Engagement or Conversion Campaign Objective

So, back in the day this question would be a no-brainer but today (2021), the answer to that questions is not black and white.

Engagement Ads help with social proof, and yes that can be beneficial to you when you run a conversion campaign because it would make people trust you more and make your brand look big and trusted.

However there are a number of things to consider;

1. Do you have a large budget or a small budget? If you have a large budget, then there might be no need to run an engagement campaign first because with a large budget even though its a conversion campaign you would still get engagements, it would just take a little time.
2. Social proof is good, but its importance varies based on your industry. E-commerce may not necessarily benefit much from social proof. An industry like info marketing may benefit more from social proof because there are a lot of people out there selling without offering real value.
3. If you run an engagement campaign and get a lot of engagement, it would be a wrong move to retarget the same people when running your conversion campaign. Remember, facebook targets people who are likely to convert when running a conversion Ad and targets people who are likely to take action (convert) when running a conversion Ad and they are very often different sets of people.

After all said and done, remember to keep testing and taking notes… there is no hard and fast rule.