If I told you that Boosted Posts are NOT the same as Facebook Ads….would you believe me? Well, it’s true!
The problem is that there are many people that mistakenly assume Boosted Posts to be equivalent to Facebook Ads. Many of them are upset when Boosted Posts do not meet their performance expectations. This is mainly due to the fact that Boosted Posts are not capable of generating the performance they want, which typically requires skilled use of Facebook Ads.
In this article, you will learn the differences between Facebook Boosted Posts and Ads.
What are Boosted Posts?
Boosted Posts are exactly what they sound like…posts that you “boost.” Boosting a post, by Facebook’s definition, simply involves paying money to get your post to reach (or get in front of) more people. That’s it!
The sole benefit of boosted posts is to get more people to ‘see’ your posts.
That does not mean that the people are more likely to take a specific action (like purchase), it simply means that more eyeballs will see your post. This is useful when you have a post that received lots of attention and engagement from your existing audience and you want to expand your audience to increase those engagement numbers even more.
You may be asking, “If boosted posts do not really help with achieving most marketing or sales goals, why does Facebook always encourage me to boost my posts?”
The answer is simple. Boosted posts are easy for you to build and, most importantly, an easy way to get you to spend money with Facebook.
Facebook is a business, and ultimately their goal is to make money. Boosted Posts present the perfect opportunity to do that, especially with people that are intimidated by building ads in the Ads Manager.
That leads us to the next point, Facebook Ads.
What are Facebook Ads?
Unlike boosted posts, Facebook Ads give you full reign and control over your ad campaign. Facebook ads are built using the Facebook Ads Manager.
There are tons of options within the Ads Manager that allow you to create a campaign designed to achieve a specific goal.
Some of the options at your fingertips include:
Objectives (leads, traffic, purchases, etc.)
Audience (target according to geographics, demographics, psychographics, etc.)
Creative (images, video, image carousel, etc.)
Ad Placement (newsfeed, in-stream, audience network, stories, etc.)
Budget
As you can see, your choices are almost limitless when running Facebook Ads within the Ads Manager.
In summary, the Ads Manager grants you more power over your campaign so that you can get it to do exactly what you want it to do, and achieve a positive return on investment.
Side-by-side comparison
As you can see in the image below, the only similarity Boosted Posts share with Facebook Ads are limited targeting capabilities. Past that, Facebook Ads deliver much more control over your campaign.
Conclusion
Hopefully it’s clear now. If you intend to run an ad campaign, you should definitely do so using the Facebook Ads Manager and not Boosted Posts. The Ads Manager provides you with much more control over the campaign and thereby increases your chance of success.