How Much to Advertise on Facebook and Instagram in 2024

Instagram and Facebook are two great platforms for advertising due to the vast reach and popularity in usage. As time goes by, getting the best advertising results on these platforms is getting harder and harder due to lowering CTR (click-through rates). This is because advertising content is attempting to become more and more engaging and old methods don’t work anymore. So, how much is it really needed to reach the number of users that we need and how to put the money into use wisely? In this article, we will be going through the costs of advertising on Facebook and Instagram along with different pricing models.

Instagram Ads Compared with Facebook Ads

As you may already know, Instagram is a part of Facebook’s Advertising platform. This means that Facebook gives you the option to advertise your content on Instagram through its plans, as well. However, these two companies have different bidding systems and factors for advertising. That is why you should first make sure about the type of audience you are dealing with.

Let’s just say that the most effective way to advertise is making sure which platform is more viewed by your target audience. As a mere example, let’s say you have a company that is hoping to find men younger than 24 and older than 17 as its target audience. According to Statista, 13.4% of Facebook users fall in that age range and gender category. However, the stats are different for Instagram, having 17.9% of its users in that age range and gender.

This shows that more men in the age range of 18-24 are on Instagram compared to Facebook. You can use this type of stats, which are mostly out in the public, to figure out what your target audience population truly is on each platform. So, in our example, if you are looking for gamers or people interested in art, you can narrow it down furthermore.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the median click-through rate on Instagram is 0.22% while this value on Facebook is 1.11%. Nevertheless, there are different factors playing important roles in these values, such as the industry that you’re advertising in and the target audience. Finally, pay attention to the country you are trying to advertise in and the date or event that is around the corner.

Factors Determining the Advertising Costs

The prices that you will have to pay on the Instagram and Facebook advertising platforms are not always the same. Similarly, there are ways to understand how the price you pay will be affected. Some of these factors are listed here.

• Your bid. Facebook works in this way: you bid the amount of money you are willing to pay based on the bidding models of Facebook and Instagram. Then, your bid enters an auction with other people willing to do the same thing.
• Your ad quality. This refers to some criteria that Facebook and Instagram use to make sure your ad is qualified. They usually take some time to review whether people had any bad reactions to the content, whether they hid the content, or if there is use of strong and explicit language in the advertisement. If your ad has the required quality and doesn’t include any potential scam or doesn’t act as a bait. If it does have this explicit type of content, then you will have to pay more.
• Estimated Action Rates. This means that Facebook and Instagram will investigate the possibility of your ad not being converted. If the estimated action rates for your ad are low, you will definitely have to pay more. Nowadays, Instagram keeps track of how your previous ads performed, how many engagements they received, and whether they were relevant or not.
• Holidays. Not only is there more competition going on around the holiday times, but also less people are usually spending their time on social media instead of having drinks with their friends. That is why the CPC (Cost-per-click) prices dramatically increase, as you will have to pay more while less people will actually click on your ad.
• Weekdays. Same as the previous factor, users are usually not online as much during the weekend, and there is more competition going on throughout the weekdays. That is why Instagram and Facebook will be charging you more. So expect to bid higher on weekdays rather than Saturdays and Sundays.
• Your Industry. As mentioned before briefly, your industry matters a lot in the price you will have to pay, because some markets are just more competitive and more expensive than others. This is also related to the target audience of that industry. For example, targeting themes related to men will cost less than targeting female markets, because less men spend time on social media.

Bidding Options on Facebook

Before we get to the costs of advertising on Facebook, let’s take a look at the different bidding options that you will have for advertising. The option you choose is definitely going to affect how much money you will end up giving to Facebook. In addition, these bidding options usually can be translated into each other:

• CPC (Cost-per-click): Paying for the ad in exchange for every click on the ad.
• CPM (Cost-per-thousand-impressions): Paying in exchange for every 1000 users that see your ad.
• CPL (Cost-per-like): Paying in exchange for every time someone likes your business ad or post.
• CPA (Cost-per-action): Paying in exchange for every time your ad converts when a usage is engaging with it.

Now it is important to know which one of these models is the most beneficial for your business. Typically, CPC is considered to be the most effective and beneficial one, since you don’t end up paying for unnecessary actions on your ads. If you use CPL or CPA, you can expect to pay much more than that without actually getting more engagement or the kind of interaction that you would want. That is why paying for every time a user clicks on your ad is beneficial.

The next thing you need to know is the existence of something called ‘Bidding Strategy’ on Facebook. The price you will end up paying will also depend on these strategies. There are generally two types of bidding strategy.

1. Manual Bidding. In this method, you will have complete control over how much money you will be bidding and how much money you will end up paying for advertisement. It means that you can achieve whatever CPC that your business desires at the end.
2. Automatic Bidding. In this type of bidding, Facebook will help you achieve the lowest possible CPC or CPA bids and be able to compete with others in a more cost-effective way. Many people will choose this strategy, especially if they are short on their budget.

Facebook Advertising Costs

Facebook has 2.89 billion monthly active users, according to Statista. This makes it a perfect place with vast opportunities of reaching out to more people. In the previous section, different bidding options were introduced. Here is a table that comprehensively explains the advertising costs on Facebook based on different bidding options, according to RevealBot.

