Facebook Ads have many advantages and a few disadvantages. If you are active in online marketing, there is hardly any way around the social network and its advertising opportunities for companies anyway.
Costs
When it comes to Facebook Ads costs, the big advantage is cost control. The daily or term budget, as well as the maximum CPC, can be set by hand. Also, all-important cost factors can be called up in (almost) real-time.
Facebook Ads also offers advantages when it comes to billing since the surplus is simply calculated back if the expenditure is less than the maximum budget.
The disadvantage is the area of costs for Facebook results from the competitive situation. Since many companies are now advertising on Facebook and advertisers are “bidding” each other, the costs for certain industries can be quite high.
Usability
Facebook ads are very easy to use in terms of usability. The big advantage is the user interface, which is similar to the social network that you are used to from your private use. With its comprehensive information portal, Facebook also offers further information, videos, tutorials, best practices and FAQs on all content in the advertising area. This means that the basic functions can be learned quickly.
The preview functions, which also show what the ad will look like on different devices, also help when creating the advertisements.
The usability of the business manager, on the other hand, takes some getting used to, as there are a lot of functions in this tool, especially for newbies. However, it only takes a little practice, so that after a while you can take full advantage of these functions.
Competition
When it comes to costs, it has already sounded – of course; there is huge competition in the world’s largest social network these days. There is hardly a company that does not yet have its company page on Facebook. This offers the own company the advantage of learning from its competitors, possibly avoiding mistakes and positioning itself.
The downside is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. Users always expect different formats and content and also react to certain things less often than a while ago, so intensive competition monitoring and success monitoring are necessary.
Efficiency
Thanks to the enormous targeting options on Facebook, even the smallest niches can be reached. In such a case, the effectiveness of Facebook ads increases, of course, but so does the cost. Therefore, the efficiency of Facebook Ads is very dependent on the selected target group. With larger target groups, there is also the risk of wasted coverage, since the users reached may not be interested in the advertisements placed.
It also plays a major role in which phase of the purchase funnel the user should be addressed. Facebook certainly has the greatest efficiency in the early area of it, since needs can be aroused. But thanks to expanded functions, Facebook Ads can also bring efficiency to the rear of the buying process.
Also, Facebook Ads run the risk of negatively impacting efficiency by allocating a large budget for the creation of the advertisement. Because users always want new formats and content, moving image ads have been increasingly produced in recent years, which is, of course, more expensive than a pure image display.
Key facts at a glance
By converting the Facebook algorithm, a fan page hardly organically reaches users, so that more and more has to be invested in advertisements.
Facebook advertising can be a highly effective part of a company’s online marketing mix and also offers small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to reach a large and relevant target group. However, marketing managers should be aware that a lot of competition characterizes this environment and that the ads have to adapt more than the Google search ads to the visual and textual nature of the platform.
Advertisers have access to many different advertising formats and placements, on which bids can be made with a daily or term budget and which are settled by CPC or CPM basis.
Success monitoring is essential to find out how the target groups react to certain advertising media and how the budget should be distributed. Facebook’s tools are suitable for this but can be enriched by external services, such as Hootsuite, and provide further insights.