By Analiese Ross | May 9, 2023

Now that we’ve broken down what the difference is between boosted posts and paid ads, let’s talk about which option is the right one for you!

To make life easier, we’ve put together a short, four-part questionnaire.

Step 1: Decide what your goal is for advertising.

If you are looking to increase brand awareness, boost engagement, grow your following, or expand your reach, then boosted posts are going to be the best tool for you!

• On the other hand, if your goals are to drive people a little lower down the sales funnel (i.e. conversions, purchases, email leads, app installs, etc.) then you will benefit greatly from the more advanced set of tools that are available on Ads Manager.

Step 2: Equally as important as your goal is determining what your monthly ad budget is.

• If you are working with a smaller budget ($10–$2,000) then you are going to want to focus your efforts on boosting. One of the great things about boosted posts is that you can run them successfully at almost any budget level!

• When you’re running a full ad campaign in Meta Ads Manager, you need to make sure that you have enough budget to allow the ads to fully optimize. The right amount of ad spend depends on the cost of your product/offering. We always recommend an absolute minimum spend of $2,000 / month in order to allow the campaign to exit the learning phase. That being said, if the product/service that you are advertising is a higher ticket offer (over $100), then your minimum ad spend will likely need to be higher than that recommended minimum. If you need help determining the best starting ad spend for you, shoot us a message (click here) and we will be happy to assist!

Step 3: Brainstorm the creative assets and messaging for your ads.

• If you already have content that you have shared organically that you would like to use for your ads, then boosting is going to be the perfect tactic! When boosting a post, you do not need to create any new content (in fact, you cant!); you must use a post that you have already published to your profile. Our recommendation is to look through your insights and see which posts are already driving the results that you want (i.e. new followers, plays, engagement, etc.) then boost those top performing posts!

• If you don’t want to share your ad content on your organic profiles or you want to tailor specific messaging to your different audience segments or platform placements, then you are going to have to use Ads Manager to create an ad campaign.

Step 4: Assess your comfort level with the platform and determine whether or not you need help executing your ads.

• Boosting posts is by far the easiest and most straightforward way to create ads on FB or IG. Even if you are a total beginner, you can watch a YouTube video or two and you will be ready to dip your toes in this new marketing method.

• If boosting is not conducive to your goals (i.e. you are focused on lead generation or conversions), then you will have to go with Meta Business Manager. Unfortunately, Business Manager is not very user-friendly. The vast array of tools and customization options make the platform very complex. So, if you have determined that an ad campaign is the right step for you, then the next step is to to decide if you think you can manage it yourself or if you need to enlist help!

Once you have thought through all four of these questions, you can weigh your answers to determine which method (boosted posts or ad campaigns) is going to work best for you!

If you are still unsure, shoot us a message and we will be glad to help!

We also offer a full management boosting and ad campaign packages (view our Services page for more info)!