A recent survey conducted by Alignable, which is a local business networking site, looked at the behaviors of many small businesses in regards to how they were using Facebook ads. They polled 1200 local businesses, which consisted of businesses in North America that had fewer than 50 employees total. It included both B2B and B2C companies across a variety of verticals.
The survey found that the number one reason small business owners used these ads was to simply generate awareness. This is not really surprising since once of the biggest disadvantages of a small business is that they don’t have the instant brand recognition that a national or regional chain would enjoy.
In second place on the survey was generating new business, which is always going to be important for any type of business. Bringing in new customers is essential to all types of companies and harnessing the power of Facebook to accomplish that goal is important.
In addition to looking at the goals that were on the minds of small business owners, they also looked into how much money they were putting into Facebook ads. The breakdown was as follows:
- 50% of small business owners are spending $0 on Facebook Ads
- 31% of small business owners are spending between $1 and $50
- 10% are spending between $51 and $150
- 5% are spending $151 and $300
- 2% are spending $501 or above
- 1% are spending $301-$500
This really shows two main points. First, small businesses are not investing nearly as heavily into Facebook ads as many people would have thought. Secondly, you can clearly get some great results without investing too much money when you are a small business.
If you’re running a small businesses or managing the marking for one, this information can be quite helpful in determining what steps to take when using Facebook ads.
You can see the full study HERE.
