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Facebook Ads versus Boosted Posts



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Facebook Ads versus Boosted Posts

I am sure that the majority of you have heard of Facebook Ads before even if you personally haven't used it. It is quite good to attract more traffic to your website or blog. But I am not sure how many are aware of the boosted posts option on the Facebook. It might seem similar but there are some key differences. The boosted post basically puts "attention" on the post that you choose rather than your whole page.

I have used Facebook Ads already and they work nicely if you properly target the right audience but I haven't used the boosted post method. Therefore, I am curious, which is the better option and why? Have you used any personally and gotten good results? 

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TommyCarey
There's a big difference between boosting a post on your facebook page and running an ad, and I'll try to give you a good idea of what to use and when lol Facebook Ads versus Boosted Posts I actually run both boosted posts as well as ads and like them both for different reasons.

Boosted Posts
With a boosted post you're just advertising a post (duh Razzy!) and getting it in front of people who may be interested in seeing it. Now this is basically an advertisement to new people, and works really well if you have some engagement on the post already. A lot of people will see "Boost Post" or whatever it says and opt for that type of advertising even though the post doesn't have any engagement yet.

The best thing about a boosted post is that people will see "John Doe and 18 others liked this post" or something like that. You can get engagement on your ads as well, but that doesn't show up on your facebook page. What I like to do is only boost the posts that get a decent amount of engagement. This is because your community of followers are already showing you that the one post is more popular than the others, and that means it will usually do well when advertised. Your followers are already doing your split testing when it comes to boosted posts, so be sure to only boost the ones that are winners Facebook Ads versus Boosted Posts

Facebook Ads
Now I run my fair share of facebook ads, I think I have around 10 up and running for 6 or 7 different websites right now lol. I'm just counting the "winning ads" and not all of the ones I'm split testing, if I counted them all it would be closer to 70 ads haha.

Anyway, before I ramble on too much lol.

Facebook ads are good for almost any website, I say almost any website because there might be a website out there that I don't know of which will not be good for facebook ads (I don't know of one, but I have to say that lol).

When it comes to facebook ads, you need to get super targeted. I was running one ad that had a pretty broad range of people and I was getting a lot of clicks, but almost no sales at all. I got super targeted with my ad and the clicks reduced drastically, but my conversions increased 10 fold. This is because my ads were now showing to the people who really were interested and not people that might be interested. I paid a little more per click, but I made much more money per campaign due to the fact that I wasn't wasting money on clicks where people weren't really interested.



I actually like to run both of these for new and old websites, but you have to use them in a specific way. With boosted posts, you only pay for the posts that are already performing. With facebook ads you have to get super targeted and make sure you monitor and split test everything so you have the perfect set up in order to not waste any money Facebook Ads versus Boosted Posts



- Razzy



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Corzhens
Gee, that 70% batting average of the expected result is very high as if you are saying that Facbook Ads is the best in the field. But I have to agree that Facebook Ads is very popular now maybe because of the high percentage of conversion. What’s good in Facebook ads is the low cost that you can start a package at $5 per day which, I think, is very affordable for small site owners.



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Soulwatcher
All I can say is I spent $150 on Facebook ads 5 years ago or so and I got nothing in return. It was a complete waste of money that got me nothing in return. So do your research before you plop down cold hard cash for facebook ads.



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DarthHazard
Facebook Advertisements is better if you want to get some new likes for your page or you want to increase the exposure for your brand. Boosted posts, on the other hand, are better if you want your page followers to see your content. I do believe that boosted posts will appear near the top of the timeline for anyone that likes your page.



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cmoneyspinner
Thanks. I do appreciate the distinction you made between the two.

Wonder if someone could do a comparison of Facebook Ads /Boosted Post versus Pinterest Rich Pins / Promoted posts? (Hope I have the terminology right.)



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Authord
Facebook ads is better, especially if you are running a blog or a website were posts are been targeted to people of a social circus, then nothing beats Facebook ads, because once you target the right audience, you surely get up to 70% of the expected result.



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DarthHazard
If you can manage to target the right audience, then chances are you can even get up to 90% of the expected result. But that can be difficult because it's not alway easy to target the exact audience that you want. The problem is that there will also be people that like your product but are not in the "target audience" that you have set up. Because of this, you need to also have a broad target audience when setting up a Facebook ad to avoid losing out on potential customers/sales.



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Authord
Yeah, you are right, that aspect is very important, if you don't plan on this things, you are likely sending your money to the drains, and that's why many people complain about not getting the expected result. Because they didn't customize their Ads, when you aim to the right targets, you don't miss.



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cmoneyspinner
I'll keep that in mind the next time I try a Facebook ad. Although I thought I did that the first time. Perhaps I just didn't spend enough money. Couldn't help it. Had a very limited advertising budget.



