Every day, the average person spends 2.5 hours on social media. That’s a lot of untapped potential to push your products to them. That’s where social media advertising comes in.
Source: Statista
There are many key advantages of social media advertising for your business.
This guide will cover 9 key advantages of social media advertising that, when tapped, will supercharge your marketing efforts.
Whether you’re new to social advertising or want to improve your existing campaigns, this guide is for you. In this guide, we will cover:
- 9 advantages of social media advertising
- What is social media advertising?
- 9 advantages of social media advertising
- Platforms for social media advertising
- How to expand your social media presence with ads
- Frequently asked questions about social media advertising
Let’s begin with the most basic question.
What is social media advertising?
Before we move into the advantages of social media advertising, let’s have a quick explainer.
It’s a five-step process, and here’s how it would work.
- First, you pick your target market. If you sell tailored suits for gents, you won’t target ladies, right?
- Next, you want to create an ad campaign. You’d come up with videos and photos which will be your eye-catching ads.
- You also write a brief ad text that grabs attention. The goal of this text (called copy), is to drive action like website visits or sales. The copy goes alongside your ad, usually in the caption.
- Lastly, you need to narrow down on one of the platforms for social media advertising. Pick whichever one is best for you.
For example, Facebook (now META), allows an insane level of audience targeting. On the other hand, Instagram is way more popular with the younger generations.
- And we’re done. Your target audience sees your ads in their social media feeds or Stories.
You only pay when someone sees or engages with your ad, making social ads cost-effective compared to traditional channels.
PS — Don’t worry about the best platform; we’ll explain everything in due course.
Now you know what social media advertising is, but how can it benefit you? Next, we’ll look at the advantages of social media advertising.
9 advantages of social media advertising
Let’s get right into it.
1. You can reach targeted audiences
When you advertise on social platforms, you get to choose exactly who will see your ads. The platforms know their users’ interests, behaviors, ages, locations, etc.
Advertising on social media allows you to choose who sees your ads and who doesn’t. For instance, let’s say you sell camping items and paraphernalia.
You then chose Facebook as your platform. You could only show your ads to people who are interested in “hiking,” “camping,” or “rock climbing.”
You could further target people between the ages of 20 and 60 and only from the West Coast. You can change your ads anytime, too. If you see one ad doing well and another not, you can stop the bad one.
Then, you can spend more money on a good ad. This helps you use your money wisely.
2. It is cost-effective if done right
Social media can be cost-effective because it lets you choose who sees your ads. You don’t waste money showing your ads to people who aren’t interested. Instead, you target those who are likely to buy your product.
You start by setting a daily or lifetime budget that fits you. Even small budgets can work since you control costs precisely.
From there, you pick your ideal audience–maybe campers ages 25-45 who live near national parks. Your ads are shown only to this niche group, which is most likely to buy your gear.
Plus, social ads are very flexible and hands-on. You can tweak the targeting, creative, spending, and more anytime based on what works. This way, your budget will continue to deliver higher and higher returns.
3. You get real-time feedback.
The platforms give you metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, and costs. This data updates constantly as people view and engage with your ads.
You might see that one ad gets tons of impressions but few clicks. That could mean the visual isn’t catching interest. Or maybe an ad has a high click rate but low conversions, signaling the offer needs adjustment.
You also gain insights into your audiences. If one interest group resonates better than others, you can refine your targeting immediately.
With this live data, you can rapidly test new tactics and creatives. Pause low performers immediately instead of wasting money, or quickly double-down budgets on ads that are crushing it.
4. There are multiple ad formats available.
Different products and goals call for different ad types. With options like videos, images, carousels, and stories, you can choose the best format to capture attention.
For example, a video ad helps demonstrate a new tool or convey an emotional brand message. However, a carousel ad showcasing several items could work better for promotions with multiple products.
Image and story ads are ideal for driving instant traffic and conversions with eye-catching visuals and snappy copy.
The variety allows you to experiment and see what performs best for your business. You’re not stuck using just one format that may not resonate.
Mixing different ad types can also prevent “ad fatigue,” where audiences get bored seeing the same creatives repeatedly. You keep things fresh.
Certain formats suit different placements, too. Stories and videos work great for mobile news feeds, while image or carousel ads may grab attention better in sidebar slots.
5. It’s easy to track metrics and analytics.
With social ads, you get in-depth data showing how well your campaigns perform. The analytics make it easy to see what’s working and what’s not.
All the key metrics are tracked, including impressions, clicks, conversions, costs, and more. You can view results overall or drill down by audience, ad, placement, and other factors.
This transparency helps you understand your real return on ad spend. No more guessing if your budget is paying off. The analytics also reveal valuable audience insights. You can identify your top converting demographics, interests, and locations to double down on your best customers.
If something underperforms, the data lets you quickly spot and adjust those weaker areas.
