Social media advertising<\/a> is a powerful marketing tactic that can drive leads, boost revenue, increase brand awareness, and more. In this guide, we\u2018ll discuss why it\u2019s so effective, explain how to create a strategy for your business, and provide inspiration to help you get started.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Did you know that Facebook is the most used social network worldwide, with over 3 billion monthly active users<\/a>? Or that there are over 2 billion monthly active Instagram users<\/a>?<\/p>\n And did you know 83% of marketers<\/a> report that social media has increased business exposure?<\/p>\n These are just some of the many<\/em> stats related to social media advertising that prove its impact and importance among all types of businesses.<\/p>\n In addition to stats supporting the effectiveness and impressive reach of social media advertising<\/a>, this marketing tactic allows you to nurture your leads in real time. You can directly communicate and engage with your followers and audience on the platform to nurture and build relationships with them.<\/p>\n The cherry on top? Social media advertising is more cost-effective than traditional advertising<\/a>. With social media ads, you can easily set a budget and add to or remove from that set amount within your social platform.<\/p>\n Now that you understand the power of social media ads, let’s discuss the steps involved in advertising your business on social media.<\/p>\n And, if you need some extra assistance afterward, I suggest looking into HubSpot’s AI-powered Campaign Assistant<\/a>, which can scale your campaign and generate high-quality copy to help your social media ads stand out.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Here are the major steps for how to run social media ads.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/span> <\/span>Use <\/em>CRM and web analytics data <\/em><\/a>to inform your ad campaigns and discover which ads convert the most visitors into customers.<\/p>\n One of the most daunting aspects of social media advertising is determining your budget. That’s because there are so many unique and flexible options for running social media ads.<\/p>\n For example, if you want to run a social campaign on Facebook with the Facebook Ad Campaign tool, start by setting a budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then, Facebook will run your campaign for you and spend your budget as evenly as possible throughout your selected period (or until your budget has been completely used). You can then leave your Facebook ad campaign as is or add more money to your budget to continue.<\/p>\n Align your marketing objectives with your social media advertising strategy to help you plan your budget. Consider the amount you’re comfortable with taking out of the larger marketing strategy to put towards your social ads.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/span> <\/span>Use one of these paid advertising budget templates<\/a> <\/a>to map out your costs before you launch your ads.<\/p>\n The landscape of paid social advertising is constantly changing; new technologies, channels, formats, and trends emerge daily.<\/p>\n That means there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to which social media channels you should advertise on. Ultimately, testing different channels is the best way to determine what works best for your business and audience as you figure out how to run social media ads.<\/p>\n Here are some of the most common types of social media platforms you can advertise through and which demographic of people you’ll want to target through each:<\/p>\n About 68% of adults<\/a> use Facebook. Although 25-34-year-olds make up the most significant number of users on the platform, Facebook still has the widest age range of active users of any other platform.<\/p>\n Since Facebook ads<\/a> allow you to reach audience members who haven’t liked your page, you can see why the platform is so popular to advertise through \u2014 you get the largest population of audience members compared to other platforms by a landslide.<\/p>\n Instagram<\/a> is ideal for targeting younger generations. Nearly a third of 18-24-year-olds<\/a> and 25-29-year-olds<\/a> globally use the platform, while only 8% of people over 65 are on it.<\/p>\n X<\/a> is a good option for targeting young to middle-aged adults with your social media ads. That’s because 37% of adults<\/a> in the U.S.<\/p>\n It’s no secret that LinkedIn<\/a> is a professional network, meaning you\u2018ll likely want to stick with more formal, business, and career-related advertisements on the platform. This also means the demographic on LinkedIn you\u2019ll want to target includes current or soon-to-be workforce members.<\/p>\n LinkedIn has over 1.2 billion members, and 47% of LinkedIn users are between ages 25 and 34.<\/p>\n Snapchat<\/a> is a platform you\u2018ll want to advertise through if you\u2019re looking to target a young crowd. The platform has around 453 million daily active users<\/a>. In over 20 countries, Snapchat reaches 75% of the 13-24-year-old population<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your ads should be relevant to your target audience and customers. There are a few ways to ensure this.<\/p>\n Pro tip: <\/span>Download free templates<\/a> to organize your audience segments into buyer personas easily.<\/p>\n On social media, it seems as though there’s a never-ending amount of new visual content. So, how do you make your social media ads stand out?<\/p>\n Your ads must be engaging, beautifully designed, and eye-catching. They should make someone scrolling through their feed stop in their tracks and want to take a closer look at your content.<\/p>\n You also want your ad to look on-brand so your audience members can easily associate the ad with your business. (This will help you continue to build brand recognition, too.)<\/p>\n Here are some of the elements you’ll want to think about when designing an effective social media ad that grabs the attention of your target audience:<\/p>\n Every word and character you include in your advertisements counts. This is especially true of social media ads with word count and text limitations.<\/p>\n So, to ensure your copy converts all while being straightforward, direct, and short, you should:<\/p>\n Once you\u2018ve created your social media ad, you\u2019ll want to ensure its success among your audience members\u2014here’s how to measure its success.<\/p>\n Social media advertising comes with many metrics you should monitor to determine the success of your work. When doing this, you must focus on the social media metrics that matter most to your<\/em> campaigns and business.<\/p>\n To help get you started, here are three of the most commonly-monitored metrics related to social media advertising you might consider keeping a close eye on:<\/p>\n CTR is the number of clicks your ad has received divided by the number of impressions it received (clicks\/ impressions). This metric indicates the relevance of your content to your audience and the quality of that traffic.