Social media is free, but not if you want it to go to work for your brand. To do that, you'll need to pull out your wallet and spring for paid social ads.
But how can you be sure your marketing budget will be well spent? Let us show you how to use smart paid social strategies to make your dollars go the distance.
Tired of seeing your ad campaigns flop? Use these proven tactics to take them to the next level.
So you've heard that all the kids are crazy about TikTok, so that's obviously where you should focus your paid social efforts, right? Not so fast.
To understand why, consider the social platforms you see the most interaction from customers. There's likely one or two you get better results out of than the others, and they're probably the ones you feel most comfortable with too.
So for you, those platforms that you've already found the most success with should be the ones you pay for ads on first.
And remember, the platforms that work for you may not necessarily be the ones that work for most other brands. Case in point: The bank holding company Ally Financial launched a mega-successful ad campaign on Pinterest. Compared to other platforms, their Pinterest ads had a 62 percent more efficient cost per click (CPC), as well as a 134 percent higher click-through rate (CTR).
And yet, Pinterest isn't even close to being one of the most popular platforms for most marketers. In HubSpot's State of Marketing Trends Report, it didn't even make the list of platforms marketers leverage most:
In a separate survey of North American small businesses, only 4 percent named Pinterest as the most valuable platform for their brand.
So does that mean Ally Financial is wrong to invest in Pinterest ads? Of course not! What it does mean is that some platforms deliver stellar results for some brands but don't do much for others — and that's okay.
What matters is that you spend your money on the social platforms that work for you, not the ones that work for someone else.
When evaluating just how much moolah your brand should spend on paid social advertising, you'll need to consider a variety of factors. For example:
The answers to those questions will help determine what your brand's social media advertising budget should be, but the final number is ultimately a judgment call only you or another leader can make.
But if it helps to know how much other brands are spending, we can give you some insight there. The average amount social media agencies charge for a comprehensive, fully outsourced strategy is $4,000-$7,000 per month, which works out to somewhere between $130 and $230 per day.
That amount can vary greatly depending on the agency you're working with, though. As such, it may be more helpful to know that as of February 2022, companies spend an average of 15.4 percent of their entire marketing budget on social media:
By 2027, that percentage is expected to increase to 23.5 percent. So if you're used to spending only a small fraction of your marketing budget on paid social ads, it may be time to rethink your strategy.
Not sure how to create awesome content for your social media ads? No problem — we've got plenty of experience in this area.
No matter what type of content you're creating, be sure to:
And remember, all those guidelines are true whether you're outsourcing your paid social campaigns or using an in-house team.
Now that about half of the world population (and over 80 percent of Americans) uses social media, there's no way to accurately generalize social media users.
Instead, you'll need to precisely identify your brand's unique audience by digging into its analytics and crafting detailed buyer personas.
By doing so, you'll be able to learn about your audience's:
Using that information, you can not only tailor your ads' content accordingly but also use social media platforms' built-in targeting features to reach the right audience.
And when your ads are being served to the people who are most receptive to them, you're sure to get more bang for your paid social bucks.
Once your social media campaigns are up and running, you're going to want to see results. And as any marketer will tell you, one of the best ways to do so is by measuring your ROI.
To start, calculate the amount of money spent on your campaign thus far. Then, use all the analytical tools at your disposal to calculate the campaign's resulting:
Depending on the goals you set out to achieve when creating your campaigns, you may find that the ads you've paid to run have over- or under-delivered. But if you didn't get the results you were hoping for, don't go back to the drawing board.
Instead, take a page out of the growth marketing playbook and use the data you've gathered to inform the campaign's next iteration.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put together an awesome paid social campaign. What it does take, though, is a seasoned social media team that knows how to create paid social strategies that are tailor-made for your brand and no one else's.
If you have that in your arsenal, then you'll soon find your marketing budget going farther than you ever thought possible.