Are you looking to generate industry-leading results and new business opportunities beyond your business's wildest dreams? With an average ROI of 250%, our social media specialists will investigate the advantages of paid social campaigns to answer the question, 'Why use paid social media advertising?' Let's dive straight in! 

Why Use Paid Social Media Advertising

Paid social media advertising is a marketing strategy brands use to increase brand awareness, reach new customers, increase revenue, and generate new business opportunities. Paid social media advertisements are labelled 'sponsored' so users can decipher sponsored ads from organic posts.

Paid social media allows brands to create ads in various formats on various social media channels. Brands turn to paid social media advertising to spread the word about their products or services because of the vast number of targeting options available.

Brands use information about their target audience to create advertisements that target their ideal customer, which then appear on the social media feeds of users who have demonstrated certain repeat behaviours or have particular traits. 

The most common reason brands may use paid social media advertising is to promote their brand, products or services to the correct audience without relying on organic content on their social media channels.

If you'd like to learn more about paid social media, check out our recent blog, 'What Does Paid Social Mean for Brands?'

The Advantages Of Social Media Ads

Conversion Rate Optimisation

CRO (conversion rate optimisation) is a process for increasing the percentage of users who visit a website and take a desired action. By targeting users in the market for brands like yours, the likelihood of an engagement with your ad is much higher than someone who has found your social media account organically.

By securing this visibility and engagement, you can increase the conversion rate of those who click through to your website as you target social media users in the market for products or services like yours. 

We recommend ensuring that the landing pages, where active users will land after clicking on your ad, are optimised, show clear information and direction, and provide precisely what was advertised in your ad. Research has shown that a successful conversion rate for social media marketing is between 2% and 5%.

Increase Brand Visibility and Awareness

Promoting your brand using paid social media advertisements will surely grow your brand visibility and awareness. Although clicks and conversions may be the end goal for your paid social media marketing campaign, running a campaign will expose your brand to thousands of people, which can increase its awareness.

Your brand becomes imprinted in online users' minds by appearing in social media feeds. Whether you are a small or large enterprise, brand is at the forefront of everything your business does. Statistics show that 52% of online brand discovery comes from social media platforms so having your ads appear with your brand logo, messaging or other references to your offering is critical to businesses looking to disrupt the online space. 

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Reduce Advertising Costs

Paid social media advertising is not free. However, it offers a level of control over budgets that can be modified as and when your brand likes. The real appeal of social media regarding costs is that it can reduce spending with its targeting features.

Let's say you're looking to advertise a new clothing line. Your team is brainstorming ideas to capture the attention of your ideal audience.

One team member suggests an advertising board in the middle of town, at the traditional cost of £200 – £2,000 per week for traditional billboards.

Another team member suggested running a monthly Facebook advertisement campaign for the recommended budget of £10 - £20 per day (£620 based on a 31-day spend). The Facebook average cost per click is £0.63.

You're a fan of both options, but when it comes to targeting, a billboard in your town may be a waste. While it may capture the attention of a few passers-by, you would be completely neglecting those target customers who don't live locally and who travel different routes.

A Facebook advertisement campaign that allows you to use audience data, and shows your ad to the right people with the right characteristics and traits would not only be the cheaper option in many cases, but one spent focusing on your target audience. 

Targeting

Advanced targeting options make it easier for brands to dictate who sees their paid social media advertisements. This means that brands can now take more control of where their ads show and who they show to by using demographics and traits to target the people most likely to be interested in their brand and its products or services.

Age, gender, location, education, and job title are some demographics and traits that can be used to target users in paid social media marketing campaigns. 

Engagement

Research has shown that over half the world uses social media (62.3% - 5.04 billion), and 266 million people have come online within a year. The online competition is fierce, and brands are nothing without engagement. 

Your business goals regarding social media efforts do not have to always work towards sales. Instead, they can work towards increasing website visitors, engagement rate, or signups for newsletters. 

As social media has continued to exceed its expected popularity and shows no sign of slowing down, the advantages of advertising on social media are endless. Marketers in the digital age have unprecedented opportunities to push their brands and drive engagement on their ads, pages and websites. 

‍Measurable Results

Social media advertising campaigns can be accurately tracked and measured. Your campaign platform of choice will provide access to an endless supply of helpful data that can help better streamline your marketing efforts, including improving your targeting, ad copy, visuals and overall campaign strategy. 

Many social media advertising platforms also allow brands to integrate their ad campaigns with other marketing tools, such as SEMRush, HubSpot and GA4. They also provide opportunities to perform A/B split testing to investigate what type of advertisements resonate most with different audiences.

The wealth of data available to marketers through paid social media makes the marketing strategy more cohesive. On both organic and paid social media, brands can use insights from paid social to create more relevant, intentful content to encourage engagement and brand loyalty from their audience. 

The Different Types Of Social Media Ads

One of the benefits of running a paid social media advertising campaign is the flexibility offered to create ads in various formats. Here are 5 common types of social media advertisements that your brand can choose from to help reach your business goals.

Image Ads

Image ads are some of the most popular social media advertisements brands use. The majority of social media platforms support them. Image ads are static images that brands can design and include things like testimonials, images of products, graphics and diagrams to increase engagement and resonate with an audience. 

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads are a fan favourite because they are interactive! They allow a social media user to swipe through a few slides, showing multiple images or videos in one ad. Each video can include a CTA (call to action), a headline, a description, and a link. 

Carousel ads demonstrate a 20% higher conversion rate than single-image and video ads. 

Video Ads 

Video ads are highly successful within paid social media strategy as humans tend to be more attracted to a captivating video than a simple, static advertisement. They are particularly popular for increasing CTR (click-through rate) and engagement rate, although this does vary from social platform to platform.

Stories Ads

Stories ads appear when a social media user flicks through story updates from people they follow. They usually include an image or video and allow users to swipe up to visit a website or product page online. 

Message Ads

Message ads appear in a user's chat tab with 'sponsored' as a part of the text. Interested users can click the ad and open a chat where a potential customer can communicate with a business using a set of pre-filled-out text options in response to the advertisement. 

Our Final Thoughts

Why use paid social media advertising? Well, other than unleashing the unprecedented potential of your brand to seek out new business and new opportunities, it means skyrocketing your brand to reach its business goals. Using on-point targeting and various advertisement formats, your brand can hit your audience like a bullseye at a dart tournament and keep costs lower than another popular marketing strategy.

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So, if you want to take your brand to new heights, speak to one of our specialists to understand how SOAR With Us can help your business unlock its true online potential.

Our savvy social media specialists utilise dynamic social strategies to unlock exponential growth for ambitious E-Commerce brands. Check out our Paid Social Media Services today!