On the one hand, it’s super effective for small businesses. We’ve tested boosting stacked with conversion ads, with or without reusing the posted, versus straight conversion ads.
On the other hand, the boosted posts are primarily driving likes/comments/shares, often at the expense of conversion- since Facebook will sub-target to people who engage but will never buy.
The same is true of the website clicks objective- to deliver “clicky users” that cost 550% more than when you use the conversion objective.
Our Facebook reps also run reports across all our accounts to see what mix of objectives we are using. They and we get dinged for boosting posts, which is the same as “engagement” in Ads Manager.
My current take is that boosting posts is great if you are a small business or public figure.
For the former, they don’t need crazy micro-targeting and optimization. They just need to reach people in their neighborhood to sell houses, get fit, offer services, or come into their stores.
For the latter, social proof (authority and credibility) are key among a particular niche audience. Mine is digital marketers and entrepreneurs, for example. And because I am NOT selling most of the time, the conversion objective doesn’t make sense.
Like right now- I’m not selling. I’m sharing what I’ve learned in the hopes that it helps you in some way.
And our team will likely copy this post to my public figure page to boost. That means we are spending money to educate without expecting anyone to buy anything right then.
Over time, we engage with these folks and build a relationship, which eventually leads to them joining our monthly membership or buying implementation packages.
I’ve asked Facebook why they don’t want us to boost posts when the button is right there on every single post and when it’s worked so well (we’ve tested it many different ways)?
If brand awareness (don’t get me started about this one) is so much better than page engagement as an objective, why not just change the objective of the boost button?
That’s something they are considering, they say.
Meanwhile, if you’re not a small business or entrepreneur, and if you already have a converting funnel with strong remarketing, you won’t need the boost post button. Use Ads Manager with your conversion objective, selecting that post from the page or entering in the posted.
Are you boosting posts?
What have you noticed in your results?
