Facebook and Instagram advertising - highly targetable social ads
Rough top-line math using platform averages. Real campaigns will vary with targeting, creative, and industry — see the by-industry table below for refined figures.
Side-by-side cost and use-case breakdowns against the most common alternatives.
Per-industry estimates derived by scaling Meta Ads's baseline costs by each industry's multiplier relative to the cross-industry average. Click any industry to see the full side-by-side comparison.
| Industry | Est. CPC | Est. CPM | Industry CPA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | $0.35 | $5.35 | $48.00 | Details |
| B2B | $1.57 | $9.51 | $93.69 | Details |
| Education | $1.29 | $7.43 | $77.48 | Details |
| Finance | $0.91 | $10.99 | $74.44 | Details |
| Healthcare | $1.65 | $8.62 | $67.36 | Details |
| Retail | $0.61 | $4.46 | $44.26 | Details |
| Tech/SaaS | $1.57 | $9.81 | $93.69 | Details |
| Real Estate | $0.86 | $6.24 | $102.51 | Details |
Estimates derived from baseline platform cost × (industry metric ÷ cross-industry average). For exact figures from your account, run a search query report or campaign benchmark export.
The auction, the creative, the budget floor — the three things you actually need to know before picking a platform.
Meta (Facebook + Instagram) runs an auction across Feed, Stories, Reels, Marketplace, and Audience Network. You optimize for a conversion event; Meta's algorithm decides bid and placement. Effective CPM is $6–12, effective CPC $0.80–1.50 depending on optimization goal and vertical.
Feed: 1:1 (1080×1080), 4:5 portrait (1080×1350). Reels/Stories: 9:16 (1080×1920). Video 15–60s. Carousel supports 10 cards. Copy ~125 chars before the truncate. Creative fatigue is the #1 cost driver — refresh every 2–3 weeks.
The algorithm needs ~50 conversion events per week per ad set to exit learning phase. For a $30 CPA that's ~$1,500/week or $6K/month per campaign. Below that, performance is a lottery.
Free, no-signup tools to model your Meta Ads campaigns.