<\/p>\n Every campaign should have one core conversion goal (signups, app installs, downloads, visits to blog posts). To calculate CPC, divide the amount of money you have spent by the number of conversions that resulted. This gives you insight into whether your ads are profitable and helps you project your future ad spending.<\/p>\n The conversion rate of the number of visits to your landing page that result from your social media ads provides a good idea of the quality of the clicks you’re receiving as well as the performance of your landing page. You can also benchmark your social ad traffic against the traffic conversion rate from other sources.<\/p>\n And if you’re still unsure how to create paid media ads after all these tips, no worries! You can always download our free paid media template<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Now let’s review some examples of successful social media ads for a little inspiration.<\/p>\n Dollar Shave Club<\/a> is a company that values minimalism, efficiency, and ease, which is why this Facebook ad is straightforward and simplistic, making it on-brand. The images provide a clear look into what customers can expect from a membership and their products.<\/p>\n Pro Tip:<\/strong> Facebook is an ideal platform for sharing a generic ad like this one because of the wide pool of active people on the platform. After all, most adults \u2014 both male and female \u2014 shave and are therefore part of their target audience.<\/p>\n Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods\u2019<\/a> Instagram ad is promoting a pair of Adidas sneakers. The ad includes photos of the shoes and athletes wearing them before, after, and during the workouts.<\/p>\n The ad is well-planned because it doesn\u2019t feel like an ad \u2014 the visually-pleasing post looks like one that a friend of yours would post on the platform. In other words, this ad doesn\u2019t feel like a disruptive ad, yet it still grabs your attention.<\/p>\n Pokerist\u2018s ad on X is excellent because it mentions consumers\u2019 shared dislikes about mobile games\u2014constant notifications and in-app purchases. I can\u2018t tell you how many times I\u2019ve become frustrated with a mobile game that promises to be free but actually pushes me to make a purchase to have the best experience.<\/p>\n In short, plain sentences, Pokerist advertises that users will not have those same problems. Instead, they’ll play \u201cJust. Good. Old. Poker.\u201d<\/p>\n The ad also includes a short video of a digital avatar playing poker and a call-to-action saying “Play now’ in the corner of the screen.<\/p>\n Pro Tip:<\/strong> Your audience is likely already inundated with countless ads daily, and a good way for yours to stand out would be to highlight a common frustration they face with other products or services in your niche.<\/p>\n Workhuman<\/a>, a human resources company, advertises its business on LinkedIn. Due to its professional nature and networking capabilities, LinkedIn is ideal for an HR firm to advertise its services, job openings, and more.<\/p>\n The company created a sponsored ad on LinkedIn to promote their marketing job openings. The easy-to-understand ad caption, image, and CTA don\u2019t feel disruptive or out of place on the professional network. And considering the frequency with which people log onto LinkedIn to identify job opportunities, it\u2019s an ideal location for this type of advertisement.<\/p>\n Pro Tip:<\/strong> Make sure your ad is interesting, engaging, and paints a clear, enticing picture of what consumers can expect. However, like this LinkedIn ad, avoid being too disruptive and out of place to the point that your audience is too jarred to click.<\/p>\n I suggest scrolling through your chosen platform to understand its audience’s vibe and feel.<\/p>\n![\"Access](\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/53\/8ba68133-b408-456b-a531-171a91d2b38e.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
How effective is social media advertising?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
How to Create a Social Media Ad<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1. Think about your budget.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. Choose which type of social media advertisement you’ll run.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Facebook<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Instagram<\/strong><\/h4>\n
X (formerly Twitter)<\/strong><\/h4>\n
LinkedIn<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Snapchat<\/strong><\/h4>\n
3. Make your ad relevant.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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4. Design a beautiful, eye-catching ad.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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5. Write copy that converts.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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6. Measure your ad’s success.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Click-Through Rate (CTR)<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Cost Per Conversion (CPC)<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Conversion Rate<\/strong><\/h4>\n
How to Run a Social Media Ad: Examples<\/h2>\n
1. Dollar Shave Club Facebook Ad<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/shaneyphotography.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/social-media-advertising-1-20250502-2943257.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n2. Dick’s Sporting Goods Instagram Ad<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/shaneyphotography.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/social-media-advertising-2-20250502-4014185.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n3. Pokerist’s X Ad<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/shaneyphotography.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/social-media-advertising-3-20250502-9214027.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n4. Workhuman LinkedIn Ad<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/shaneyphotography.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/social-media-advertising-4-20250502-2780049-2.webp\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n5. Hopper Snapchat Ad<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/shaneyphotography.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/social-media-advertising-5-20250502-3705723.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/track.hubspot.com\/__ptq.gif?a=53&k=14&r=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.hubspot.com%2Fmarketing%2Fbasics-effective-social-media-advertising&bu=https%253A%252F%252Fblog.hubspot.com%252Fmarketing&bvt=rss\")
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