Are Facebook Ads a Waste of Money?

Some businesses spend gobs of money on online ads, like Google Ads or Facebook Ads. However, ads don’t make sense for all businesses especially if you’re in a competitive industry. You don’t want to throw money at ads if you don’t get qualified traffic and conversions. You can focus on SEO for a more effective return on investment (ROI). If your website is optimized and you’re staying on top of monthly SEO, then you can skip ads, save money and get effective traffic/conversions.  

What are Facebook Ads? 

The goal of Facebook Ads is to drive traffic to your site. Facebook Ads can appear in the News Feed on the desktop and mobile versions and in the right column of Facebook on desktop. Sometimes ad content gets paired with news about social actions that your friends have taken, such as “liking” a Page, according to Facebook. 

You create different advertising goals and then build campaigns to reach different aspects of the marketing funnel (brand awareness, reach, conversions, traffic, engagement, catalog sales, store traffic, video views, app installs). 

Facebook Ad Disadvantages

Cost: The cost of ads vary based on your industry and your bidding model. For cost-per-click (CPC), Facebook advertising costs around $0.97 per click. If you use cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM), Facebook advertising costs around $7.19 per 1000 impressions, according to this article.

Learning Curve: There’s an art to content marketing, and small businesses may not have the knowledge to effectively use Facebook Ads. Small business owners wear plenty of hats, and digital marketing might not be one of them. 

Ads go unnoticed: If many of your competitors use Facebook Ads, then your ad may go unnoticed. Catching people’s attention and getting your ad noticed amongst all of the news feed updates can be challenging. It requires creative ad-sets that can add an additional cost. 

Why Focus on SEO? 

Optimizing your site can send you an unlimited number of visitors…you aren’t held back by your advertising budget cap. It really levels the playing field so even smaller businesses can create a Web presence and compete with big companies through organic searches. SEO optimization is an efficient form of online marketing. You can use effective keywords to help potential customers find your business through Web searches. The main SEO goal is to appear on Google page 1 so your business gets more visibility. 

SEO Considerations

We have plenty of blog posts about SEO tips and tricks if you want detailed information about finding keywords, using keywords and tracking progress. Here are some additional considerations as you plan your SEO strategy. 

Quality content: One way to help SEO efforts is to provide readers with quality content on your site. This helps with engagement, keeps visitors on your page longer and improves rankings. 

How’s your site? Take a hard look at your site to make sure your site’s communication is clear and your information is correct. Ensure your site’s structure is organized and straightforward so that you can be found online.

Be patient with SEO. SEO generally takes time to see ranking movement, but usually you’ll see improvements within a month. However, once you get your initial SEO ready, you can maintain it each month and monitor rankings without spending tons of time. Or, hire an SEO expert and save time and get a good ROI. 

Running your own business is hard, especially right now. Leave the SEO to us so you can focus on other aspects of your business. Partner with Acquire to get a free SEO analysis to start analyzing your site optimization and improving your rankings. We can take care of your SEO, save you time and money by skipping digital ads. Please reach out with any SEO questions!