Keep in mind that these numbers are all average amounts for a whole year of 2020-2021. According to this table, and what Facebook claims, you should be spending at least $1 on advertisements based on impressions daily. Furthermore, if you want to pay by CPC or CPL, you will need at least $5 a day, and if you are planning to pay as CPA, you should expect to spend at least $40 to make your ads convert daily. Therefore, summing them all up, you need to be spending a minimum of $200 to $1 500 on average on Facebook ads. This amount goes up to $2 500 a month for an ad campaign.

Now, as mentioned before, these numbers are not all stable. They differ according to your industry and factors mentioned earlier in this article.

Bidding Options on Instagram

The bidding options on Instagram are usually the same as Instagram, however, there are some differences in how each model is defined. Here is a look at Instagram’s models for business to bid.

• CPC (Cost-per-click): Paying for the ad in exchange for every click on the ad.
• CPM (Cost-per-thousand-impressions): Paying in exchange for every 1000 users that see your ad.
• CPL (Cost-per-like): Paying in exchange for every time someone likes your Instagram post.
• CPA (Cost-per-action): Paying in exchange for every time sometimes completes an action, such as buying something that you wanted to.

When you are trying to make an ad on Instagram, all these options will be asked from you, and you can choose what the purpose of your ad is, what type of audience you want to reach, and what type of action you are hoping to get done. Just like Facebook ads, many companies use CPC. On Instagram, if someone clicks on your ad, it means that you have managed to grab their attention, whether it’s liking the post, or visiting your website or your profile. That is why this model is beneficial for businesses.

However, for larger businesses that already have a name established for themselves, such as McDonald’s, a CPM option would suffice, since their marketing strategy is not to pursue users to make a purchase immediately, but rather to keep the name of their brand alive when it comes to a market where their competitors have presence.

Instagram Advertising Costs

According to Statista, Instagram now has more than 1 billion monthly active users. Now that we know about different bidding options on Instagram, it is time to take a look at the most common ways of Instagram bidding prices. The table below shares the average price you would expect to pay per click or per 1 000 impressions, according to RevealBot’s data.

Now, remember that these prices are merely the average for the past year of 2020-2021. It means that in different industries the prices could be lower or higher. As mentioned, before most companies prefer the CPC option.

While the minimum spend on Instagram is exactly like Facebook, $1 for impressions, $5 for clicks and likes, and $40 for actions such as making a purchase, on a daily basis, the industry and the competition will definitely affect the prices. The minimum budget to spend on ads on Instagram is again at $200 to $1 500 a month based on the sum of prices for daily spend. You can try this for both platforms and increase the limit for the platform that proves to be more profiting for your business.

Differences Between Budget and Bid

Lots of people seem to confuse these two concepts. When trying to advertise on Facebook, running an ad campaign, you have to specify the budget and the bids on two completely different occasions.

Let’s say you are running an ad campaign on Facebook with a $1 500 budget, which you will have to specify in the budget section. Next, you have to specify how much you are willing to pay for each person liking, viewing, or clicking on your ad. This means that you are paying on the basis of CPL, CPM, or CPC. That amount of money can be around $2 in our example for CPC of a specific product and a specific target audience.

In this example, imagine you are planning to spend $40 a day for 20 clicks per day. In case you win all the bids for $2 as CPC, at the end of the month, you will have $600 left, because you did not spend it. Now, that is not always the case. Sometimes you will have to bid higher or lower, and then more money will be spent from your budget. However, never will even a penny more than your budget be spent for the ads.

Tips for Spending Wisely on Instagram and Facebook Ads

Even though the prices are straightforward, and they depend on the factors mentioned earlier in this article, there are some things you can do to make sure more people will grow to be interested in your ad. Therefore, you don’t have to pay as much.

Try to narrow down your target audience to the best possible number of people that will be interested in your product. You can focus on their age range, gender, location, language, demographics, interests, types of connections, and behaviors. Both Facebook and Instagram will provide insights on exactly how many people you can expect to reach out, and exactly how much you can expect to pay. They also show you whether your target audience is too broad or too narrow.

Make use of other settings. Both Instagram and Facebook allow you to set a budget, target users on a specific device, or when your ads will be showing. You can also set whether you want people to see an ad several times or whether you want the ad to be presented to each person once.

Choose the best type of format for your ads. Try to make it look consistent and in-line with the type of product you are trying to sell. For example, if a video would convert better for a specific product, or if a meme would attract more people, then don’t lose the chance.

Embrace the use of Native ads. Native ads are the type of ads that look like the other normal posts on Instagram or Facebook. These types of ads will make users think this is just another post and not an ad. In these cases, users will end up being more interested in the ad and checking out the website or page. Especially if it is accompanied by some sort of personality that makes users not even doubt whether it is a clickbait or not.

Conclusion

Now that you know how much it costs to advertise on Facebook and Instagram, you are always free to test for a week or for a day to check the performance yourself. Even though as you continue, the path will become easier to pave, it would not hurt for you to test how active your target audience is on each platform. Make sure that your content is engaging enough. As long as your content is not quality advertisement content, no matter how much money you spend, you cannot increase your Click-through-rates. Remember, practice makes perfect.