How Billboards Can Enhance Your Facebook Ads

As Facebook advertising costs rise, out-of-home advertising such as billboards can help businesses get an edge on their competitors.

Facebook ads are a major marketing channel for businesses big and small, and for good reason. The social media giant and its family of platforms—including Instagram and WhatsApp—have huge user bases and a robust advertising platform that practically any business can utilize. Advertising with Facebook has become essential, especially in the last half decade.

Of course, with such pervasiveness comes increased competition. Facebook ad’s CPM–or “cost per 1000 impressions”–has steadily risen for years, with no sign of slowing down, meaning companies will have to spend more and more to reach their desired audiences. This has caused many marketers to diversify their marketing channels, and think beyond the Facebook/Instagram ecosystem.

That’s where out-of-home (OOH) advertising, including billboards, comes in.

Reach More People More Often

Think about the typical day of your target customer. Most people are probably checking their phones in the morning as they get ready for the day. Perhaps they’re heading to work or going out to grab a cup of coffee before dropping their kids off at school. Whatever their schedule might be, their day likely consists of a mix of digital and non-digital activities.

If you’re limiting your marketing efforts to just digital channels like Facebook and Instagram, you’re also limiting your chances to reach your target customer.

Billboards can help fill those gaps. By adding billboards to your marketing mix, you can now reach your customers in the time before and after they’re on their computer or phones. And that multi-channel exposure can have a multitude of benefits, which leads us to…

Give Your Facebook Ads a Big Lift

Increased brand exposure helps conversion rates across all marketing platforms. Big brands have known this for years, which is why they continue to spend billions on long-term brand awareness efforts such as billboards.

And the data is there to back it up. A 2017 Nielsen study found that people are 48% more likely to click on a digital ad if they’ve already seen that same ad on an OOH sign. A nearly 50% increase in click-thru-rate on a platform like Facebook is huge, especially when competition is already high.

In addition, Facebook themselves found that 4 in 10 adults in the U.S. say they have visited a Facebook page or posted on Facebook after seeing an OOH ad, and 25% posted to Instagram. That same study also found that campaigns using both Facebook and OOH were 13% more effective than expected. This is the kind of OOH-to-digital correlation that makes marketers’ eyes wide with possibilities!

Prepare Your Business for the Long Haul

For all of its many advantages, digital advertising platforms like Facebook have spoiled many a young marketer. Having such pervasive direct-response, quick-result platforms at their fingertips can cause marketers to narrow their focus, and become too hung up on their day 1 return-on-ad-spend (ROAS). Experienced marketers know this is not sustainable.

The beauty of brand awareness channels like OOH is that they’ll help your business withstand all the ups and downs—expected and unexpected—that your business may experience. If you can effectively carve out a space for your business in your target audience’s mind, you will see a lift throughout the conversion funnel, for years to come.

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As a billboard advertising company, we’re too often asked whether companies should be using Facebook or billboards to grow their business. The reality is that companies big and small can stand to benefit from an effective use of both, and with Blip’s cost-efficient billboard platform, it’s easier than ever for businesses to get started.