How much does it cost to Advertise on Facebook in Singapore?

Is Facebook a dirty word in 2020?

Facebook has gone through hell and back. Their iconic founder, Mark Zuckerberg has been brought to the Senate with regards to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Does this affect advertising with Facebook in 2020?

Let’s find out.

Facebook Advertising in Singapore in 2020

Although Facebook has been facing a lot of heat in 2020, its advertising revenues have only grown in the past year. And in Singapore, Facebook advertising has become expensive compared to last year.

Why has Facebook Advertising become Expensive?

Competition

Singapore is a small market and there is a limited audience that companies can target. As more companies have benefited from Facebook advertising, there is a lot more competition in every niche that has increased the prices.

Keywords are making way for Audience Targeting

There is an interesting trend that is making its way in 2020 with regards to Facebook advertising and that is the use of audience targeting and less targeting for keywords. As audience targeting is a specific set, it costs much more to target an audience set, as every other market competes for the same audience.

Videos and Story Ads will become bigger

Text and images are passe. It’s all about video and story ads. As users, attention spans are dwindling considerably. The only way to grab users attention is to make videos. Videos are much more expensive to produce compared to texts and images. Videos will drive traffic and conversion, but it will also increase budgets.

Custom Conversions

Previously, Facebook Advertising was all about spending money, targeting a few keywords and that’s it. Now it’s all about metrics. Custom conversions are going to rule the roost in 2020.

Custom conversions are user actions that you define as a conversion. A user purchasing, or clicking through is a conversion metric.

As marketers focus on a particular conversion metric, it gets more expensive to target specific users to take specific actions, compared to driving traffic.

Challenges of Doing Facebook Advertising 2020

There are very few channels for advertising that are as hot as Facebook Advertising currently.

Every new business is considering Facebook Advertising because of a few things

The amount of time users spend on Facebook
The incredible targeting options offered by Facebook.
The number of users

Have a look at the image below.

According to Napoleon Cat. Singapore has 4.1 Million Facebook users. Singapore’s population in 2016 was 5.07 Million. This means, practically the entire country is on Facebook.

Now what platform gives you access to the entire country where you can target their users based on their age, where they live, where they work, the phone they have and much more.

This kind of segmenting is not heard of in the advertising business.

The closest competition to Facebook’s Advertising is Google. The issue with Google is, it’s more focused on intent based advertising and when a user is searching for something specific your ads will come up. With Facebook, ads are shown based on the persona of the user and it’s great for building brand awareness.

Facebook Advertising Costs Singapore

But what are the costs?

There isn’t a one cost fits all type of thing. The amount you pay per click depends on the competition you have from other advertisers (Just like Google). It can range from $0.09 cents to about $2.

The issue with the cost per click is, this price can change considerably depending on the markets and the situation. The best way to find out the true cost is to actually experiment with campaigns.

How should you start?

Facebook has a lot of options for Advertising. And this can be intimidating, when you are starting off.

If you haven’t touched any aspect of Facebook advertising, I would suggest you to do what you would at a buffet. Sample the food and see what works for you.

I call this phase the experiment phase. Here you would test out

Different kinds of Facebook Ads (Boost Post, Click to website)
The different kinds of payment options (Cost per click, cost per impressions)
Various Audiences

This experiment will help you figure out if Facebook advertising works for you, if at all. And if it does, by how much.

Examples of Facebook Campaigns Run by Novatise

Campaign #1

Company : Red White Mobile

What they do : They sell Mobile Phones in Singapore

Intention of the Campaign : Red White Mobile wanted to run a promotional campaign that showcased their pricing for Apple phones.

Campaign Numbers

Post Clicks
1,736
Paid Reach
15,535 people

Comments
75
Amount Paid
$50
Shares
30
Cost Per Click
$0.02

Summary

This is a great return for a campaign that is to build awareness and show the value of the company. The number of shares on that post directly improved organic reach, which was about 4,700 people. This is reach that the company did not pay for.

Campaign #2

Company Name : Hot Tomato

What they do : Restaurant chain in Singapore

Intention of the Campaign : To promote a simple competition for a $60 voucher by using the ‘Boost Post’ feature.

Numbers for the Campaign

People Reached
4,434
Comments
179
Shares
79
Cost
$180
Summary

The objective of this campaign was engagement. The success of this campaign is defined by two numbers. The comments and Shares. 179 comments shows how engaged users are with this post and the number of Shares shows how many evangelists the company was able to create.

Campaign #3

Company Name : ISOHomeCare

What they do : They are a portal for getting handymen for various services.

Intention of the Campaign : To promote the business and to drive high quality leads.

Numbers of the campaign

People Reached
20,041
Shares
38
Clicks
2,236
Spent
$200
Cost Per Click
$0.08

Summary

Having reached 20,000 people and a click through rate of 10% is a good conversion rate.

