Solved: Instagram Ads Cheaper Clicks vs. Meta Ads?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your question. It's a really common one, and something I see a lot of people getting tripped up on. You've noticed that your Instagram ads get cheaper clicks than when you use the main Meta platform, and you're wondering what the difference is. On the surface, it seems like the Instagram 'Boost' button is the clear winner, right? Cheaper is better.

But the honest truth is, those cheap clicks are probably a trap. They feel good, they look good on a report, but they're very likely costing you money in the long run by attracting the worst possible audience for your business. The key difference isn't about the cost of a click; it's about the *intent* of the person clicking. I'll walk you through why the more "limited" functions you're seeing are actually holding you back and how using the full Meta Ads Manager is the only way to build a predictable, profitable advertising system.

We'll need to look at why your 'better' ads are probably a waste of money...

This might sound a bit blunt, but it's the most common mistake I see. You're falling for the illusion of cheap clicks. The reason those clicks are so cheap is because you're telling the algorithm to find you the cheapest possible attention, and it's doing exactly what you asked.

When you hit the 'Boost Post' button on Instagram, the platform usually defaults to an objective like 'Profile Visits', 'Website Clicks', or 'More Engagement'. You are giving the algorithm a very specific, and very flawed, command: "Find me the largest number of people, for the lowest possible price, who will perform this simple action."

The algorithm is brilliant at this. It goes out and finds all the people in your target audience who are chronic scrollers, likers, and clickers. These are people who will happily click on a link, have a quick look, and then bounce away without a second thought. They have almost no commercial intent. They are not in the market to buy anything. And because nobody else is competing to show ads to these low-intent users, their attention is dirt cheap. You are, quite literally, paying Facebook to find you non-customers.

A properly structured campaign in Meta Ads Manager, on the other hand, allows you to choose a 'Conversion' objective (like 'Purchases' or 'Leads'). This gives the algorithm a completely different command: "I don't care about clicks or likes. Go find me the specific people within this audience who are most similar to others who have previously bought my product or filled out my lead form, even if it costs more to reach them."

We see this time and time again. I remember one B2B software client who was able to generate 4,622 registrations for their free tool at just $2.38 each by using a conversion-focused campaign on Meta. Another client, selling courses, generated over $115k in revenue in just a month and a half. These results don't come from 'boosted' posts; they come from telling the algorithm to find you customers.

The algorithm now has a much harder, and more valuable, job. It has to sift through the millions of people in your audience to find the small percentage who are actually likely to convert. These people are in higher demand from other advertisers, so reaching them costs more. Your CPC will go up. But the quality of the traffic is night and day. You're paying more per click, but each click is from someone far more likely to actually become a customer. This is the fundamental difference you're seeing, and it's why your perception that the IG ads are "better" is a dangerous one for your business's growth.

I'd say you need to forget clicks and focus on what actually matters: profit...

So, how do we fix this? We need to completely change the way you measure success. The question isn't "How low can my CPC go?" but rather "How much can I afford to pay to acquire a profitable customer?" The answer to that question is found in a metric called Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

LTV tells you the total profit you can expect to make from an average customer over the entire time they do business with you. Once you know this number, advertising becomes a simple maths problem. If you know a customer is worth £500 to you in profit, does it matter if you spend £1 or £2 to get the click that eventually leads to their purchase? Of course not. You'd happily pay £50, or even £100, to acquire that customer because you know you'll make a healthy profit.

Calculating your LTV is the first step to unlocking intelligent, scalable advertising. It frees you from the tyranny of cheap clicks and allows you to make decisions based on real business impact. Here’s a simplified way to calculate it:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): How much does an average customer spend with you per month? (Or if you sell one-off products, what's your average order value?)
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after accounting for the cost of goods sold?
• Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? (If you have one-off sales, this is a bit trickier, but you can estimate a customer lifespan in months).

The formula is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Once you have your LTV, you can determine your target Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). A healthy ratio is often cited as 3:1 (LTV:CAC), meaning you can afford to spend up to one-third of your LTV to acquire a new customer. Suddenly, paying £50 for a conversion doesn't seem so scary if that customer is worth £500, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that allows businesses to scale aggressively.

I've put a little calculator below so you can play around with your own numbers. See how even small changes in your churn rate or average revenue can dramatically change how much you can afford to spend on ads. This is the mindset shift you need to make.

You probably should define your customer by their nightmare, not their Instagram follows...

Now that you know how much you can afford to spend, the next question is: who are we spending it on? This is another area where the full Ads Manager blows the 'Boost' button out of the water. Effective advertising isn't about vague demographics like "women aged 25-40 who like yoga". That tells you nothing of value and leads to generic ads that speak to no one.

You have to define your customer by their pain. Their problem. Their specific, urgent, expensive nightmare. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. What keeps them up at night? What are they secretly terrified of? What frustration are they desperate to solve? Once you know this, you can create ads that feel like they're reading their mind.

For example, if you sell high-quality, comfortable work-from-home clothing, your demographic ICP might be "professionals aged 30-50". It's boring and useless. Your 'nightmare' ICP is "a manager who's on back-to-back Zoom calls all day, feels frumpy and unprofessional in their old sweats, but can't bear the thought of putting on a stiff suit just to sit at their kitchen table. They're terrified of their boss thinking they're not taking their job seriously."

