How to run Facebook ads with a low budget?
Many people think a small budget can’t run effective Facebook ads, but with just 50 USD, you can still create a successful campaign. Most failures stem from basic mistakes made by beginners, ranging from unattractive ad content to unreasonable cost allocation, resulting in “burning money” without achieving results. Therefore, in this article, BlackHatWorld will guide you on how to run Facebook ads with a small budget, avoiding wasting time, money, and making common mistakes that most beginners make.
With over 11 years of experience and a network operating in multiple countries, bhw agency has become a reliable partner in the field of renting advertising accounts on Facebook. We offer competitive prices, all-inclusive services, and dedicated support, helping thousands of customers achieve impressive conversion numbers and breakthrough sales.
Flexible account rental policy: only pay for what you use, and top up as needed. A clear and detailed advertising invoice helps customers manage their budgets and control costs to achieve a higher ROI.
How much is the minimum budget for running effective Facebook ads?
If the goal is just to increase brand awareness, Facebook ads can be quite cheap. However, the actual effectiveness of the campaign will be limited if run individually, because this ad format does not directly generate revenue.
Minimum threshold for running Facebook ads
Cá nhân tôi thường không chạy quảng cáo trên Meta nếu ngân sách dưới 300 USD/tháng (tương đương khoảng 10 USD/ngày).
I don’t usually run ads on meta if the budget is under 300 USD/month (equivalent to about 10 USD/day). Although you can still run traffic ads or awareness ads under 10 USD/day, the ability to generate actual revenue-generating actions is very low.
Cost-effective for each type of ad
Traffic Ads
Experiments show that traffic from Sales Ads stays on the page three times longer and has a higher purchase rate.
- It is possible to bring users to the website for less than 1 USD per click, but the quality of traffic is often lower compared to Sales Ads or Lead Ads.
- Although Traffic Ads can run for just 1 USD/day, this amount of traffic is not enough to bring clear results. Even with this type of ad, the minimum budget should still be 300 USD/month.
Leads & Sales Ads
This is the most popular choice for businesses that want to generate leads or direct sales.
- The CPM for this ad type is 3-8 times higher than Awareness/Traffic, but in return, the ads are displayed in better positions (main news feed) and at the right time when customers are ready to buy.
- With 300 USD/month, it is difficult to achieve 50 leads/sales in 7 days to exit the learning phase, but you can still generate certain results.
Calculating efficiency
A good advertising campaign must be self-financing. For example:
- Budget $300/month → generates 3 orders → CPS = $100.
- If the profit per order is $400, you profit $300/order after subtracting advertising costs.
When increasing the budget to $1,000 – $5,000/month, you can predict potential profit. However, it’s important to note that scaling is not entirely linear — CPS can decrease or increase as the budget changes.
Barriers to running Facebook ads with a low budget
For new businesses, dedicating just about $15 per day to a Facebook ads campaign with the goal of conversion is truly a significant challenge. You not only need to optimize the campaign for advertising effectiveness, but also have to simultaneously support product sales, which doubles the pressure.
If you immediately launch a direct conversion campaign, the chances of success will be very low. The reason stems from the working mechanism of the Facebook ads algorithm: the system needs time and a budget to collect data, understand user behavior, and then it can identify and optimize the right target audience.
With a limited budget, each time the system tests and adjusts, it will consume a significant portion of the daily budget. When the budget runs out before the algorithm completes its learning process, the campaign will be interrupted. Worse, the next day, the algorithm will almost have to restart from the beginning, leading to low advertising effectiveness and making it difficult to maintain stability.
How to run Facebook ads with a low budget?
A limited budget does not mean you cannot sell effectively. Even if you only spend from 1,000 to 3,000 USD per month, you can still get good results if you apply the right strategy below.
Step 1: Set up the campaign with the right objective.
In Ads Manager, if you run an e-commerce business and want to sell, choose the sales objective. Many beginners often choose awareness, traffic, or engagement because they think they need to “warm up” the audience first, but in reality, if you want orders, let Facebook optimize directly for purchase from the start.
Note: Facebook will give you exactly what you ask for, so if the objective is to sell, do not send brand awareness signals.
Step 2: Choose a suitable campaign type
For new accounts or small budgets, Advantage+ Shopping is not the optimal choice due to the lack of data. Instead, choose a manual sales campaign to customize your targeting.
- Audience 1: Broad (broad audience) for Facebook to find potential customers.
- Temporarily turn off catalog ads if a product catalog is not needed.
Step 3: Setup the AD Set
- Choose Pixel and optimize for Purchase.
- Budget: 5–10 USD/day for each group (just the price of a coffee).
- Start with a broad audience, then duplicate the group with different interests.
For example, selling pet supplies:
- Audience 1: Broad.
- Audience 2: Interest “Pets”.
- Audience 3: Interest “Dogs”.
- Audience 4–5: other related interests.
With a budget of 3,000 USD/month, you can run 5 groups × 5 USD/day to test for 7 days.
Step 4: Find and create AD content
Don’t be creative on a whim. Learn from ad samples that have proven effective by using the Facebook Ad Library.
For example, a successful dog bed ad can have the title “20 Day Chew Proof” with clear benefits: a 7-inch orthopedic foam mattress, waterproof, removable, washable cover, and durable fabric. You can simulate the layout and design using Canva or available templates.
Step 5: Create multiple AD variations
Each audience group should test 3–5 different samples (images, titles, content).
Focus on the best-selling products or products that competitors are focusing on advertising.
Step 6: Run and monitor results
- Total budget: a maximum of 25 USD/day (5 groups × 5 USD).
- Run continuously for at least 7 days.
- If there are orders → move to the scaling & optimization phase.
- If there are no orders → change the content or offer.
There is no need to worry too much about the Learning Phase with a small budget; just be patient, target the right purchase, and let Facebook do its part.
Running Facebook ads with a low budget does not mean they are ineffective. As long as you understand how the algorithm works, know how to optimize content and targeting, and have a reasonable campaign strategy, you can still achieve impressive results while saving costs. A small budget, if spent “the right way,” can still bring in steady orders and sustainable growth.
Frequently asked questions
A low budget is usually understood to be under 30 USD/day (approximately under 1 million VND). However, effectiveness also depends on the industry, target audience, and how you optimize the campaign. Many businesses still run successfully with only 10–15 USD/day if the strategy is right.
You should not start with a conversion campaign if the budget is low, because the algorithm needs time and data to “learn” customer behavior. Instead, you can run engagement, traffic, or video view campaigns first to build the audience, then switch to a conversion goal to optimize costs.
This article is also available in other languages:
- 中文：
- Русский:
- English: How to run Facebook ads with a low budget?
