Paid Social Media Advertising: Is It Worth The Investment?

Stephen McCance September 20, 2021

The ways in which you can interact with potential customers have increased massively in recent years, thanks in part to paid social media advertising. Social media users consume information through social media 24 hours a day, 7 days a week across numerous channels and, with the use of paid social media advertising, your business has the ability to reach new customers like never before.

Here at Red Cow Media, we understand that nobody knows your business like you do and social media management can be time consuming. If your business has never utilised paid social media advertising before, it can seem like an unnecessary spend, especially if you’re already generating a good ROI on your business through organic posting. But, across both small and large businesses, paid social media advertising is becoming an integral part of marketing strategies and it’s not hard to see why.

In the UK alone, social advertising spend is predicted to reach £7billion this year and, by 2025, the number of social media users is set to top around 64 million, so it’s clear that more and more businesses are beginning to see the benefits of paid social media advertising. With that in mind, here are some reasons as to why paid social media advertising is worth the investment for your business. 

What is Paid Social Media Advertising?

Paid social media advertising is a way to display advertisements or sponsored marketing materials to a specifically defined audience. Every social media platform is different: Instagram focuses on visual content, Facebook has its own messenger and marketplace platform, LinkedIn is for networking and professional content whereas TikTok uses short form clips of video content. As a result, paid social media advertising on each platform is different and can generate different results, as well as reaching different audiences, depending on your social media ads.

What works for one platform may not necessarily work for the other and this is where we come in. We have the knowledge and experience to help you achieve your business goals and objectives using social media advertising. Whether you’re looking to increase direct sales or generate leads, we will tailor a paid social media advertising strategy to suit you and your business. No matter what your business goals are, there’s usually a social media platform that will allow you to reach your target audience demographic due to the versatility of options that are now available to advertise on.

How Paid Social Media Advertising Works

Creating a paid social media advertising campaign doesn’t need to be difficult or complicated and there are two main components when it comes to creating a successful paid social campaign: strategy and budget. 

Strategy

Setting the initial objectives for your paid social media advertising campaign allows us to understand what direction to work in and what goals you want to achieve. Whether you want to target pre-existing customers, introduce your brand to new audiences or  both, we can create a journey for these users by using filters, targeting and creatives which then makes them more likely to convert. 

We also implement ads that retarget users and audiences who may not have converted on their first visit or who need to see items a number of times, for example when it comes to more considered purchases and higher value ticket items. With retargeting, we will look at displaying your ads more frequently to users as they browse different websites or social channels in order to stay at the forefront of consumer’s minds until they’re ready to buy.

Budget

Whilst paid social media advertising can be one of the most expensive types of marketing nowadays when it’s not done correctly, it is also flexible and allows you to target the audiences you want to reach and engage with, rather than targeting a broad audience who may not be interested in your products or services. Paid social media advertising is priced based on how long you want your campaign to run for and the goal you want to work towards, so if you want to increase your ad spend, then there are usually ways and means of scaling your campaigns very quickly. When it comes to paid social media advertising, what you spend is often indicative of your returns, i.e. the more you spend, the more you make back.

Compared to traditional advertising methods, social media advertising provides a broader range of measurable KPIs which allow us to monitor your ad performance more closely and effectively. At Red Cow Media, you set the budget for your paid social media advertising campaigns and we will then work with you to set up the right ads to get the best return, from creating enticing ad copy and creatives to refining your target audiences and defining the correct platforms to target your prospective customers. 

Capturing The Attention Of Your Target Audience

Paid social media advertising stretches much further than just Facebook ads, although they’re the first form to pop into people’s minds since they’re the most common and have been available for the longest. Almost every social media platform now utilises some form of paid advertising platform for businesses to use, and for one simple reason: because it can increase revenue. 

By advertising on social media channels, you can put ads for your products or services right in front of your target audience. If you are unsure as to what platform would work best for your business, we’d suggest consulting an experienced professional. As an overview, though, here are some really interesting insights that might help you to decide:

• Facebook  – On Facebook, the largest demographic is men aged 25-34, making up 19% of all users on the platform. 
• Instagram – Around 35% of Instagram users are aged between 25-34, with an almost even split between male and female users. 
• Snapchat – Snapchat has a younger demographic between 18-24 year olds, with around 58% of Snapchat users being female. 
• TikTok – Around 50% of TikTok’s audience is under the age of 34, with 53% of users being male. 

Social media users include a lot of information within their account and paid social media advertising allows you to utilise this data and show potential customers your ads. Social media advertising uses demographics, behaviours and interests to show your ads to customers using information such as their location, age, gender, parental status and even via their online activity using tracking codes and pixels, such as the Facebook Pixel. 

Monitoring Your Paid Social Media Advertising Strategy

No matter how much money you put behind a campaign, you will want to see a sustainable ROI in order to show that the budget and resources you invested were worth it and we understand this. No matter how much you invest in your paid social media advertising, we will closely monitor your campaigns and provide regular updates and performance reports. This then allows you to decide whether you want to upscale your paid social strategy or keep it at a maintained level. 

With paid social media advertising, you have a lot of freedom, flexibility and control over the campaigns, budgets and how long they run for, which you don’t get with other methods of advertising. This flexibility allows you to increase spend, and therefore ROI, during busy periods of the year such as Black Friday, or reduce spend during quieter periods of the year. 

In Conclusion

When it comes to paid social media advertising, it’s easy to think that it is just reserved for big brands and businesses, however it is beneficial for all businesses of every size and target audience, there really are options for everyone. Paid advertising is well worth the investment and, whilst the options might seem overwhelming at first, it’s importance can’t be doubted. 

Social media advertising is a great way to get your brand or business in front of your audience and ahead of your competitors and ultimately, it helps with so much more than just increasing your ROAS. From paid social media advertising you can expect your website traffic to increase, organic social following and engagement to improve and see overall brand awareness grow – it’s a great all round investment to make for your business! 

If you have any questions in regards to your paid social media advertising campaign, please contact us today and we can tailor a strategy to suit your business.