

What is the harm in that? Yes, you are getting more exposure. Just the exposure could be anyone. It isn’t necessarily your target audience. You could spend a lot of money easily and only be getting some more likes…

Not a great return on investment if you ask me.

‘Boosting’ lacks the one thing that makes Meta one of the best platforms to get new clients. Customisation.

A ‘Boosted’ post is simply that. Whatever your post was is sent to more people on your feed and your feed alone. Ads have far superior placements.

Since it is an organic post, it is most likely not formatted in a way an ad would be to entice people to click you ‘call to action’ button and get in touch.

Unlike ads, a ‘boost’ can only be shown on the platform it was created on. E.g., an ad can be shown across BOTH Facebook and Instagram. Whereas a ‘boost’ can only be one or the other.

‘Boosting’ is similar to if you showed up to a bike race with your push bike to find out everyone else had motorbikes.

How to Utilise Meta (Facebook) to its Full Potential

You want to be using the native Meta Ads tool. The return on investment is far greater than the initial spend for 10’s of thousands of businesses every year.

You may have a lot of options to choose from, but that is what can guarantee your ads success.

You need to make a vow to never use a ‘Boost’ again. Unless you would prefer to not make money, then by all means ‘Boost’ away.

Now you are ready to get into the ads manager and not be burning your money wondering why you are not getting more customers through the door.

If you have ever done any of the ‘traditional’ methods of advertising e.g., TV, radio, or even the yellow pages you will know the pain of not knowing where your money goes.

With Meta Ads all this mystery disappears.

You can clearly see where the money is being spent in real time. Best of all you are the final boss. You control the spend and can even adjust it on a day-to-day basis.

What Will This Cost Me?

This is the age-old question. Not too dissimilar to the “how long is a piece of string” question. There are a lot of variables one must consider based on location, the size of your business, what you offer etc. etc.

It should be noted that Meta (as magical as it is), it not that magical. You cannot upload an ad on Monday and expect loads of leads on Tuesday (unless you are spending a lot of course).

There is a learning period where Meta figures out your audience and who best to show your ad to. This way your ideal customer will see it time after time. The more you spend the quicker Meta will learn. Once it does, you are off to the races.

Remember, this is an investment. It is pay to play, and you cannot spend pennies expecting to get back thousands.

A common mistake is that people will believe they can get away with spending £1/day… Most business owners are spending more than that on coffee every day. How about we actually spend more on our business than your daily beverage.

Our promise with our customers is to get £2 back for every £1 spent, minimum.

We will continue to test and tweak until this goal is met.

If you want to start running ads or your current ads are not performing, then get in touch to see how we could help your business today.

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