As businesses scramble to figure out how to stay relevant in the digital age, making social media marketing part of your strategy becomes increasingly important. Social media ads are one way you can do this. But if you’re starting, you might wonder just how effective they are —and whether or not they’ll even work in 2022.
As with most marketing strategies, social media trends come and go, and social media ads are no exception to this rule. So the big question is…
Do Social Media Ads Still Work?
The answers depend largely on how much money your business has. Also, it will depend on whether you want to reach a larger audience or focus only on professionals.
The former may be easier if you have a small budget; however, the latter may be more effective for getting those highly sought-after leads from big companies. So, advertising in these places is probably worth it if you want to grow your sales.
However, if you’re looking for customers like most SMBs, other avenues might be better for generating traffic and new customers. This article will examine what it takes to get started and make the most of your social media ads.
Understanding Your Audience and Demographics
The first step to understanding social media ad specs is to know who you’re trying to reach and where they spend their time online. Start by creating audience personas and fictional characters representing your ideal customers. Include demographics, interests, values, behaviors, and attitudes.
When writing your personas, know who you’re targeting; this will help you determine what type of ads might be most effective for them, such as specific age groups or gender. You can also use Facebook Audience Insights to learn more about the people on Facebook and how they interact with content.
Creating the Actual Ads
Sure, it’s tempting to tell your digital assistant to generate a few ads—but if you want them to work, you need to know a little about how they work. Social media ad specs may not be as important as they used to be (with some platforms allowing single-image posts and short videos). Still, if you’re going for engagement and clicks, you should know a couple of important things before posting.
The first is the image size: on Facebook, an image must be at least 600 x 315 pixels. YouTube can accept any file size up to 4 GB; Twitter recommends using an aspect ratio between 1.91:1 and 16:9, which means that all images must measure 1033 x 627 pixels or less.
It would help if you also considered who you’re targeting with your ads. The targeting category of business owners will have different objectives than Parents. You might consider including an end date to create urgency around what you’re offering, and allowing viewers to take action immediately after viewing your post will increase conversions.
Performance Metrics
Business owners who measure their marketing performance metrics are far more likely to derive real, actionable insight they can apply to their business. Therefore, we recommend you follow four primary social media ad specs when implementing a campaign or posting on your social channels.
These include impressions, reach, engagement, and cost-per-impression (CPM). Make sure you know each of these and how to benchmark them for your business. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to make better decisions about your campaigns and social content strategy.
For example, if you see low engagement rates with your posts, it may be time to take a different approach with the timing of your posts or the type of content being shared.
If You Think It Will Work for You, Take a Shot!
This is going to depend heavily on your industry. Some people still see success with social media ads. But at an alarming rate, people are starting to use ad blockers and post blockers on their social media platforms. So if you think it will work for you, take a shot! However, make sure you give it time because these campaigns can take up quite a bit.
Even if you have high expectations for them, sometimes they don’t go as planned, and that can be tough to get over. With any campaign, there will be failures, so try not to put too much pressure on yourself if the numbers don’t add up from the start.
There’s no set way to know what will or won’t work until you test it out. The other option is to look into more advertising platforms like Google Adwords or Bing Ads, where you’re targeting keywords instead of individuals- who knows, this might be more successful for your business!
Featured Photo by Lisa: https://www.pexels.com