Paid Social Media Ads: Is It Worth Trying?

Paid social media ads have become essential in almost everyone’s digital marketing strategy. Yet for a small business, is it worth the money? This article will explain more about using paid social media ads as your brand’s marketing strategy.

A successful advertising campaign is one that reaches your targeted audience and persuades them to buy your product or use your service. As technology advances, outdated TV ads or non-personalized email marketing would not be the most effective choice to broaden your audience. Today is the era of tailored ads; a more personal and customized one.

Social media is one of the best places to implement a personalized marketing strategy. According to Hootsuite, currently, there are over 4.74 billion people who use social media. As the number is expected to grow over time, it would be unwise for organizations to miss out on this opportunity.

There are two kinds of social media campaigns: organic and paid. Organic social media ads are driven by unpaid posts. It’s less disruptive because it only appears to your followers and people who are following any hashtag you use. Organic ads have their own advantages, yet they aren’t suitable for short campaigns that need quick action. Paid ads are what you should focus on.

What are Paid Social Media Ads?

The act of paying to run an ad on social media platforms is known as Paid Social Media Advertising. It is based on audience targeting, WordStream stated, and each platform has its own features, settings, and format. Basically, it targets audiences and their interests and behaviors.

Social media ads have become a significant part of digital marketing strategies. Companies that recognize its benefits are spending dollars on paid social media ads. Csaba Szabo, EMEA Managing Director, stated that more than nine in ten of the industry (91%) plan to advertise on social media platforms in 2023. This means that your brand will need to advertise on social media platforms to keep up with the rest of the world.

Social media ads, paid or unpaid, come in various formats. They can be in the form of images, GIFs, or videos. Often they are very visually pleasing and quite native to the platform, WordStream added, so they are very difficult to identify as ads. 

The Benefit of Paid Social Media Ads

Paid social media ads are famous for their ability to reach targeted audiences. However, there are several other benefits as well. Read on to find out why you need to add paid social media ads to your digital marketing strategy.

Cost-Efficient

Generally, there are a lot of factors that influence your spending on social media ads, including the campaign objective, its optimization, and its bidding strategy. However, using paid social media ads is comparatively cheaper than TV or radio ads that are priced based on the ads’ length or the time they air.

Paid social media ads use a pay-to-play model, according to Hubspot, and that makes them flexible enough to target only the audience you want to attract. It’s also based on the length of the campaign and the potential impressions you want. This gives you more control over your advertising budget and all that.

Well-Tracked

Paid social media ads are easy to track. Of course, you can measure the usual engagements like clicks, shares, or comments. Yet with more advanced tracking tools, you can monitor how your ads are doing. This information can be used to guide your next business decision.

Setting up Google Analytics, for example, can let you know what happens when someone clicks your ads, including sales and form completions. There are also ways to track bounce and conversion rates.

Increase Brand Awareness

Since the ads can also be a permanent post in your social media platform’s feed, you can customize the post to match your company’s style and branding. You have full control over the ads’ creative process and it allows your brand to experiment. This way, customers will be more aware of your brand in the future.

In addition to that, creating ads that align with your company’s branding will increase traffic to your page as well. Use call-to-action words in your ad copy to encourage people to leave a comment, like, or review. Overall, it can increase customer engagement.

Reach Qualified Customers

Using paid social media ads allows you to target specific customers in a specific niche. There are two types of audience segmentation according to Open Flow: custom audience and lookalike audience. Custom audience refers to people who have already interacted with your business through follows, likes, etc. While lookalike audience refers to people who have never interacted with your brand, yet they share similarities with those who have.

Both types are equally important for your company’s growth. A custom audience is good for achieving a higher engagement rate, as discussed previously. Lookalike audiences, however, allow you to expand your market and convert them to custom audiences later.

Final Thoughts

Although the result of paid social media ads is consistent and reliable, it also needs proper management and optimization. There will be constant changes and adjustments to keep up with the current trend. Ultimately, the most critical thing is to know what kind of ad is the most effective, so you can develop the right strategy for your brand.

Next Read: What is TikTok Ads and How to Optimize It