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<\/p>\nOne of the most burning questions any advertiser asks themselves is: \u201cHow much do Facebook Ads cost?\u201d<\/p>\n
As you\u2019ll soon see, the only true answer is \u201cIt depends.\u201d<\/p>\n
The truth of the matter is that how much you pay for your Facebook ads will vary depending on the month, day, hour, and location (and those are just a fraction of the variables at play).<\/p>\n
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As an advertising platform, AdEspresso has managed over $636 million in ad spend<\/strong>. In this article, we\u2019ll use this information to provide you Facebook Ad cost averages for 2021 and 2020 so you can budget for 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ll also include the previous year’s information to give you more historical context for your benchmarking.<\/p>\n So buckle up because you won’t find Facebook Ads Cost benchmarks that are as comprehensive, precise, or based on as large a data set anywhere else.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before you read any further, keep in mind that this article will not tell you exactly how much your specific campaign<\/em> is going to cost, but it will give you some benchmarks to set your own KPIs.<\/p>\n If you are interested to know how much you need to spend<\/strong> to achieve your own targets, you can use our handy <\/strong>Ads Cost Calculator<\/strong><\/a> to do so.<\/p>\n In this 2021\/2022 edition of our Facebook Ads cost guide, we\u2019ll cover:<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n We\u2019ll cover differences based on the month, day of the week, and hour of the day. We\u2019ll also explain the top factors involved in the cost of advertising with Facebook and the steps you can take to reduce them.<\/strong><\/p>\n Want a shareable guide for your colleagues or clients? Download our free e-book. It contains all the 2021 benchmarks for Facebook Ad costs you see here, plus tips for how to understand the data.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \n Before we go into costs, it\u2019s important that we take a second to talk about the bidding process.<\/p>\n Because advertising on Facebook is more like an auction house than a guaranteed bet, there will always be a change in your cost that you cannot control. However, you can set the odds in your favor by using smart bidding strategies.<\/p>\n When you create a campaign, you can adjust your bid on the pricing and bidding section<\/a>. If you don\u2019t, Facebook will automatically calculate a bid for you based on your budget and how long you choose to have your ad run.<\/strong><\/p>\n As we mentioned before, it\u2019s important to remember that this is an auction and you are bidding against every other advertiser on the platform<\/strong>. This means that at any given time you have hundreds upon hundreds of other advertisers all going for the eyes of Facebook users.<\/p>\n Ensuring you have a good bidding strategy in place will allow you to remain competitive, and give your ads a better shot at delivery.<\/strong><\/p>\n There are a large number of factors that can affect how much your Facebook Ads cost<\/strong>, and bids are only one of them.<\/p>\n These factors can include:<\/p>\n The month of the year, the day of the week, and even the specific hour of the day can affect ad costs. There are peak times and when the competition is highest, the costs go up.<\/p>\n Whether you select the lowest cost or choose a specific bid cap can ultimately determine your ad delivery and cost.<\/p>\n Different ad placements will have different costs – the more competition a certain placement has, the higher the cost.<\/p>\n Facebook has 3 separate metrics to determine the quality of your ad: Engagement Ranking, Quality Ranking, and Conversion Ranking. Having a low score in any of these areas will increase your costs.<\/p>\n If other advertisers are trying to reach the same audience members, costs go up as newsfeed space is not unlimited.<\/p>\n At the end of this post, we\u2019ll link some resources to help you decrease your Facebook ads costs by addressing some of the issues we mentioned above.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Now that we\u2019ve got a clear idea of how the bidding system works and what factors currently are most heavily affecting the cost of our Facebook Ads, let\u2019s take a look at the data.<\/p>\n This data was pulled from all AdEspresso users from 2020 and 2021 and encompasses over 636 million in ad spend. We converted all currencies to USD.<\/p>\n While all the statistics in this post are coming from real campaigns, you should be using these numbers only as a reference or a guideline.<\/p>\n Now, onto the good stuff!<\/p>\n \n This data reflects the average Facebook Cost per Click for 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n This information is limited to campaigns with website clicks or website conversions as the objective<\/strong> unless otherwise noted. The currency is in USD<\/strong>.<\/p>\n If you look at the 2020 CPC graph, the cost-per-click peaked in February 2020. This goes against the grain of a typical year, where costs are lower in the first few months of the year and then rise during the rest.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This was due to the decreased ad spend due to COVID-19, as well as the limited supply chain for eCommerce advertisers.<\/span><\/p>\n The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic caused panic among business owners, and lots of them, unsure of the future, significantly decreased their ad budget. For this reason, the <\/span>ad cost was lower than usual between March and December 2020<\/b>. <\/span><\/p>\n Even in Q4, there wasn\u2019t a rise in CPC, perhaps because businesses were still being cautious with budgets<\/strong>, preferring to conserve cash and bide their time rather than take advantage of lower traffic costs.