The benefits of Social Ads

Brands and businesses have understood the importance of investing in and asserting their presence on social media platforms for several years, and this trend has been reinforced by the global COVID-19 health crisis. Consumers spend an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes per day on social networks, and brands and businesses are redoubling their efforts to capture their attention online, particularly through Social Ads.

While the first half of 2020 was heavily marked by the health crisis, the first half of 2021 shows strong growth in the digital advertising market. Revenues reached €3,834 million, representing a 42% increase compared to the previous year and a 37% growth compared to the first half of 2019.

All levers have strongly rebounded compared to the first half of 2021, but Social, Search, and Display are experiencing the strongest growth: Social is experiencing the strongest growth at +58%, driven by video (+102%), and its weight is increasing slightly from 28% to 31% (€1,189 million).

In this article, we will see why Social Ads are essential elements of your social media strategy.

| What is it?

According to an infographic from the Awitec training organization published in 2022, 48,500,000 people in France visit Instagram or Facebook monthly, allowing companies present on these social networks to reach 72% of the population. This is not nothing, as nearly 7 out of 10 French people connect to these platforms every month!

However, it is not enough to be present and post on popular social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat to be visible on the web. After our last article on the secrets of social media algorithms, you now have some keys to understand their workings and adapt your digital strategy.

In this perspective of reaching your target audience, the question of using social networks no longer arises and reinvents itself. “What levers will I use to achieve my marketing and commercial objectives?” Advertising on social networks is an excellent tool to reach a predefined audience. 49% of internet users say they are likely to buy products they see advertised when browsing the web; a strategy that would exploit this trend would come with enormous growth potential for advertisers. The success of this depends on brands’ ability to provide personalized advertising experiences that meet consumers’ needs. Users’ advertising expectations vary from generation to generation. The trick is to develop a thorough understanding of the targeted audience’s preferences and to develop a strategy accordingly.

However, these platforms have limitations that should not be overlooked. The idea of some networks like Instagram or Facebook is to favor the dissemination of content judged to be of quality by the algorithm, i.e., those that will succeed in meeting your community’s expectations. Unfortunately, for some time now, the average organic reach of your posts seems to be stagnating around only 5%. So, on average, fewer than 5% of your followers actually see your posts in their news feeds. The goal is to encourage brands and businesses to use social Ads to reach a much broader audience.

| Advantages and benefits of Social Ads

The benefits of sponsored campaigns are numerous:

1. Social networks have developed many advertising formats to meet your communication, marketing, or commercial objectives. You can choose the location of your ad on Facebook or Instagram, for example: news feed, stories, Messenger under the desired format (image, video, carousel, etc.).
2. The use of social Ads allows you to refine your targeting very precisely (Geolocation, age, gender, interests, etc.) with many filters to reach a specific audience.
3. The speed of creation: Creating a sponsored campaign and setting it up is much quicker compared to creating an email campaign.
4. Control of your expenses: Contrary to popular belief, advertising even on the number one network like Facebook is not expensive. On the contrary, social ads are relatively affordable, and the amount allocated to an advertising campaign can be adjusted at any time, up or down.
5. Precise tracking of your statistics: The platforms’ tools offer numerous relevant KPIs to track the performance of your campaigns in real-time. These include the amount spent, reach generated, cost per thousand impressions, click-through rate, conversion rate, etc.

| Why Social Listening is a success factor for your campaigns?

As a reminder, social listening refers to an active listening activity of your customers, prospects, and audience. Thanks to it, you will be able to identify and understand their expectations and offer high-value content. Social Ads can be used as real tools to:

1. Significantly increase your visibility on social networks and the reach of your sponsored content.
2. Reach a much wider audience and bypass the limits imposed by the platforms’ organic reach.
3. Increase your brand awareness
4. Improve your brand image

By sponsoring your content, the reach of your publications will be amplified. Your subscribers will be more likely to see your posts, and you will also reach Internet users whose profile and interests are similar to your audience. Once again, social listening will allow you to collect all the volume of conversations from your community to truly understand their expectations. With social ads, it is necessary to go through “test” phases to observe which are the best levers to activate. Thanks to social listening, you already know the topics of interest on which you need to communicate to build a true community around your brand or business.

With the explosion of digital advertising, advertiser platforms have developed formidable tools which, once mastered, can dramatically increase your conversion rates.

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In conclusion, investing in social ads brings many benefits to brands and businesses that embark on the adventure. Its deployment is fully part of a Social Media strategy and allows for a significant acceleration of its short-term effects. Social ads can help achieve various objectives (visibility, awareness, branding, conversion, leads, etc.), and it can be easy to get lost in the process.

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