How to Create an Ad From an Existing Post and Avoid the "Boost" Button

Woah, stop, wait a minute, put a little….um, ads? In it. Ha.

Really though, STOP your scroll and listen to me when I tell you that you should NOT be boosting Facebook posts.

Repeat after me:
“I will not boost Facebook posts.
I will not boost Facebook posts.
I will not boost Facebook posts.”

You may be sitting there saying, “Um, ok, but WHY and, what in the world do I do if I want to get an already-published post in front of more eyes?”

Well, I’ve got ya covered!

The why.

When you boost a post on Facebook, you can’t control the outcome. You’re throwing money at it and you’re selecting your target audience but Facebook is just trying to get a reaction from people in some way and considers any kind of engagement a win (a click on a post that’s NOT the one you’re boosting, a page like, a comment, a link click, all of it).

Why is that bad? Well, because generally we have a specific purpose around running our FB ads (or, at least, we SHOULD) and Facebook WANTS to help you hit that goal and serve that purpose but when you just boost, the team over at Zuckerberg Land, well, they just don’t know what you want to accomplish so they can only hope to get engagement and get in front of the right people – that’s all they have to work off of.

Let’s get a little bit nerdy with it, k?

If you’re running an ad where the objective is “conversions” (or, in other words, you want the person seeing your ad to take an action like signing up for a webinar or even purchasing something), Facebook will not only put it in front of the audience you selected but they’ll try and put it in front of the percentage of your audience who is more likely to convert based on past behavior.

Cool, right?

Yup, so, spending $5 to boost a post may result in 10 new Facebook page likes, 12 link clicks, 1 conversion and a few comments; where spending $5 on an ad with the conversion objective may come out with a few new Facebook page likes, 25 link clicks and 10 conversions because Facebook knows what you’re trying to accomplish and puts it in front of people more likely to take that action.

Those are completely off-the-brain numbers and do not reflect actual campaigns. Just an example people.

Make sense now?

Awesome. So, that’s WHY you don’t want to be boosting but, now the question is:

How do I create an ad from an existing post?

Oh Lawdy, I almost feel like I’m cheating because this is so easy.

First, post your post on your Facebook page just like normal.
Note: You canNOT change the creative (text, image/video) of the ad once you turn it into an ad so make sure you post it on the page exactly how you want the ad to run.
Go into your Ads Manager.
If you haven’t yet set this up, there may be a few steps you need to take here first.
Once in Ads Manager, hit the hamburger menu (the thing with 3 horizontal lines right next to the words “Ads Manager”) and select “all tools” at the bottom.
Next, click “page posts”.
Finally, click the checkbox next to the post you want to create an ad from and select “actions” and “Create Ad”.
Note: you may have to toggle through the left-hand menu and make sure you’re on the right post type (schedule posts, published posts, etc) and, if you manage multiple pages, ensure that the drop down in the top left is reflecting the correctly page.