Boosted Posts vs Ads Manager - Which is More Effective?

By: Kate Ford

In today’s saturated world of social media and ever changing algorithms, the reach of organic posts has been decreasing as social media companies look to increase their revenue through paid advertising. Organic posts typically only reach 1-2% of your followers on any given day - even if you are consistently producing quality content.

So, how do companies reach more followers?

If you need to get your product or service in front of a large audience, relying solely on a “going viral” strategy is not going to cut it. It’s time to start investing in digital, paid advertising strategies.

Facebook and Instagram offer two main types of ads, Boosted Posts and Paid Ads through Ads Manager. Depending on the goal of your next ad campaign, you will want to consider your audience and then decide on what type of ad to run. Let’s dive into the differences between Boosted Posts and Paid Ads.

Boosted Posts

To boost a post on social media, you start by putting advertising money toward a post that has already been posted on your page’s timeline. While adding your budget, you will also be able to add a target area and some basic audience specifics.

The biggest benefit of utilizing boosted posts is that they are extremely easy to understand and do not require a lot of additional set-up. They are great for increasing general brand awareness and giving an already popular post even more reach.

Boosted posts come with a few disadvantages as well because they lack the functionality of Ads Manager. This means that you can only set limited parameters and audience targeting for your ad and you also cannot specify ad placement or create custom audiences. This leaves it up to the algorithm to decide which people to target and you run the risk of the algorithm learning the wrong type of audience for your business.

Paid Ads

Paid Ads are built out separately through a Facebook Business Manager tool called Ads Manager.

With this type of ad, you can be very granular in your targeting approach. Ads Manager offers more advanced targeting capabilities and campaign goal options such as Traffic Ads to drive website visits or Lead Generation Ads that provide actual leads you can turn into a text campaign for your business. You also have the ability to create custom and lookalike audiences, choose ad placement, run A/B testing, and Ads Manager provides you with greater creative control to craft dynamic ads, carousel ads, video ads, and more.

Because Ads Manager is significantly more advanced that Boosted Posts, the main disadvantage of using Ads Manager is that you will need a pretty thorough understanding of how to build out Business Manager and your ads correctly (since ads are built mainly from scratch with this platform).

Final Note

With billions of daily users and an ROI that's hard to beat, your small business cannot afford to stop digital advertising. Boosted Posts and Paid Ads provide companies with the capability to reach more people on social media. If you are looking for increased brand awareness or want to run a specific giveaway or promotion, boosted posts can be a good place to start your ad strategy. If you are looking to increase traffic, find leads, or trying to increase conversions, investing time and money into learning and developing Ads Manager will be more effective for your strategy in the long run.

When to Consider Outside Help

If all of this sounds overwhelming or out of your wheelhouse, you are not alone! Business owners have a lot on their plate and often, marketing falls to the wayside. If you and your team are looking to focus on operations and hate keeping up with the latest trends, consider setting up a free digital advertising strategy call with Social Cookie!

During the call, we will go over your marketing needs and see if our services would be a good fit for your brand. Plus, you will receive a Free Digital Ad Audit after the call! Each Ad Audit analyzes your latest ad campaign and provides tips on how to make your ads more successful in the future.

Interested in a chat? Book a Call and start getting your questions answered today!