For years, Facebook has held the top spot when it comes to the largest social media network. More than one billion people login to Facebook regularly, making it a prime choice for businesses and advertisers. Whether you’re a small business or a huge empire, Facebook Ads are often one of the first choices any brand will make when formulating a broader marketing strategy. Anybody can get in on the action, and small businesses can easily afford budgets for targeted campaigns. If you’re considering one or more ad campaigns on Facebook and want to know how to determine what to spend, then keep reading to discover some tips for calculating your budget.

Assessing Your Potential Budget

Depending on the size and scope of your brand, your ad budget can vary considerably. The great thing about Facebook Ads is that it can be used for pinging websites, posts and content of all types on any budget. Whether you have $5 per day to spend or $5000, the targeting features that Facebook provides allow you to adjust your target audience to any size for maximum efficiency. For small businesses with a local approach, just a few dollars per day is probably enough to target everybody. For businesses seeking to reach people across a much larger area, hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month may be a more ideal investment. Generally speaking, one dollar per day per thousand people is a good starting point – though it’ll vary by industry and location.

Considering Industry and Location

Depending on who you’re targeting, what industry you’re in and where you’re located, your ad campaign may be greatly affected. The number of potential competitors can directly impact how much your ad campaigns cost; the more people targeting an audience, the more expensive your ads will be in order to ensure optimal visibility. It can often be worth it to consult with a social media ad team prior to making any large investments, as they’ll be able to optimize this balance. However, smaller companies can deploy a series of different campaigns with various bids, ad copy and targeting features to see which ads and targeting work the best for a brand. From there, it’ll be easier to design winning campaigns that generate the best results.

Ad Quality and Other Factors

Perhaps the most important element of any ad campaign – besides targeting the right people -is the quality of your ad. In order to compete not only with your direct competition but also with the insane amount of advertising people encounter daily, your ad copy and imagery need to be on point. While not entirely perfect, Facebook Ads provides an assessment of each ad in its “Relevance Score”, which assesses ads from 1-10. This will tell you not only how good your ad is for the target audience, but can provide an indirect indicator of cost as well. The best way to design an ad is to use bright imagery and test your ad copy with a variety of small-scale campaigns. You’ll then have data to support which formats are best suited for your audience.

Formulating an ad campaign on Facebook isn’t just about throwing content together and pinging websites at your audience. You need to carefully consider your audience and ad budget, assess how much competition exists in those industries and geographic areas, and then ensure that your ad quality is as good as possible. If you follow these rules, your ad campaigns will likely be a success.