See the difference? Now you have an emotional hook. You can write ad copy that speaks directly to that feeling of being trapped between comfort and professionalism. In Ads Manager, you can then layer targeting to find these people. You could target job titles like 'Manager' or 'Director', combined with interests like 'Zoom' or 'Slack', and even layer behaviours like 'Engaged Shoppers'. This level of precision is impossible with the simple options given to you when you boost a post.

This deep understanding of your customer's pain is the foundation of your entire strategy. Do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads. You'll just be shouting into the void.

We'll need to use the right tool for the job: Meta Ads Manager...

So now we understand our goal (profitable acquisition, not cheap clicks) and who we're talking to (their nightmare). Now we need the right tool to put this into action. You mentioned the Instagram app has "more limited functions", and you're spot on. Those limitations are precisely why it's the wrong tool for anyone serious about growing their business.

Meta Ads Manager is your control center. It's where you move from being a passenger to a pilot. Here are just a few of the critical things you can do in Ads Manager that are either impossible or poorly implemented with the 'Boost' button:

1. Build a Proper Funnel (ToFu, MoFu, BoFu): You can't just show the same ad to everyone. A succesful strategy involves guiding people through a journey.

• Top of Funnel (ToFu): This is where you find new people who've never heard of you. You'll run 'Conversion' campaigns targeting those 'nightmare' ICPs using detailed interest, behaviour, and lookalike audiences. The goal is to make them problem-aware and solution-aware.
• Middle of Funnel (MoFu): These people have shown some interest—they've visited your website, watched a video, or engaged with a post. Here, you'll run retargeting campaigns to show them testimonials, case studies, or different product angles to build trust and desire.
• Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): These are your hottest prospects. They've added a product to their cart or started the checkout process but didn't finish. You'll hit them with specific retargeting ads offering a reminder, a small incentive, or overcoming a final objection to get them over the line.

2. Unlock Advanced Audiences: The 'Boost' button gives you basic interest targeting. Ads Manager gives you a whole arsenal.

• Custom Audiences: You can create audiences based on almost any action: website visitors, people who viewed specific pages, people who spent the most time on your site, people from your email list, people who engaged with your Instagram profile, and so on. These are the building blocks of your MoFu and BoFu campaigns.
• Lookalike Audiences: This is one of the most powerful tools available. You can give Meta a list of your best customers (a Custom Audience), and it will go and find millions of other people on the platform who share similar characteristics. A lookalike of your purchasers is often the single best-performing cold audience you can build.

3. Systematic Testing and Optimisation: How do you know which ad image works best? Which headline? Which audience? In Ads Manager, you can run structured A/B tests on every element of your campaign. You can test multiple audiences against each other in the same campaign (an Ad Set level test) or multiple ad creatives against each other within one ad set (an Ad level test). This data-driven approach allows you to systematically improve your results over time, turning off the losers and scaling the winners. The 'Boost' button gives you none of this control. You're just throwing money at the wall and hoping something sticks.

The learning curve for Ads Manager can feel a bit steep, I get it. But the "limited functions" of the boost button are a cage, not a convenience. Mastering the full platform is what separates amatuers from professionals and stagnant businesses from growing ones.

I'd say you should expect to pay more for better results...

Let's bring this all together. By now, I hope it's clear that the higher click cost you've seen when using the Meta platform isn't a sign of failure; it's a sign you're finally fishing in the right pond. You're paying a premium to get your message in front of people who are actually likely to buy. Your cost per click will go up, but your cost per *result* (a sale, a lead) will go down dramatically, leading to a profitable campaign.

So what should you expect to pay for a conversion? The answer, of course, is "it depends". It varies wildly by industry, country, and the quality of your offer and creative. However, based on the campaigns we've run for hundreds of clients, we can establish some rough ballparks. For a simple conversion like a lead or a signup in a developed country, you might see a cost per result anywhere from £1.60 to £15. For a direct sale on an eCommerce store, that range might be more like £10 to £75.

Here are some tables to give you a clearer idea, based on our experience:

The key takeaway is that you need to be prepared to spend real money to acquire a customer. The goal isn't to get the cheapest conversion, but the one that gives you the best Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). If you spend £50 to get a sale but that customer buys a £250 product, that's a 5x ROAS. That's a winning campaign you can scale. I remember one campaign we ran for a women's apparel brand using Meta & Pinterest Ads which achieved a 691% return. Another, for a company selling cleaning products, hit a 633% return. This is what's possible when you move beyond cheap clicks and focus on profit. If you spend £5 on cheap clicks and make no sales, that's a 0x ROAS. That's a losing campaign, no matter how cheap the clicks were.

Use the calculator below to see how this works. Plug in your ad spend and the revenue it generated. A good ROAS is typically anything above 3x, but it all comes back to your profit margins. This is the number you should be obsessed with, not your CPC.

This is the main advice I have for you:

To wrap up, here's a summary of the strategic shift I'd recommend. This is the exact process we use to take accounts from burning money on cheap clicks to generating predictable returns.

I know this is a lot to take in. It's a fundamental shift from what you've been doing, and the world of paid advertising can feel incredibly complex. It's not just about setting up an ad and hoping for the best. It's about understanding your audience, having a solid strategy, optimising your targeting, creating compelling ads, and constantly testing and refining.

That's where professional help can make a huge difference. With years of experience and a deep understanding of what actually works, an expert can help you avoid costly mistakes and get to profitability much faster. We can provide insights you might not have thought of and take over the implementation of this entire process for you, ensuring that every bit of your ad spend is working as hard as possible to grow your business.

If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session where we can have a look at your account and give you some tailored advice. It might be the most valuable 20 minutes you spend on your markiting this year.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh