One of the most common questions that arise when delving into Facebook Advertising is: How much should I spend to achieve meaningful results?
The answer to this question isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. The ideal budget for Facebook Advertising varies depending on several factors, including your business goals, target audience, industry, and the competitiveness of the advertising landscape.
So what are the key considerations to help you determine the right budget for your Facebook Advertising campaigns?
1. Start with a budget you can afford to lose:
Investing in Facebook Advertising requires a mindset of experimentation and learning. Start with a budget that your business can afford to lose, as your return on investment only comes after a period of learning what works in terms of copy, creative, and offers. Typically marketing budgets sit at about 15% of revenue so based on your average sales revenue/day you might want to use that formula as a guide. E.g £100/day revenue = £15/day on ad spend.
2. Allocate budget for testing and optimisation:
After about 28 days of spending on testing audiences, creative variations, and offers, you can start to optimise the performance by targeting the spend on what works best. Proper testing is essential for refining your advertising strategy and maximising results.
3. Minimum budget recommendations:
To enable proper testing, it's recommended to allocate a minimum of £8-10 per audience per day. If you run one adset at this budget don’t try and go above 3 ads to test in the adset as the spend will be too thin to give true interpretation.
4. Consider conversion event volume:
For sales campaigns, Facebook requires at least 50 conversion events per week to come out of the "learning" phase. Depending on your conversion volumes, achieving this threshold may be challenging. However, don't be discouraged, as Facebook can still deliver good results even during the learning phase. Performance improves as you learn, optimize, and increase spending!
5. Set realistic expectations and monitor performance:
It's important to set realistic expectations for your Facebook Advertising campaigns. While instant success is rare, consistent monitoring of performance metrics and strategic adjustments can lead to significant improvements over time.
6. A small business start point:
A typical absolute minimum ad spend for most small businesses would be around £500/month. Remember, spending less means it takes longer to learn what works, so you could budget to spend more for the "learning phase" and then bring it back down to a level that gives you the return on investment you're looking for.
7. How do I increase my ad spend after I create the ad?
In the Results of your ad, scroll down and tap the pencil icon next to your budget. You can edit your budget from here. Wait at least 7 days before making any major changes to your new ad.
8. Where does the ad spend come from?
Because we connect to your ad accounts, your ad spend comes from your credit card or payment method on your Facebook Ad account. Please make sure this payment method on your ad account is up-to-date and active. If it’s not, your ads will not go live.
9. What currency will it spend in?
We will automatically match the currency to your Facebook ad platform billing settings. For example, if your ad account is based in GBP it will spend in GBP. If your ad account is based in EUR, it will spend in EUR.
In conclusion, finding the right budget for Facebook Advertising involves a combination of experimentation, analysis, and optimisation. By starting with a budget you can afford to lose, allocating funds for testing and optimisation, following minimum budget recommendations, setting realistic expectations, and considering budget adjustments as needed, you can maximise the effectiveness of your advertising investment and achieve meaningful results on Facebook.
Remember, success in Facebook Advertising is a journey that requires patience, investment, learning and adaptation before you start to see the results you’re looking for.