Last week, I officially got my new Facebook Page up and running, scheduled some content, and dipped my toe into the world of Facebook ads with just $1 a day for engagement. Now, if you’re thinking that $1 a day won’t do much, you’re about to be as surprised.
The $5 Ad Experiment
I kicked off my first ad with a modest budget of $1 per day, running it for 5 days—just $5 total. My goal was simple: drive some initial engagement and see how people reacted to the content. Honestly, I didn’t expect much, but the results? They blew me away.
Over those 5 days, the ad reached over 2,500 people and racked up 809 engagements. That’s right, 809! Even better, I calculated that I was getting each engagement for just 0.6 cents. If you’ve ever run Facebook ads, you know that’s a solid result, especially for an engagement ad.
Pro Tip: Turn Engagements into Followers
Here’s where it gets even better. Those 809 engagements? They’re not just a nice vanity metric—you can use them to grow your page.
Here’s a little trick: You can invite people who engage with your ads to like your page. Yes, that’s right, you can turn those post likes, hearts, and reactions into potential followers. Here’s how you do it:
- Pull up the post you used in the ad.
- Click on the engagement emojis (likes, hearts, etc.).
- You’ll see a list of all the people who reacted to your post.
- Next to their names, you’ll see an option to invite them to like your page.
Invite them all. Seriously. A good number of these people will start following your page, and it’s one of the easiest ways to build your follower count from the engagement you’re already paying for.
Time to Grow Followers: Like Ads
Now that the engagement ad was a success, it’s time to switch gears and focus on growing page likes. To make any real headway and qualify for the Facebook bonus program, you need followers, a lot of them. Engagement ads are fantastic, but they’re the slow train when it comes to growing your page.
This week, I set up my first Facebook Like ad. I didn’t overcomplicate it. I just grabbed one of the more popular posts from my page, one that had already gotten a good amount of organic engagement, and used that for the ad. Just like before, I kept the budget at $1 per day to start.
Testing the Waters
The key with Facebook ads, especially for page growth, is to start small and test. You don’t want to blow your budget on the first ad you run. I’m running this like ad for a few days to test the waters, and I’ll compare the cost per follower with future ads.
Here’s what I’m looking for: Anything over 20 cents per follower is probably bad, but anything under 10 cents is great. The sweet spot will depend on your niche, but those are the rough benchmarks I’m using.
What’s Next?
Next week, I’ll break down how the follower ad performed and share some insights on what I’m doing to keep growing. Stay tuned to see if I hit that sweet cost per follower spot, and as always, keep experimenting!