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What do social media ads mean for businesses


Jodie Cormack - 31st August 2017 - 0 comments

Ads posted on social media helps to inform companies of the type of content their audience is reading and enjoying, through the monitoring of clicks, likes, shares and comments. When looking for posts to promote you want to send out the best message, therefore, look for the content that has resonated with followers as these have the best potential of receiving the highest amount of return.

Detailed targeting options allow you to target your audience by keywords, interests, specific behaviours and connections. Digital ad spend is dominated by Facebook. In 2016 Facebook made $26.2 billion dollars in revenue, this was 95% of their total revenue. Total social ad spend in 2016 reached $32.97 billion. By 2018, Facebook alone will top that number. In terms of return on investment, the top 3 platforms in order are as followed: Facebook, Twitter then Instagram. One of the main elements to digital ads is the need to make sure they are mobile friendly. It is expected that more than 72% percent will be generated through mobile compared to 28% from desktop. This figure is continually expected to drop each year, with potential in 2021 for less than 20% of revenue to be generated over desktops.

One of the main advantages of social media and web advertising over commercial and broadcasting communication is the ability to provide a range of adverts that rotate providing for more than one message being communicated at a time. When it comes to social media advertisement engagement is key. Having the rotation element provides for fresh content to be directed towards your users allowing it to not become repetitive, this all helps bring in more businesses.

Different social networks provide different formats allowing you to design a campaign which will reach your target audience, hit all objectives and stick within a budget. Facebook offers the most ranging ad options compared to their competition these include photo ads, video ads, carousel, slideshow and canvas. Twitter has invested significantly in their advertising structure, with categories including promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends, you can target your advertisements so that you develop significant engagement and reach.

Ads on social media started in the picture form, over the past couple of years these have changed to videos allowing for both in-stream and in-display options on both mobile and desktop platforms. With videos, you have the ability to significantly add value to your advertising objectives and product listings. Formats include display, overlay, in-stream skippable and non-skippable ads. Videos are being used on a range platforms the most obvious is YouTube but over the past few years, you have seen a significant rise on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. The ability to provide visual, audio and text descriptions allows you to personalise adverts to reach a specific segment of an audience.

All social media platforms have invested significantly helping users and companies target their audiences in an efficient and productive manner. Through technology advances you can increase your ad relevance to your users by using one of the following methods: interest targeting, behavioural targeting, demographic, keyword, connection based or custom targeting which uses email addresses and other forms of personal information.

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