But for ads driving great results, you can instantly put more money behind the winners. Over time, all those metrics expose patterns and trends to optimize your targeting and creativity for maximum impact and highest returns.
In short, the ability to easily track every data point lets you make smarter decisions, invest wisely, and continually improve performance.
6. Your company brand loyalty increases.
Social platforms allow you to constantly get your brand in front of your ideal audience. The more people see and engage with your brand’s ads, the more familiar and trusted it becomes.
Your ads humanize the company by showcasing your brand personality, story, and values.
Social ads also open a direct line of communication. People can easily comment, message, or share your ads. Responding quickly builds goodwill and customer affinity.
As you nurture relationships over time, your most loyal brand ambassadors emerge.
They generate invaluable word-of-mouth marketing by raving about your products and company.
7. Social media ads are easy to set up and use
The ad interfaces walk you through every step, from selecting your objective and defining your target audience to setting budgets and uploading eye-catching visuals or videos. No coding or fancy software is required. Follow the prompts on your screen, and your ad will go up in minutes.
They provide a single dashboard to monitor and tweak every aspect of your campaigns on the fly.
Budgets underperforming? Reallocate with a few clicks.
Is creative not resonating? Swap in fresh visuals instantly.
But don’t let the simplicity fool you. These ad platforms pack serious power under the hood.
As you scale up campaigns, the platforms adapt. They automatically surface new audience expansions to boost performance. It’s like having an expert advisor course-correct your efforts.
8. You can open another customer service avenue.
Social media allows customers to contact you directly with questions or issues. They can comment on your ads or posts or send direct messages, opening up a convenient communication channel.
Your business can quickly respond to customers one-on-one through social platforms. Prompt, personal replies make people feel valued and heard.
You can also monitor what people say about your brand across social media.
If there are complaints or problems, you can address them right away publicly.
Social media creates online communities around your business, too. Customers can connect with each other and your team. Your biggest fans may even help answer questions from other customers.
Social marketing gives you affordable new ways to provide attentive, responsive customer service.
Rather than frustrating phone trees, it’s a direct, transparent communication line.
9. You can improve your SERP rankings
First, every social ad campaign drives more traffic and visibility for your website. As people click through from your ads to your site, search engines learn that your content is more valuable than other people’s.
Plus, those visitors spend time engaging with your content, reinforcing relevance signals and boosting rankings.
Social ads increase brand awareness, too. As your brand gets shared and mentioned more across social platforms, it creates a larger online footprint.
Search engines pick up on this enhanced authority.
Your ads can also spark other sites to organically link back to yours as a citation. Inbound links from high domain authority sites are hugely valuable for SEO.
If you run social video ads, they can be embedded and go viral on other sites as well—another way to accrue backlinks naturally.
Lastly, many social platforms allow the publishing of sponsored content promoted via ads. Search engines can index this expanded content for extra ranking opportunities.
Source: Screenshot
Those were the nine most apparent advantages of social media advertising. There are many more, depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, of course.
However, for now, let’s discuss where you can (and should) go with social media advertising.
Platforms for social media advertising
You have so many options when it comes to social media advertising platforms. Each has its own upsides and pros. If you don’t want to get too deep, here’s a handy table summarizing your choices.
| # | Platform Name | Average CPC | Best for | Targeting Options |
| 1 | $0.50 – $2.00 | Large audience, demographics, interests | Age, location, interests, behaviors, demographics | |
| 2 | $0.20 – $1.00 | Visual content, influencers, engagement | Demographics, interests, behaviors, lookalike audiences | |
| 3 | $0.25 – $1.50 | Hashtags, trends, conversations | Interests, keywords, followers, demographics | |
| 4 | YouTube | $0.10 – $0.30 | Video content, brand awareness | Demographics, interests, behaviors, placements |
| 5 | $5.00 – $10.00 | Professionals, B2B marketing | Industry, job title, company size, skills | |
| 6 | $0.50 – $2.00 | Large audience, search intent, website traffic | Keywords, demographics, interests, behaviors, placements | |
| 7 | Bing | $0.50 – $1.00 | Search intent, website traffic | Keywords, demographics, interests, behaviors |
Now, let’s explore each of these platforms for social media advertising in greater detail.
1. Facebook Ads (now Meta Adsuite)
Facebook ads use data from user profiles. Remember when you signed up for Facebook, you basically handed in all your biodata? Facebook uses that data from its millions of users to display your ads to interested people. That way, your ads get shown to the right people most likely to want your product or service.
Facebook offers many ad format options, such as images, videos, and carousels. These grab attention in people’s news feeds on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other apps.
However, there are some downsides to Facebook Ads. As more businesses use them, the costs keep rising each year.
There are also increasing concerns for user privacy. As users choose which data is stored, our targeting options may be reduced. For now, though, Facebook remains a powerful advertising tool.
