Facebook Ads: What They Are and How They Work
The rapid growth of social networks is now evident, and many companies have decided to shift their advertising budgets from traditional to online media.
But why is Facebook so important as a digital advertising platform?
The answer is simple and lies in the numbers: just consider that more than 2 billion people use Facebook, and the possibility of reaching each of these with almost surgical precision highlights the enormous potential.
In this article we will first go to answer the most common questions about Facebook Ads—such as what they are, when they are useful, how much they cost, etc.
What Are Facebook Ads?
Facebook Ads is Facebook’s native platform for serving advertisements on the platform.
Since Facebook has tons of data about its users, which they voluntarily provide in their profiles (e.g., age, location, interests), it has a very good idea of who its users are and what they are interested in. For example, if you like a page related to football, Facebook can use this information to understand that you are interested in the sport.
You will therefore understand that the potential to submit well-defined, targeted advertisements to such users is enormous.
Why Advertise on Facebook?
In the past few years, social media has become one of the most effective advertising channels, capable of generating new leads. A lead is an individual or company that has shown interest by sharing contact information, such as email address, telephone number … (contacts), and turning them into paying customers.
Facebook Ads works in both B2C and B2B (business-to-business), which describes companies that sell products or services to other businesses. For example, Studio Samo is primarily a B2B company because it sells… and in many cases shows an increase in results, even 5 times, after using advertising (abbreviated ADV) means. Advertising is a paid message that a company sends to inform or influence the people who receive it … on Facebook.
Facebook‘s growth has provided a wide range of opportunities for advertisers, but at the same time, social media advertising is growing rapidly across the globe. Spending in social media advertising reached approximately 338.75 billion U.S. dollars in 2026.
Facebook also remains a massive platform with a large and active base. This platform has a huge reach for advertisers. As of the 2nd quarter of 2026, Meta announced that its family of apps had 3.6 billion daily active users.
With Facebook Ads you can reach each of these users has a target that refers to a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products or services. The target is, consequently, also … highly customizable, including interests, demographics, locations, actions performed on a website, and much more.
When Should You Advertise on Facebook?
So should you do Facebook advertising?
The answer depends on your goals. You need to ask yourself what your goals are, and once you understand how Facebook advertising works, the answer will be clear.
If you want to reach an audience that might be interested in your product or service, Facebook Ads will certainly be for you, allowing you to show your ads to a specific target audience.
If you have traffic on your site or e-commerce (regardless of how it was obtained), you may want to target those users again with your ads. You know how, when you’re seeking a product, you visit a site and then go to Facebook, where you see its sponsored ads?
This is to retarget those users able to create customized user lists based on their actions, such as visiting a particular page (article, product, or landing page), and use these lists for well-targeted ads. (Note: a “landing page” is a page specially created to convert site visitors into leads (contacts) or customers, often after they have added items to their cart.)
This aspect introduces us to the concept of a funnel (also known as a sales funnel or
marketing funnel) is the process by which companies guide customers in purchasing products. The…of sale.
It will be essential to have a clear strategy for our Facebook Ads campaign. It will be appropriate to understand where the prospect is in our sales funnel and show different ads depending on how close they are to making a purchase.
We will certainly not be able to propose to a potential customer who does not know our brand. A brand is an identification symbol, trademark, logo, name, word, and phrase that companies use to distinguish their product from others. A combination of these factors will help us show the same ad to people who have our product in their cart but have not yet purchased it.
How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost?
How much do Facebook Ads cost? Price is the amount of money required for a product or service. In a broad sense, the price is the sum of all the costs involved in producing and selling a product or service. It is the most frequently asked question in this environment. Unfortunately, the answer is, once again, “It depends.”
The cost depends on what you are advertising, who you are targeting, how much competition there is, and what your goals are. A competitor is a company in the same sector or a similar sector that offers a similar product or service. Could be… they are there, and what are your goals? Just to name a few.
Before getting to the total costs of a Facebook campaign, it is important to understand how those costs are determined. Unlike traditional advertising methods, Facebook does not have a fixed price for each positioning but uses an auction system in which advertisers compete for ad placements. This is because Facebook users can only see a limited number of ads per day.
Various factors determine which ad will be shown, to whom it will be shown, and at what cost:
Who are you targeting? As we will see later, the targeting possibilities are many, and depending on the target you choose, you will compete with other advertisers.
Engagement refers to the level of interaction users have with a company or brand, often measured through actions such as clicks and other interactions.
Facebook assigns each ad a relevance score from 1 to 10 depending on the associated target and its response. The more interactions and clicks, the higher your score and the more likely your ad will be viewed at lower costs.
The more competitive the sector, the higher the costs will be. There will be times of the year, such as some holidays, when costs could increase significantly.
In the case of auctions, the “bidding” strategy will play a fundamental role. You can choose from various options, but which one is best will depend on your campaign goals.
You can pay in various ways:
Cost per Impression
You pay for each view of your ad. It is preferable to use this option when you want to reach as many people as possible, for example, in a brand awareness campaign.
Cost per Click
You only pay if someone clicks on your ad. This option is preferable when we want to encourage users to click on a link that will take them to the site or a specific landing page.
Cost per Action
You only pay when a user takes a certain action, such as filling out a registration form, purchasing a product, or visiting a certain page. With this option, Facebook will show ads to the people most likely to do one of these actions.
You will then understand that answering the question “How much does it cost me?” is complex. The key is to set a budget and manage it effectively, reaching potential customers wisely and focusing on the most relevant parameters, such as the cost per conversion in web marketing. Conversion means when a user takes a specific, measurable action that is important to your business.
Facebook Ads vs. Google Ads: Which Is Better?
This is a question that is asked very often. The answer is always, “It depends.”
We need to understand what the goals are that we want to achieve with our advertising campaign. It is often essential to combine both strategies; the best choice will depend on your goals, and Facebook Ads can help you achieve them.
If the goal is to do branding, it is a marketing technique used by companies to create the desired image of a product or company in the consumer’s mind. And therefore, to stimulate users who do not know us and may be interested (a latent question), the best choice is Facebook Ads, which will allow you, as we will see later, to reach potential customers with various types of targeted targeting and obtain leads.
Similarly, you can also take advantage of the ads on the Google Display Network to reach potential customers by displaying your banner ad, or web banner, which are advertisements displayed on a web page. The ad consists of an image (.jpg, .png, or .gif) or an object that is displayed in a very specific position.
If, on the other hand, the question is aware, that is, the user is looking for your product or service, the right approach is to use Google Ads by creating ads on the Search Network. In this case, the user is already in a much lower part of the funnel and is therefore more likely to buy since he is looking for your product/service.
Obviously, in most cases, we will find both types of questions, and we will have to use both platforms together. The key thing is to understand where the user is in our sales funnel and act accordingly; we will never tire of pointing this out.
It can also be useful to use remarketing to users who have shown interest in the product or service using both Facebook Ads and AdWords on the display network.
Attention: What happens if we intercept potential customers on Facebook through FB Ads and they later look for us on Google, but we are not organically positioned (without paying) for that keyword?
Simply, they will click a competitor’s link. The risk is that potential customers may click on a competitor’s ad instead. This scenario shows how important SEO is when your website does not rank organically for the relevant keyword. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the set of strategies and practices used to position websites or web pages in the organic results of search engines. It is also possible to run ads on the Google search network to cover some keywords.
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