Are Social Media Ads Effective?

The simple answer is - yes, social media ads have a proven track record of being effective. Social media advertising presents a huge opportunity to not only reach more of the right consumers, but do so at a low cost.

Yet, for a social media advertising campaign to be effective, you must know your landscape. 

Why Are Social Media Ads Effective?

Social media ads are effective for numerous reasons, including:

1. Increased media consumption
2. They enable you to hyper-target customers
3. They are cost-effective
4. They provide you with trackable results
5. They allow you to increase brand awareness

1. Increased Media Consumption

One of the best reasons for advertising on social media is that your customers are spending more time than ever on social media platforms. 

Social media is where the people are, and the role of social media in users’ daily lives has changed massively - it now carries significant weight in the path to purchase.

In fact, research shows that nearly 3 in 10 social media users use social media primarily to research products to buy.

Likewise, social networks are the second leading research channel after search engines, with a huge 42% of people doing their product research on social media platforms. That’s a huge marketing and advertising opportunity for brands.

2. They Enable You To Hyper-Target Customers

One of the main reasons why social media ads are so effective is because brands have the ability to hyper-target their ideal target audience based on exact demographics. 

By targeting prospective customers based on age, gender, location, interests, behaviours, and much more, you are showing relevant information to relevant people who are more likely to have an interest in your product or service, and therefore more likely to purchase from your brand. 

An excellent example of hyper-targeting is on Facebook. Facebook ads allow you to filter your audience around location, age, gender, and language. You can even filter it down to things like relationship status and interests. If your ideal customer is a male in Cardiff, age 16-24 who is interested in football; Facebook ads can target them.

Showing ads to the right individuals through hyper-targeting therefore helps you connect with your customers, generate leads, increase your sales, and avoid wasted ad spend.  

3. They Are Cost Effective

Not only does social media advertising enable you to reach the right audience, but it’s also the cheapest way to advertise your business.

To put it in perspective, you will spend around $57 on direct mail advertising to reach 1,000 people.

To reach the same amount of people on social media, you’re looking at spending under $3.  

Even if your social media advertising brings in the same amount of sales as other methods of advertising, you will still be saving much more money compared to what other ads would have cost you. 

4. They Provide You With Trackable Results

Another major reason why social media ads are super effective is because they provide you with trackable results.

Data is one of the most important resources a business can use to its advantage to better its ad campaigns.

There are an array of useful tools you can use to track your social media results and current strategies, from Google Analytics to Instagram Insights.

With these tools, you can see data in real time and take immediate action, discover trends, and realign campaigns if need be. 

After all, knowledge is power.

To learn more about why social media ad analytics are important, be sure to check out our blog here.

5. They Allow You To Increase Brand Awareness

Lastly, a reason why social media ads are effective is that they allow you to increase brand awareness.

Before clicks and conversions come into the equation, social media provides you with the platform to get your brand in front of thousands, if not millions, of users.

Considering that 5.04 billion people around the globe now use social media, the opportunity for increasing brand awareness on social media is vast.

Whether you're a new business or are simply new to social media, this exposure from advertising on social media can result in a wealth of new leads and conversions.

Social Media Ads Are Effective When You Know Your Landscape

There’s no denying that social media ads perform well. But if you don’t know your marketing landscape, your ads may not do as well as you expect and can in fact damage your brand's reputation.

Know Your Audience 

Knowing your audience and understanding what they want to see is crucial for effective social media ads. For example, younger consumers between the ages of 16-24 want to be entertained and accurately represented, while older audiences are more partial to ads that inform or offer special deals.

It's important to also identify when your audience may be making an emotional purchase - a purchase decision that has emotional incentive behind it. Find out more about successfully integrating emotion into social media ads with this Untamed case study.

Take User Experience Into Account 

Repetitive and irrelevant content will end up annoying your potential customers and may damage your brand's reputation. In a study by Survey Monkey, 74% of users think that there are too many of the same ads on social media and 44% of users find ads to be irrelevant to their wants and needs. 

Improvements that account for the users’ experience are not only likely to improve your ads’ performance but also benefit your brand’s long-term reputation.

Create The Right Content

As mentioned previously, for a social media ad to be effective, your content must be spot on and in line with your audience's wants and needs. At Aura Ads, we help clients sell more online and grow at scale with our bespoke video and static creative delivered on a monthly basis.

We are Aura Ads, a unique performance creative agency designed for D2C eCommerce brands. For more tips and tricks from our experts, head over to our blog page or schedule a call with our team today.

Looking to attract B2B customers? Check out how to use LinkedIn Stories.

Written by Kate, for Aura Ads.