Ads Manager or the „Boost Post” Button – Which One to Choose? Let’s Clear Up the Confusion!

„Boost Post” – What Is It and What Can It Do?

If you want your fan page to serve its purpose and for your content to engage your audience, organic efforts alone won’t suffice. Building a community around your brand requires implementing paid strategies. Here, Meta offers you a simple solution: a quick click on „Boost Post” under the content you want to promote, enabling you to reach a broader audience. Without a doubt, it’s the fastest and least complicated option, but how does it perform in practice?

Features of „Boost Post”:

• The primary advantage is its ease of use! After clicking the button under the post, all the optimizations are set up on a single screen, which walks you through the necessary steps. You can choose a call to action (CTA) for the specific post, such as „Buy Now” or „Learn More.” You can also specify the budget, campaign duration, and the ad placements. However, it doesn’t allow for future scheduling, meaning the ad will start running immediately after activation.
• With „Boost Post,” you can also select an advertising objective and define the target audience. These two aspects differ somewhat from Ads Manager, so let’s explore them further. When it comes to advertising objectives, the system automatically suggests one based on how your post is configured. It’s advisable not to rely on this automation—it’s better to manually define your goal, such as increasing traffic or engagement. When boosting a post, you can choose from the following objectives:
  
  

  

These objectives differ from those available in Ads Manager and, objectively, offer fewer options (as we’ll discuss further).

• Targeting options in „Boost Post” have become less restrictive compared to the past. In addition to basic audience segmentation by interests, age, and gender, you can also choose from saved custom audiences and lookalike audiences, but only if those have been previously created in Ads Manager. If you haven’t engaged in more advanced advertising activities and haven’t built these audience segments, you’re limited to broader targeting.
• Creating a campaign using the „Boost Post” option gives you access only to limited statistics. Why? Because the insights available on the fan page are significantly reduced, mainly showing reach, the number of actions taken, and the cost per action, as illustrated below:
  
  

  

Ads Manager – Why Should You Use It?

Ads Manager is Meta’s more advanced option for creating campaigns. First and foremost, it operates through a separate interface divided into three sections (Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads). At each stage of building a campaign, you configure various options in each tab. These options are more detailed and offer many additional features that allow for better optimization of your campaigns.

Features of Ads Manager:

• Ads Manager is more complex than simply boosting posts, but it also provides significantly more possibilities. First, when configuring the campaign, you can choose whether you want to spend your budget on a lifetime basis or on a daily budget. A lifetime budget will be optimally distributed by the ad system over the entire campaign duration, while a daily budget limits spending to a set amount per day. Another difference is the ability to schedule the start date of the campaign—you can plan it for a later launch. Regarding ad placements, both tools offer similar settings.
• The differences in advertising objectives are crucial. Ads Manager offers more specific options: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App Promotion, and Sales. Many of these objectives are not available through the „Boost Post” button. Notably, only in Ads Manager will a sales campaign be properly optimized, as it is based on the dedicated Sales objective. Remember, your campaign goal heavily influences the results.
• Targeting options in Ads Manager are more advanced. You can use data from a pixel installed on your website to create remarketing audiences, as well as lookalike audiences, which help you reach users similar to your existing customers.

Ads Manager = Detailed Data In Ads Manager, the range of available metrics is extensive. In fact, many of these metrics might not even be used regularly in everyday campaign optimization. By running campaigns with this tool, you can select the performance indicators that align with your advertising goals and even create custom metrics tailored to your needs.

Which is Better? A Comparison

Here’s a comparison between the two advertising methods on Meta, which will help you evaluate which option is best suited to your business needs:

 

Conclusion: What’s the Best Option for You? As an expert in this field, I can confidently recommend Ads Manager in most cases. However, if you’re not planning advanced campaigns or lack the experience, the simplified „Boost Post” version may suffice. That said, it’s worth looking toward the future and getting familiar with Ads Manager—at least to compare the tools and the additional opportunities they offer.

Key Takeaways:

• Define your goals. Only then will you know which tool is right for you. For more advanced objectives, consider Ads Manager.
• Determine your audience and whether basic targeting options will meet your needs. Want to use remarketing and lookalike audiences? Then Ads Manager is your tool.
• If campaign scheduling is important, Ads Manager is the only solution that allows for it.
• Data and metrics are crucial for optimization. The ability to analyze a broader range of data is only available in Ads Manager.