How To Calculate Cost Of Advertising On Facebook In Kenya

Last updated on April 4th, 2023 at 04:09 am

In this article, I want to answer two things concerning the cost of Facebook advertising in Kenya.

#1 – Facebook advertising costs in Kenya

#2 – how much I charge to manage (set up and monitor) and consult on your Facebook ads in Kenya.

If you want to know the answers to the above questions, stick with me. And there is a video at the end of this guide.

And as always, you do not want to skim this article, especially if you are a serious entrepreneur who wants to make more money through Facebook advertising in Kenya.

But of course, if you are that type of entrepreneur who just wishes and never takes action, go ahead and skim.

I will understand.

Are we on the same page now?

Cool.

How much do Facebook ads in Kenya cost?

Well, I get at least 2 emails every week from entrepreneurs in Kenya, asking this same question.

You won’t believe my answer. It is short and meaningless.

Whenever I’m asked, ‘what’s the cost of Facebook ads in Kenya, Kevin?

 ‘It depends.’

What?

Wait.

Let me explain. The cost of Facebook advertising in Kenya depends on several factors.

That explains why there’s no one single figure that can be pulled out and be labeled, ‘Facebook advertising costs in Kenya.’

The truth is I always find it hard to answer this question.

Fortunately, here today, I can do better than just these two words, ‘It depends.’ I will show you the average cost of advertising on Facebook in Kenya and later, the factors that make it hard to know how much your ad will cost.

Click on the image below to download free strategy??????

Average Facebook advertising cost in Kenya

When you set up Facebook ads in Kenya (even globally), there are only two ways you will pay for it:

• Cost per click (CPC) or
• Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)

What do all these mean?

With CPC, it means you pay every time a person clicks on your ad while for the CPM, you pay every time 1000 people see your ad.

PAY attention:

CPC is when someone clicks

CPM is when your ad attains 1000 impressions

Now, several studies have been conducted to shade light on this Facebook ads cost thing, but the most recent one (2017) was by AdEspresso.

They found out that the average cost for Facebook ads is:

• CPC is $0.26 (Kshs. 26)
• CPM is $7.19 (Kshs. 719)

While this might seem like the answer to the big question, unfortunately, it is not.

The reason being the amount you will spend will be subjected to further scrutiny based on many factors.

And these factors are what makes up Facebook ad campaign.

This is what happens the moment you create you ad

To say the least, the cost of Facebook ads in Kenya is determined from the moment you open the ads manager to that period when your campaign expires.

How?

Don’t worry; it will be clear in a minute.

Just for a second, I want you to catch a glimpse of how the Facebook advertising system works.

How advertising on Facebook in Kenya works

I want you to picture an auction event, where guys compete to own a product (car, house, or a rare painting) by engaging in ‘price war.’

In such situations, you engage in bidding.

And when the bell falls, the highest bidder wins, right?

Well, Facebook uses a slightly modified auction system to determine what ad will be shown to the target audience.

So what’s the difference?

In the Facebook auction system, the winner is not always the highest bidder.

So who wins?

Facebook takes into account three factors:

• Quality of your ad
• Amount of your bid
• An estimate of action rate

This is what happens at Facebook Ads auction

Facebook rates your ad based on these 3 factors and the one with the highest score wins the auction (ad will be shown to the target audience).

Based on your score and position on the auction, Facebook determines the amount to charge you and how to prioritize your ad on the target audience’s news feed.

Now, when an auction happens, it doesn’t mean that the last person loses.

No.

If after applying all the 3 criteria, and your score turns out to be lower, your ad will be shown to a fewer number of people than you intended.

Or in some instances not shown at all.

Remember those moments where you spend time obsessing about your ads only to find out later that Facebook isn’t even spending the budget you gave them?

How lame!

Your ad will be shown at the bottom of the news feed.

That’s all.

For more detailed information, read it here.

So,

Let me explain a little further the above factors

Quality of your ad

Really quickly, you will win more auctions and pay less in the process if your ads are of high-quality.

A high-quality ad is the one that gets a ton of positive feedback (comments, likes, reactions) and less negative response as compared to other ads targeting the same audience.

A negative response could be when many people hide your ad from their newsfeed. When that happens, it sends a signal to Facebook that people do not like your ads, thus poor quality.

Make sense?

How to create high-quality ads that cost less

That said, here’s what to do if you want to spend less on Facebook ads in Kenya:

• Create ads that will attract people’s attention and encourage them to engage with it positively. Achieve this through the use of high-quality images
• Based on who you are targeting, create an ad that will resonate with them. Relevant ad. Avoid targeting almost everyone on Facebook with your ad

And to help you determine whether your ad is relevant, Facebook introduced a relevance score (1-10). (Update: Facebook removed this feature and replaced it with three other metrics)

Rates your ad based on positive feedback versus the negative feedback. Less negative, more relevant (higher relevance score) and the opposite is true.

Amount of your bid

A bid is that amount you are willing to pay for a single click or 1000 eyeballs.

While the budget is the amount you set so that Facebook will not exceed (daily and lifetime budget).

On the other hand, bidding is what determines your CPC or CPM.

Whenever I am setting a bid, I ask myself

How much am I willing to pay to get click/1000 views?

And to answer the above question, I always look at the value of the customer.

If I’m selling a Ksh. 1000 products with a profit of Ksh. 800, I am willing to pay up to Ksh. 300 to acquire that one customer.

That’s just an example when you look at the bigger picture.

In short, I’m saying that the higher your bid, the higher your chances of winning the auction and having your ad shown to more of your target audience.

And the good news is that you can leave all these guesswork to Facebook.

How?

