Social media is an ever-growing beast that consumes a large portion of many of our lives. From the casual scrolling throughout the day, to the lengthy evening scrolls while you’re relaxing before going to bed. Although a lot of us can admit that it is often mindless scrolling (I know I can), there is great benefit in advertising on social media to build awareness of a brand and ultimately drive measurable results for businesses.
This is not to say that social media marketing is the be all, end all. Digital marketing works best as a multi-faceted approach, where multiple platforms working in conjunction often yield the best results. For example, Google is the world’s leading search engine and an ideal platform to target high-intent audiences looking for a particular product or service; having ads on another social media-based platform such as Meta further contributes to the brand awareness and recognition that customers look for when trying to find the right product or service for them.
But what are the key benefits of advertising on a platform like Meta? Let’s get straight into it.
What is Meta Ads Manager?
Before we get into the key benefits, let’s get a better understanding of Meta Ads Manager and Meta itself.
Meta Ads Manager is an online tool for creating and managing ads on some of Meta’s largest social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or Audience Network (Third-party apps that partner with Meta). The platform allows you to manage and control almost everything when it comes to when and where your ads show across these major social media platforms. You can create and manage campaigns with different business objectives whether it’s to focus on sales, generate leads, build traffic and awareness, increase engagement or even promote your own apps.
You may be thinking:
“Why should I need to pay for ads on social media when it’s organic and free to use?”
Here’s where the benefits of paid advertising on Meta Ads Manager come into play.
The 5 Key Benefits of Meta Advertising
There are many key benefits to advertising on Meta, however these have been narrowed down into 5 key benefits that provide insight into why advertising on Meta has benefits compared to other traditional advertising methods.
1. Advanced Targeting Options
Meta Ads Manager has the ability to provide highly targeted advertising based on a number of key factors such as location, demographics, interests, behaviours and even life events. With Meta and its vast spread of data across key social media platforms, it uses this combined data to support targeted advertising to hit your target audiences wherever they may be. You can create new audiences and save them once you’ve identified who you’re looking to target and use this across multiple campaigns or ad sets.
There is also the ability to upload custom audience data into Meta, which is then hashed into anonymous code, that can target your existing customers who may have previously purchased from your business, or used your services. Uploading this custom data is an effective method to retarget your previous or existing customers to further engage with your business.
Not only can you target audiences based on the above factors, but you can also create lookalike audiences which are based on machine learning from existing data to identify audiences that are similar to your existing audiences. Lookalike audiences are a great method for finding prospecting customers and expanding your targeting to help build your brand awareness across Meta. You can choose the percentage of similarity anywhere between 1% (being the most like your audience) up to 10% (casting a broader net which is further away from your audience).
Choosing between which percentage mainly comes down to your existing audience base and reach – If you’re a large, well established business with a large online presence and social following, 1% audiences could help you to reach further prospects similar to your existing audience, however for smaller, lesser known businesses, 1% could be quite restrictive and may limit your reach. If you opt for a higher percentage, this broadens your reach but the audiences being targeted are a lower level of similarity to your target audience.
2. Multi-channel Reach
Meta with its rebrand in 2021 and combined reach across owned apps and technologies means that they have data on billions of users worldwide. For all businesses, testing campaigns on Meta Ads Manager is an effective way to build brand awareness and reach desired goals, as there is the ability to reach users across some of the largest social media platforms that exist. You also have the ability to control your ads in one place, meaning you can make changes that span across multiple platforms saving you valuable time.
3. Cost-effective advertising
One of the more important key benefits of social media advertising is its cost-effectiveness in comparison to many other traditional marketing methods. Meta Ads Manager allows flexible budgeting options, whether you want to set daily budgets across a certain amount of time, or even a lifetime budget meaning your campaign never spends over a certain set amount which can be a great option for a short, tactical promotion.
More importantly, Meta Ads Manager typically has a lower cost per click compared to many other traditional advertising methods which is another important aspect to consider if you’re trying to work within a set budget. This is particularly beneficial for small businesses, as they’re able to compete with larger, more established businesses who have a bigger budget, creating a more level playing field.
4. Engaging ads
Meta offers a variety of creative formats to engage users on social media. Typically static images, videos and carousels give you the most control over what is shown on all users’ feeds as this is directly uploaded onto the Ads Manager platform to be used. However, you also have other more automated formats which allows Meta to control what is shown, and pulls data directly from a given source.
Choosing the best ad format for your business depends on your businesses’ goals and objectives. However, we’d recommend testing different variations and seeing which formats resonate best with your audiences to get the best results.
5. Measurable Results and Insights
Meta Ads Manager is a centralised platform that provides you with the tools to track and optimise the performance of your campaigns, ad sets and ads across all of Meta’s platforms. Similar to the metrics you’d see on Google Ads for example, you’re able to see your total conversions or purchases, clicks, impressions, and many other detailed metrics to support with understanding how your campaigns are performing.
With this data-driven approach, you can analyse performance at every level of your campaign and make continuous improvements to drive better results.
Advertising through Meta Ads Manager has great benefits for your business and driving positive results. However, relying solely on this platform also isn’t the best way to ensure that your business is achieving the best return on investment when it comes to digital marketing.
At nimbl, we can work with you and your business to get an understanding of the goals you want to achieve, and provide our combined years of industry experience to support you with achieving them.
Do you need help with running Social Ads campaigns for your business? Contact us today to see how we can help your business take the next step in maximising its online presence.