Facebook ads have unmatched audience targeting potential. If used strategically, they can effectively grow brand awareness and sales.
2. Instagram Ads
What makes Instagram unique is its focus on visuals. Your ads need eye-catching images or videos to stand out in users’ feeds, making Instagram ideal for promoting products, fashion, travel, food, and other visual businesses.
Companies often partner with influencers, too. They pay popular Instagram users to promote their products through sponsored posts and stories. This influencer marketing builds trust and awareness with their engaged followers.
One advantage of Instagram over Facebook is typically lower ad costs. However, the targeting data may be less robust since Instagram collects less personal info.
3. Twitter Ads
A Twitter-specific feature is tailoring ads toward specific accounts and their follower base. This helps insert your brand into relevant communities already discussing your industry.
Twitter ad formats include promoted tweets, accounts, trends, and videos. These appear in users’ feeds or at the top of search results for your chosen keywords.
While not as gigantic as Facebook ads, Twitter ads have lower costs. Minimum ad budgets start low, too, making it accessible for smaller businesses.
However, sustaining engagement can be challenging since users typically visit Twitter in bursts for quick hits of info. Creative ad copy and visuals are critical for stopping people’s thumbs.
4. YouTube Ads
You can run several different ad formats on YouTube, such as skippable or non-skippable video ads that play before, during, or after the main video. There are also options for banner ads, overlay ads, and more.
A big advantage of YouTube ads is finding very niche, specific audiences.
For example, you could show ads to people watching videos about organic gardening or camping gear reviews.
The downside is costs tend to be higher compared to other platforms.
It works best for product demos, guides, or entertaining branded videos which isn’t just promotional.
5. LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B and professional marketing. You can sort your audience by job titles, companies, industries, skills, etc.
LinkedIn ad formats include sponsored content posts, messaging ads, video ads, and more. They can appear on desktop or mobile devices.
LinkedIn ads have higher costs than traditional ads due to the more niche, affluent audiences. However, if you need to reach major decision-makers and business influencers, LinkedIn is great.
6. Google Ads
This includes search ads on Google, video ads on YouTube, and banner ads on partnering sites. For search ads, you choose keywords related to your business. Your text ads then show when someone searches those keywords on Google.
This puts your ads right before people actively looking for what you offer.
You control exactly who sees your ads. A big advantage is the huge reach across all of Google’s popular platforms and sites. However, popular keywords can get expensive due to competition.
Overall, Google Ads provides many options for promoting your business to interested audiences on the web and YouTube.
7. Bing Ads
Bing Ads allows you to advertise on Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Yahoo, and its partner sites. It works similarly to Google Ads.
You choose keywords related to your products or services. Then, your text ads will be displayed when people search for those keywords on Bing and partner sites. You can also run visual banner ads and display ads on websites within the Microsoft Audience Network.
This uses data about users’ interests and online behavior for targeting. Also, the ad costs on Bing are generally lower since there’s less competition.
Now, you’ve got the basics (platforms and advantages of social media advertising) out of the way. In the last section, we’ll give you some pointers to up your social media advertising game.
How to expand your social media presence with ads
Ready to boost your social media presence with ads? Great.
It’s a mix of common sense and some insider tips.
First, clarify your goals. What are you trying to achieve? More sales? App downloads? Business leads? Once you know that, determine your ideal customers (think age, interests, location, etc.).
Next, choose a few ad formats that suit your goals and audience. A visually appealing image might work for one product, while a short video might be better for another.
Next is targeting. Use all the tools, especially on platforms like Facebook, to ensure your ads reach the right people. Then, keep track of your ads’ performance and adjust as needed. You can tweak your offer, the ad design, or the targeting settings until you find the perfect combination.
Here’s where we can help. At RetainIQ, we’ve mastered the art of Facebook advertising. We’ve helped businesses like yours improve their ROAS by up to 45%. Our secret? A proven process combined with in-house technology that creates super effective product ads for your online store, no matter how many products you have.
If you’re intrigued by the possibilities of Facebook advertising, let’s chat. We can help you take your social media presence to the next level.
With that, we conclude this article on the advantages of social media advertising. We hope you found it useful, and we’ll see you in the next one.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Can I use social media advertising to target my competitors’ audiences?
While you can’t directly target people who already follow your competitors, some platforms allow you to target users with similar interests. For example, if you sell sneakers, you could target people who follow popular sports brands.
2. I’m worried about people feeling annoyed by my social media ads.
Good social media ads are informative and engaging, not spammy. Focus on providing value to your audience, such as educational content or special offers. People are more likely to be receptive to ads that benefit them in some way.
3. I don’t have a huge marketing budget. Can social media advertising still work for me?
Absolutely! Social media ads are very budget-friendly. You can set daily spending limits and target your ads to reach the exact people you want so you don’t waste money on folks who aren’t interested. Even small budgets can be adequate if you target them well.