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Authord
Yeah, that's also a factor to put into consideration, the limited funds can be a set back most times and can also be customized to bring even much more result than a higher fund in most cases . Well, numbers matter though.



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augusta
Well,for me I love the boosted post, b because with boosted post it goes more far and wide to bring more engagements. When I use Boosted post I tend to have more traffic and engagements and there will be more likes for my Fanpage.



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overcast
I have tried boosted post. It has more of hit and miss goals. And often running out of the budget is easy in this case. In case of the facebook ads you have more control on the format and the goals. So I guess we have to think of facebook ads are more or less priority here. I think many people have tried boosted posts. And it may or may not work for all of them. So it depends on how one manages to handle the ads budget.



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Tronia
That's a very good point. The majority of articles that I have read about the Facebook Ads and the Boosted posts, they all favor the first option since you have far more control and exposure. Boosted posts are often a miss and therefore a waste of money that could be more efficiently spent on the Ads. But perhaps it also depends on each site.



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overcast
Yes boosted posts does not seem to have much results. Most of the news sites and the promotions on news sites make use of that. They are also using the videos for boosted option. This may not lead to more traffic though. It'd keep the people on facebook itself. And that's because of the Facebook instant article feature that is taking the revenue out of boosted post.



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Pixie06
I have never tried to use boosted posts and can't really comment on their effectiveness. I think that if you are advertising for something specific on this post then maybe it may work for you. I have used Facebook ads and they definitely work. They have helped to increase the number of followers on my page which has helped to increase my customer base. Moreover if someone has liked your page he/she will be able to see all your previous and future posts.



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itommy
I tried both, to be honest Boosted Posts is just one of advertising method on Facebook and It is only good for the post that you are advertising for. So I don't see any difference between Boosted Posts and Facebook ads. Facebook Ads versus Boosted Posts



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DenisP
Hmm, to be completely honest I'm not entirely sure which would be better. I suppose each has their own benefits depending on the circumstances. I suppose that Facebook Ads would be more useful in acquiring new followers. Ads are obviously not going to impact people who are already following you, so you would utilize this in order to get your content out there and net new subscribers. Boosting posts would probably be beneficial in grabbing the attention of people who already follow your content. Sometimes you get content that is more popular than other posts, so naturally you want to try to ride that wave as long as possible, so boosting a post would probably be beneficial in that situation.



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cmoneyspinner
The general comments are appreciated but when people recommend Facebook ads or Boosted Posts, they never indicate the cost involved. Even if they gave a ballpark figure or a range, like $5 to $50, it would be more helpful. How much exposure can you get for $5?



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Authord
You can get up to 1200-1600 for $5 with boosted post and I think same applies to the Ads. I only use boosted posts.



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itommy
I agree with this but to be honest, Facebook ad or boosted posts didn't help to increase traffic to your sites unless you have to spend more for Facebook.



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vinaya
You have an ecommerce website and you have products to sell. When you use facebook ads, you are promoting the entire ecommerce store, when you are using boost service, you are promoting an individual product. You can also use facebook ad to promote your single product and boost feature to promote your entire site. However, there are criterias for creating facebook ad. If your product picture contains too many text, your ad will never be approved.



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Baburra
I think a combination of both can be the best if you can do it that way but there's also the idea that your product or service might only need one or the other as one may not be as effective and therefore might just end up being a waste of money. I think the best way is to just figure out where you fit into either and maybe even experiment with both first to see which one would yield you more results for the same amount of money.



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keen2write
I have run these before and not got many results with the post ads. Now the Facebook ads are more effective and I have used a few times. I may actually run a few more in a few weeks ill wait for my Adsense cash to come through lol. As this will pay for it for me saves my other money for seoclerks, bills and other accessories I may need.



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Judas2018
Both forms of advertising have their pros and cons. Facebook ads as a whole do get you more LIKES for your page. But if you don't target the proper keywords, you will feel like your money went to waste when you receive a number of LIKES far below that of your desired goal. Boosted posts do get you a lot more engagement with your closest community members and people interested in your niche. But very few NEW LIKES come from this part of Facebook advertising.



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potentialwriter
Facebook ads is proven to be very effective when it comes to attracting lots of targeted visitors to your niche website. The boosted posts method mentioned here works the same way. The cost is almost the same and maximum output is guaranteed. Facebook ads is as effective as Google AdWords and it's the next to talk about to Google AdWords when it comes to delivering traffic.



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Corzhens
Like you, I don't have experience either with that boosted posts but I have been seeing those ads on my timeline every now and then. What's cute in those boosted ads is that they include the line regarding your friends, making it appear that your friend had liked that post. As I had posted in another discussion, the boosted ad of Eden Cheese made it appear that I liked that ad. That is one way of influencing the audience.



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