The truth behind Facebook ads and the hidden cost of adverts

Adverts are the most obvious advertising tool in our daily lives, yet a surprising number of people still see them as just another click away. 

What they are, and are not, we’ll explain in this article. 

But how does advertising work? 

How does Facebook use advertising to create value for its users? 

What is advertising? 

And what do you pay for it? 

We will also look at the differences between Facebook’s paid and adverts, and what advertisers need to do to make their adverts more effective. 

How is advertising paid? 

Facebook has a paywall on its website. 

Adverts are free to view on the website.

But you can see the adverts you have paid for. 

If you click on an ad, you are redirected to Facebook’s advertising portal, where you can click on “check for a link” and then “click here to get more information”.

The ads on the site are designed to be easy to read. 

Facebook says: “You can read all the ads you’ve seen on Facebook, or if you want to see ads for any specific event or product, click the banner on the left side of the page and see the full ad.” 

You can also see which ads have been displayed, and which have been shown. 

This is a handy feature, but the downside is that the ads are not always shown as clearly as you would like. 

And they can often be hard to read if you’re not familiar with Facebook.

Advertising can be a costly way of making money. 

The Facebook advertising portal is not cheap. 

It costs about £30 per month to subscribe to Facebook. 

That’s a lot of money, but it’s a bargain compared to other services. 

For example, if you subscribe to the BBC iPlayer you’ll pay £2.99 a month for the BBC’s TV content, and £1.99 for the iPlayer’s free music library. 

However, this is a significant discount, compared to Facebook, which charges a monthly fee of £6.99. 

You’ll also pay Facebook a fee to host ads, as well as a monthly subscription fee to use its advertising service. 

When you sign up for Facebook, you’re also required to make a small donation to help fund Facebook’s social and news programmes. 

So, the advertising costs are quite high.

But is it worth it?

Facebook’s advertising costs, in comparison with other ad networks, are much lower. 

Its adverts are usually shown at a small size, and they’re often simple and easy to understand. 

They’re also designed to look like Facebook ads. 

A good example is this one for the new BBC iplayer. 

Image: FacebookIt’s a very simple and straightforward ad. 

There’s a link that leads to a YouTube video, where the video is about a new television series. 

While the video itself isn’t terribly informative, you can clearly see that the advert is Facebook’s product, and it’s being promoted by Facebook.

Here’s another one for ITV News. 

Here, you’ll notice that the ad is a Facebook advert, and that’s where the advertisement’s creators are located. 

On the left is the advert, which appears in a small window, and the right is the ad itself. 

To see it in full screen, click here. 

With Facebook, the ad has a lot more to it. 

I can see how this is an effective way to promote your product, but is it really the best way? 

Advertising is not always a quick way to make money, and in fact it can be hard for users to tell which adverts have been made by Facebook and which by the other. 

Even when a user clicks on an advertisement, it could take a few seconds for the advert to appear on the page. 

Moreover, the ads will often be on the same page, and can sometimes appear on different pages. 

As a result, if a user doesn’t click on the ad, the advert may not appear. 

Which is why the Facebook adverts can often look like the same ads that Facebook is showing on other pages, and not on the Facebook homepage.

What do advertisers need?

Advertisers need to make sure that their ad is displayed as clearly and clearly as possible, and so that the people who see it can understand what it is they’re buying. 

These can be very difficult to achieve, because of the varying display sizes and resolutions available. 

One way to achieve this is to have your advert size set at 10×9 or higher, and your resolution at 1600×1200 or higher. 

Another is to set your ad at the top of the navigation bar on your page, then set your image size to 15×10 or larger. 

Finally, advertisers can set their ad size to the size of the image itself