How to succeed with Facebook Advertising 

Facebook Advertising is one of the most popular advertising channels in the world. It’s second to only Google’s advertising channel. But Facebook advertising can be a little complicated as it isn’t as straightforward as Google’s advertising platform. Here’s how to succeed with Facebook advertising. 

#1 — Ace the creatives 

Facebook ads are all about stopping the users from scrolling, getting their attention and making them take action. This isn’t as easy as we think it is. People’s main action on these social media channels is scrolling. 

So use catchy creatives that include catchy images or videos. Text doesn’t get as much emphasis in catching people’s attention, but text is very important too. 

#2 — Know your Audience 

On Facebook you get to target the audience you wish. That includes the age, gender, location and other important parameters. But before you enter these details on Facebook, you need to know who your audience is and who is most likely to buy from you. 

#3 — Use your Website Audience to build Lookalikes

One of the best aspects about Facebook advertising is you can use your existing website audience to build lookalikes on Facebook. Facebook uses its algorithm to find similar audiences to the ones who visit your website. This immediately makes your campaign super effective because the chance of getting more conversions is higher. 

#4 — Choose the right location 

When running campaigns on Facebook advertising you should want to know the best performing area for your ads. To ensure you get that information, run ads that are focused on one area and don’t run ads that targets all areas at once. 

#5 — Choose the right target

What makes Facebook a super power is the advertising options you have and the targeting options you have. Here are a few examples. You can target people based on 

• The phone they have
• The OS they work with 
• The location they are in 
• The books they read 
• The movies they watch 
• The music they listen to 

These are just a few of the examples and there are much more examples which makes Facebook advertising a force to reckon with.

Facebook Advertising Strategies for 2020

Audience Segments

Facebook has been a strong advertising platform only because audiences can be segmented based on various parameters such as

• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Devices they use
• Where they are employed
• Location

and more…

Audience segments are what will make or break your campaigns. In 2020, it is suggested to create 20+ segments based on certain parameters. Generally, marketers only create 2 or 3 segments, but in reality, they should have at least 20+ segments.

Retargeting

People spend a lot of time on Facebook and Retargeting ads are some of the most effective on the platform. This is how retargeting ads work.

• A person visits a website, checks out a few products and drops off
• A person adds an item to a cart and then drops off

These people have shown interest in the product and can be retargeted with Facebook advertising and by giving a token discount which will make them purchase.

Perfecting your Facebook Posts

There is big advantage to making your Facebook posts perfect. In the Facebook advertising world, there is value to creating Ads that Facebook wants to show and this is measured by the Facebook Ad relevance score.

When your Facebook ad relevance score increases, then your cost per click reduces. Facebook wants to show your ads to people because they are most likely to be engaged with by users. Facebook doesn’t want to show bad or irrelevant ads to their users which diminishes the value of using the platform. Thus copywriting in terms of Call to Action is very important.

Read also: Best Practises for Facebook Marketing

Figuring out your Metrics

What is the number to track?

This is where things get interesting. There are various numbers to measure your Facebook campaigns with. What you measure depends on what you want.

Facebook Likes : Getting Facebook likes isn’t really an important metric anymore. Facebook expects you to pay to even reach people who have liked your page. This is what is popularly called a vanity metric. A number that adds no value to your business except your vanity.

Comments : Comments are a very underrated metric that shows the success of a campaign. Comments show that there’s engagement and people communicating with you. When you start communicating with users, it starts a conversation which can lead to future business or future purchases.

People Reached : People reached basically means the amount of people who have seen your posts. This is great for brand awareness. This is the internet version of a billboard that people see on the road. The more they see it, more likely there’s great brand recall and potential for future engagement.

Shares : This is a super power metric in my opinion. Shares takes engagement to the next level. People who see your ads and click on the share button become evangelists of your service. When they share, the ad is seen by their friends and their followers. Shares is the number one metric that can build virality. More shares, more the odds of going viral.

Will Facebook Advertising work for your Singapore business?

The common questions among various business owners is whether Facebook Advertising will work for their business.

The answer is, it depends.

Not all businesses can see direct benefit such as Revenue. In some cases, it’s more of brand building.

Whereas in other situations such as an e-commerce store that sells shoes and bags which is more of an impulsive purchase, businesses will see a direct benefit from Facebook advertising.

The Future of Facebook Advertising in a Nut Shell

When more Advertisers join, the more saturated and crowded it becomes. This demand pushes up the price and there might be a point where it does not make sense to advertise on Facebook because of the poor Return on Investment.

All marketing and advertising channels get saturated because of the potential. So riding the wave early will benefit your business tremendously without incurring huge costs.

Check out our FB ads writing service under Writise – 9USD per post.

If you need help in setting up creatives and campaigns, check out our Facebook Marketing for Small Businesses in Singapore.