<\/span><\/p>\n So how exactly did the early months of 2020 compare to the year before?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The most significant drop in CPC occurred in April when the average came down to $0.33. This is $0.10 (or 23%) lower than in April 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n Compared to the same period in 2020, the first months of 2021 saw low average CPCs. At the beginning of the year, much of the world was in lockdown or living with COVID-related restrictions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This meant people were spending a lot of extra time online and using social media. This, in turn, led to surplus ad capacity. <\/span>CPC is usually determined by the amount of competition from other advertisers<\/b>; low demand for ad space in Q1 drove ad prices down.<\/span><\/p>\n Each year we see a trend of cheaper clicks in Q1 and then the year finishing with very expensive clicks during the Q4 holiday season, so the 2021 results are no surprise. The CPC is usually determined by the amount of competition from other advertisers<\/strong>; when demand for ad space is low in Q1 it\u2019s possible to pay less per ad impression.<\/p>\n At the other extreme, there\u2019s a huge amount of ads booked by eCommerce brands in Q4 which pushes up the ad costs significantly. Pay attention to your business during these months. If you primarily rely on B2B leads, competing with eCommerce advertisers during Q4 might not bring the ROI you need<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In both 2019 and 2020, the <\/span>average CPC was slightly lower during the weekends<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Differences between weekday and weekend CPCs got smaller during the peak of COVID-19<\/b>. In 2019, the fluctuation in cost-per-click between weekdays and weekend days was up to ten cents, and in 2020, it was only two-three cents.<\/span><\/p>\n The number of active advertisers remains almost the same throughout the week. Still, the <\/span>number of active social media users increases on the weekend,<\/b> increasing the ad space\u2019s size and effectively making<\/span> the CPC more affordable<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n That said, the day of the week should not be a deciding factor when setting up your Facebook Ads campaign. Instead, focus your strategy on the unique nature of your business and niche, and the high-demand seasons in your industry.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2021, CPC has been remarkably <\/span>stable throughout the week<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n B2B advertisers are often tempted to only run campaigns only on weekdays, and B2C advertisers tend to prefer weekdays, but <\/span>data suggests<\/b><\/a> that campaigns should run 7 days a week<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 95% of Facebook ad impressions are served on mobile devices<\/b>, which means that the effectiveness of ads is no longer tied to whether their audience is behind their office PC or relaxing at home with their laptop.<\/span><\/p>\n Ad audiences can now go online whenever and wherever they are, which means they\u2019re surfing Facebook and clicking on ads 7 days a week.<\/span><\/p>\n During Q4 in 2020 we can see that there were very few hours with a lower CPC as the CPC stayed more or less the same right up to midnight and only then saw a small drop overnight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Something worth remembering is that approximately 95% of Facebook Ads are delivered to mobile devices and users are checking Facebook at all times of the day (and night) including when they are in bed. <\/span><\/p>\n On average, CPC <\/span>is the lowest between midnight and 6 am in any time zone<\/b>. This is likely due to the fact that some<\/span> advertisers turn their ads off overnight, and there is less competition than during the daytime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The data suggests ads should be left running overnight, though, to take advantage of the cheaper pricing \u2014 or so you’d think.<\/span><\/p>\n The number of clicks will be much lower overnight, as fewer users will be online. So we don\u2019t recommend running campaigns overnight only. Instead, run your campaigns 24\/7 and let Facebook find the best opportunities throughout the day and across the week. <\/span><\/p>\n For most campaign objectives the<\/span> CPC declined as the year progressed until Q4 when it increased again<\/b>. Q4 can be a very competitive time of year due to increased ad spend from ecommerce brands pushing up the auction price for ad space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Therefore when planning your ad budgets, think about your budget across the whole year instead of just spending an equal amount every month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If your brand doesn\u2019t sell goods and services related to the holiday season, consider spending more of your ad budget during Q1-Q3. Then in Q4, reduce budgets and focus just on remarketing campaigns that use smaller audiences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The graph below compares the average cost of clicks on Facebook ads with different objectives throughout 2021. The data illustrates <\/span>how good the Facebook algorithm is at achieving the objective you set for it.<\/b><\/p>\n If your main goal is to generate clicks to your website, setting your objective as such leads to the cheapest CPC. For all other campaign types, the CPC increases as clicks become a secondary goal to the Facebook optimization algorithm.