Paid Social Media Advertising – Will It Work For your Business?

Remember the days of opening your search engine only to be faced with an ad popping up on your screen for something you have no interest in buying?  We call it “Interruptive Advertising” and it’s a marketing tactic that is slowly disappearing.

Today’s marketing is all about personalization.  Consumers want brands to understand their specific needs.  They want personalization and the feeling that the business is talking directly to them.  And all of this can be accomplished with social media advertising.

What is a paid social media ad?

If you are on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, you have seen paid advertisements.  They look like a regular post, but have the word “Sponsored” or “Promoted” somewhere on the post and typically have a call to action button.  These are ads that companies have paid money to have placed on feeds to a wider audience besides their followers.  If the ad is on your feed, it’s because you have shown interest, in the past, either by searching on the internet and/or social media, or the interest is indicated by the information on your profile.

Now that you know the definition of a social media ad, it’s time to dig a little deeper.  To do this, we have created a list of the frequently asked questions when it comes to advertising on social media.  While most of the platforms offer paid ads, we’re mostly focusing on Facebook and Instagram, the most popular ones.

Does advertising on social media cost a lot of money?

No, you can pay as little as $20.00.  But just like anything, the more you spend, the greater the results.  In our experience, you can run an effective campaign for as little as a few hundred dollars…and reach thousands of people while you’re at it.  The best way to maximize your results is to create targeted ads to your ideal customer based on their interests and behaviours.

Is it invasive for consumers?

Some may think so, but an effective campaign is really targeting your ideal customer who is most likely to purchase your goods and services.  If you are selling ballet shoes, your ads will only be shown to consumers who have shown an interest or have bought ballet shoes in the past.  Why spend your money showing ads to people who will never have a need for your product?  It’s all about targeting, my friends.

Is it hard to manage?

No.  For most of the platforms, the process is straight-forward and easy to follow.  As for our process, we like to start broad and eventually narrow the focus.  This means, if you are starting a campaign, start your first few ads with a large, broad audience.  Then run another set of ads that only target those consumers who showed an interest in your previous ads, by clicking on them or going to your web-site (depending on what your campaign objective are).  After running a few ads, you will have created a list of potential customers who have shown an interest in your company and are most likely to buy in the future.

Can I re-target ads to consumers?

It’s happened to all of us.  We’re late night shopping for a specific item on a web-site.  The next morning when we open our Facebook or Instagram account we’re shown an ad for the same item, or one similar to it.  Are the businesses stalking us in our homes?  No.  They’re re-targeting ads to consumers who have shown an interest in their products.  And it all happens with a simple piece of web-site code called a Facebook pixel.  This is how you maximum your advertising dollars – by targeting customers who are most likely to buy what you are selling.

Can I monitor the results?

That’s the beautiful part.  All platforms provide you real-time results.  Know how many people have clicked on your ad, how many people have seen your ad and/or how many have gone to your web-site.  You can even perform split-tests on ads, meaning you can test the content in different ads to determine which one consumers are responding to.

Would it work for my business?

That all depends on your goals and objectives.  If your goal is to build brand awareness, gain followers and generally promote your business, there is a campaign objective for that.  If you want to actually sell goods and services on social media platforms, you can do that too.  Or maybe you want to drive more people to your web-site.  You guessed it….it can happen with paid ads.  It can be as simple as boosting a post you have already created, or running an elaborate ad campaign.

What platforms have advertising options?

Most of them…Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest…to name a few.

This all seems overwhelming to me.  What can I do?

Contact us and we can help you design a strategy.  We can even design and manage the ad campaign for you.