Most advertisers only start thinking about conversions once they have a product to sell and a budget to burn.
But here’s the problem: if you only focus on conversion campaigns, you’re forcing Meta to show your sales message to a cold audience who doesn’t know — or care — who you are. That costs more.
This is where awareness campaigns pay off. Done right, they don’t just build brand visibility — they reduce your cost per conversion over time.
Here’s how.
1. Awareness Campaigns Create Cheap, High-Quality Retargeting Pools
Every advertiser wants to get more from their retargeting campaigns. But if you’re only feeding that audience with conversion ads, your pool dries up fast — and gets expensive.
By running awareness campaigns, you:
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Attract new people at a lower CPM, since Meta favors low-friction objectives like video views or engagement.
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Give the algorithm more signals, like who watches your videos or interacts with your posts.
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Build larger warm audiences that you can retarget with precision.
This strategy aligns well with the approach shared in Facebook Ad Targeting 101: How to Reach the Right Audience, where building smarter top-of-funnel audiences is key to better performance downstream.
2. Warmer Audiences = More Efficient Spend
Let’s say you’re selling a $200 product.
Would you rather pay to show your sales message to 1,000 cold prospects or 1,000 people who’ve already seen your brand, watched your video, or saved your post?
When you warm up your audience with awareness campaigns:
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Click-through rates improve, since users recognize your name or visuals.
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Cost per click drops, because engagement and relevance go up.
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Conversions become more predictable, as you're working with people who’ve already shown interest.
This fits into a broader strategy outlined in From Awareness to Conversion: Full Facebook Funnel Strategy, where top-of-funnel engagement directly supports more efficient bottom-funnel results.
3. Testing Messaging with Awareness Saves Budget
Testing messaging through conversion campaigns is risky — every experiment costs more.
Instead, try this:
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Use video view or engagement campaigns to test hooks, headlines, or pain points.
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Look at thruplay rates, reactions, and shares to spot winning messages.
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Retarget only the most engaged users with your core offer.
This approach not only saves budget but also supports iterative creative testing, as explored in How to Match Ad Messaging to Buyer Awareness Levels on Facebook.
4. More Learning Signals Improve Meta’s Optimization
Meta’s ad algorithm loves data — and awareness campaigns give it plenty.
The more events it tracks (video views, post engagements, profile clicks), the smarter it gets. Even if those actions aren’t conversions, they create a pattern.
And when you eventually switch to a purchase or lead objective, Meta already knows who’s most likely to take action.
That’s especially helpful when trying to escape the dreaded "learning limited" phase.
Our guide on How to Finish the Facebook Learning Phase Quickly breaks down why feeding the algorithm with early signals is key to stable performance.
5. It’s the Antidote to Rising CPAs and Ad Fatigue
If your cost per acquisition (CPA) is rising or your frequency is creeping up, your campaigns are probably hitting a wall.
That’s often a sign that your audience is too small, too cold, or too burnt out.
Awareness campaigns help by:
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Continuously adding new people to your warm audience pool.
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Refreshing engagement signals, which improves delivery.
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Reducing dependence on offer-based clicks.
If you’ve seen the dreaded "Ad Set May Get Zero" warning, it could mean your audience is too tight or Meta doesn’t know where to deliver.
Our article Why You See 'Ad Set May Get Zero' on Facebook and How to Fix It explains how awareness can solve that by expanding and warming up your targeting.
Bonus Tip: Start Small, Then Scale
If you’re new to awareness campaigns, keep it simple at first:
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Use a video view campaign with a short explainer video.
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Target broad interests or lookalikes.
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Build audiences of people who watched 50% or more.
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Retarget with your core conversion message.
Once that’s running smoothly, scale with more creative angles, test new audiences, and deepen the funnel.
Final Thoughts
Awareness campaigns don’t always get the glory. But they’re the quiet workhorses behind the most efficient ad accounts.
They make your conversions cheaper. They reduce your need for aggressive discounts. And they make your campaigns more sustainable in the long run.