<\/span><\/p>\n Clicks on lead generation ads are much cheaper than clicks on conversion campaigns<\/b>. If you are looking to generate leads, using an on-Facebook lead generation form could be more effective than using the conversion objective and capturing leads on your website.<\/span><\/p>\n The<\/span> conversion objective can be a good choice even outside of lead generation campaigns, as it gets clicks at a reasonable cost<\/b> and generates high-intent traffic. This, in turn, can translate to good conversion rates later on in the funnel, e.g., on your website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But conversion campaigns are still a useful tool for performance marketers. They are better for generating website traffic than reach or impression ads, which should only be used for top-of-funnel awareness campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n Go Back To Top<\/a><\/p>\n \n Running a campaign for page likes can be valuable in certain situations; it can get you followers quickly, however, it can also be a huge resource drain if done inefficiently.<\/p>\n This data shows the findings of all campaigns created with the Page Like objective in 2019 and Q1-3 of 2020.<\/p>\n Advertisers running Page Like campaigns during March, April, and May 2020 saw unprecedented drops in CPL. Conversely, during October and November, the cost per like was very high. This was probably partly due to other advertisers building up their page audiences ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n In December the<\/span> cost per like fell back down again<\/b>, this could be because eCommerce advertisers were no longer building their warm audiences for remarketing.<\/span><\/p>\n In addition, <\/span>brand awareness advertisers with yearly budgets typically exhaust their Page like budgets by December<\/b> and this reduces competition during the auction process.<\/span><\/p>\n In the early days of Facebook advertising, Page likes could be obtained for a few cents each, so, for many brands, it was financially feasible to focus on building up the number of Page followers.<\/span><\/p>\n But as the <\/span>CPL has increased and organic post reach has declined<\/b> over the years, using Page likes as a primary advertising objective stopped making as much sense.<\/span><\/p>\n With the <\/span>cost per Page like rapidly rising during 2021<\/b>, the move away from Page Like campaigns continues. With an average price of 38 cents per Page like, it would cost $380 to get 1,000 Page likes using paid ads.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
CPC Costs & Results<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n
Cost Per Like for Page Like Campaigns<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
\n \n \n Free Download<\/strong>: Get the full report in PDF now! It’s 100% Free!\n <\/span>\n <\/a>\n <\/div> \n <\/span><\/p>\nHow Does the Bidding Process Work for Facebook Ads?<\/h2>\n
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The timing.<\/b><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Your bidding strategy.<\/b><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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The placement you choose.<\/b><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Relevance metrics. <\/b><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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The audience you\u2019re targeting.<\/b><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Facebook Ads Cost: 2021 and 2022 Benchmarks<\/h2>\n
\n \n \n Free Download<\/strong>: Get the full report in PDF now! It’s 100% Free!\n <\/span>\n <\/a>\n <\/div> \n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>Cost Per Click Results<\/h2>\n
Cost Per Click by Month – 2020<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/cpc-by-month-2020-1024x874.png\")
<\/p>\nCost Per Click by Month – 2021<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cpc-by-month-1024x874.jpeg\")
\nAs the world opened up again in Q2 and beyond, users spent a lot less time online, and less ad capacity pushed the price per ad impression upwards<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\nCost Per Click by Day of the Week – 2020<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/cpc-by-day-2020-1024x874.png\")
<\/p>\nCost Per Click by Day of the Week – 2021<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cpc-by-day-1024x874.jpeg\")
<\/h3>\nCost Per Click by Hour of the Day – 2020<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/cpc-by-hour-2020-1024x874.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nCost Per Click by Hour of the Day – 2021<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cpc-by-hour-1024x874.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nCost Per Click by Campaign Objective – 2020<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/cpc-by-campaign-objective-2020-1024x874.png\")
<\/p>\nCost Per Click by Campaign Objective – 2021<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cpc-by-campaign-objective-1024x874.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\n \n \n Free Download<\/strong>: Get the full report in PDF now! It’s 100% Free!\n <\/span>\n <\/a>\n <\/div> \n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>Cost Per Like Results<\/h2>\n
\u00a0Cost Per Like by Month – 2020<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/cpl-by-month-2020-1-1-1024x874.png\")
<\/p>\nCost Per Like by Month – 2021<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cpl-by-month-1024x874.jpeg\")
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![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/adespresso.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/cpl-by-day-2020-1024x874.png\")
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