We’ve been blogging about some of the basic principles of Facebook Ads for auto dealerships. So far, we’ve touched on profile creation, targeting, buyer personas, Custom Audiences, and much more.

Today, we’re going to turn again to a rather technical topic—bidding and budgeting. If you want your Facebook Ads endeavors to be successful, it’s vital to understand how the platform’s bidding system works.

Facebook Ads: Introduction to Bidding

The first thing to know about Facebook Ads is that, like so many other online ad platforms, it employs an auction system. You don’t actually pay outright to run a particular ad, but rather you place a bid on available ad space. In other words, your bid doesn’t reflect the total dollar amount you’re going to pay, but rather the maximum amount you’re willing to pay.

Facebook limits the number of ads shown to any given user, which in turn limits the opportunities you’ll find for showing ads. This makes for quite a lot of competition, especially in the automotive advertising space.

The flipside is that not everyone using Facebook is looking to buy a car. A lot of different people use Facebook for a lot of different reasons. So, you’re not actually competing with every business, or even every car dealership; you are only competing with others who want to show ads to your targeted audience—e.g., to car buyers in your geographic area. Those are the people you should keep in mind at each stage of the Facebook Ads process—devising buyer personas, creating the ad, targeting, and bidding.

Different Ways to Bid

Something else to consider, as you bid on a Facebook Ads campaign, is that there are a couple of different approaches you can take. Specifically, Facebook will allow you to choose either a daily amount or a total amount you’re willing to bid.

For example, you can choose to spend $30 each day for your ad set, or you can choose to spend $400 over the course of the campaign, and then select the start time and end time. Facebook will try to split your budget as evenly as possible over each day of the campaign; they usually do a good job of this.

The key difference here is that if you choose a daily budget you don’t have to establish an end date; you can create a continuous campaign and tweak the amount of money you are spending as you go. This can be a good option for dealerships still learning the ropes of the Facebook Ads platform.

Get Help with Facebook Ads Bidding

Now, there is really a lot more that could be said about Facebook Ads and its bidding system. Our closing advice: Ask for help in selecting the right bids for your campaign. Bid too little and your ads won’t display; too much and you could blow your budget prematurely.

We’d love to advise your dealership on these key points. Reach out to Get My Auto for a consultation.