Just leave the bidding in automatic so Facebook themselves will choose a bid for you.

Estimated action rates

Whenever you are setting up a Facebook campaign in Kenya, you are asked to choose action (objective) you want your target audience to take when they see your ad (download an app, click the link, like the page, etc).

Once you do this, Facebook will then show your ad to people it believes are more likely to take that action.

Then, you are charged based on an estimate of the number of people who will take this particular action.

Unfortunately, Facebook themselves are not clear on how objectives affect the cost.

Luckily, the study I mentioned earlier, by AdEspresso, found out that:

• Reach objective is the most expensive ($1.01 per click)
• Offsite conversions come in second at $0.37 per click
• Link clicks come in last at $0.12 per click.

Here are some of the other factors that affect the cost of Facebook ads in Kenya

Who you are targeting

I was speaking at an event last year in July, and the hot topic most attendees were interested in was how to target people on Facebook in Kenya.

After listening to them, I realized that this was the biggest headache when using Facebook ads in Kenya.

That’s why I wrote a simple article that shows how to nail customer research and profit from advertising on Facebook in Kenya.

The truth is, when you miss target people on Facebook, you lose money and waste time.

You do not want to be showing your ad to almost everyone on Facebook in Kenya.

Rather, you should narrow down to those people who

• are similar to your current customers (lookalike audience) and
• have shown interest in your product or service (interest-based targeting)
• target people who watched your videos, engage with your page, or even visited your website

Then craft an ad that will resonate with this target audience. The more relevant your audience as well as the ad copy, the less you will pay to reach them.

Secondly, the more people (advertisers) trying to reach the same audience as you, the higher your advertising costs and the opposite is true.

A solution to this problem?

Through customer research, you can unlock insights and interests that no one else knows about.

Consequently, when you target those interests, you not only reach the perfect audience, you also outsmart the competition.

Where you choose to show your ad

This is what is called ad placement.

The location of your ad will affect your ad cost.

One thing I can tell you is that, make sure that you choose a place that your target audience will see your ad.

If for instance your target audience uses mobile phones (android to be specific), and you choose to show your ad on the desktop news feed or right column, you are dead in the water.

You will be paying to show your ads where your audience will never see.

Be wise.

Know what devices are mostly used by your audience and where they hung out.

Or leave ad placement in automatic. This way, Facebook will do the donkey work for you.

One sure way to reduce Facebook advertising costs in Kenya

Picture this scenario:

You create a Facebook ad, and people start engaging with it, asking you about whatever you are selling.

Now, some of them will buy while some won’t.

But I want you to remember that you’ve spent a lot of money to reach them. And now, they are just gone like it never happened.

How bad is that?

Well, I have a solution.

Chatbots marketing in Kenya

A chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation and guides a user to an objective.

For example, if you want your customers to order your products on your website, you design a Facebook ChatBot that will deliver the link to your website to anyone who interacts with it.

Then, use Facebook ads to direct potential customers to this messenger ChatBot and then give them a link to your website.

Why not just link directly to your website in your ads?

Good question.

Turn your leads into subscribers first

Remember the problem I mentioned earlier, of losing leads that you’ve paid for?

Well, it happens, everyone who interacts with your Facebook ChatBot isn’t ‘lost’ since they are immediately subscribed to it.

This means that even if they won’t click on your website and place an order, you can come back later and encourage them to do it.

Also, since they are subscribed, you can remarket to them time and time again for FREE without spending any money.

And since this is a tool that engages customers in a conversation, they will love it and your conversion rates will be through the roof. For this reason, the cost of Facebook advertising in Kenya will be lower for you.

How much to spend on Facebook ads

I know this is the burning question you always struggle with.

I have answered your Facebook advertising costs in Kenya question; I’ll make it simple for you:

You can spend as much as you want to advertise on Facebook in Kenya. But it should be a reasonable amount.

If you are not getting back your ad spend (Return on ad spend, ROAS), then you need to go back to the drawing board and audit everything.

Because you must be missing something. Maybe your sales skills suck, or your ad copy isn’t converting. Or you are targeting the wrong people.

For me, I normally start with a Ksh 400 daily budget and scale it as the campaign progresses.

Yes, you don’t need thousands of shillings to promote your Facebook page and products.

Which brings me to another popular question:

How to sponsor a Facebook page in Kenya

I want to answer this question with a few words because I have written a detailed guide on how to create profitable FB ads.

To sponsor your Facebook page in Kenya, take note of the following tips before you go read that article

1. on the objective section, choose Awareness then Page likes
2. on the targeting option, go for people who are most likely to be interested in what your page is all about
3. Type of ad: pick a single image. Then upload a high-quality image that captures attention

Basically, that’s all you need to sponsor your page in Kenya. Read the article here.

How to pay for Facebook ads in Kenya

There are two ways you can pay for Facebook ads in Kenya

1. Using Credit or Debit cards (ATM Card). In fact, this is my favorite.
2. PayPal – you load your PayPal account with some dollars

Now, to use the above options, you need to add them as your chosen Facebook ads payment method.

Lucky you, I have written about this in this article.

Final thoughts

Now, as you can see, there is no one set figure for the Facebook advertising costs in Kenya.

 It is a matter of how much you are willing to spend and how good you are in creating Facebook marketing campaigns.

I told you that I will show you how much I charge for Facebook advertising in Kenya.

But there’s one problem, just like the cost of Facebook ads, there’s no one single way for me to charge for my Facebook ads services.

But depending on the complexity of the process (things involved) I can easily quote a price.

If there is anything unclear about the Cost Of Advertising On Facebook In Kenya, comment below and I will answer.

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