Social media advertising is a powerful tool for every business, but it can be expensive if you don’t keep track of your spending. You might think that you’re saving money by skipping the ads and focusing on organic growth, but that’s not always true.
If you’re trying to reach new customers or drive more traffic to your website, social media ads are one of the most effective ways to accomplish those goals.
They allow you to target specific audiences based on their interests and preferences so that they’re more likely to engage with what you have to offer.
The problem is that there are so many different platforms out there like Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and Twitter Ads that it can be tough to know where to start when planning an ad budget.
Luckily, this article has some helpful tips below on how much you should spend on each platform.
1. Determine Your Target Audience
First and foremost, you need to understand who your target audience is. Your business may have a number of different types of customers, but there’s usually one group that has the biggest impact on sales and profitability.
It’s important to define this group in as much detail as possible before creating ads or setting budgets. The more specific you can be about who makes up your target audience, the better results you’ll get from advertising on social media platforms.
Decide what demographics are most important for reaching this group.
Once you know who makes up your target market, it’s time to determine which demographic characteristics matter most when it comes to reaching them online with ads on social media platforms (such as age range, gender distribution and location).
For example: if you want your company’s Facebook page post to reach young mothers living in country suburbs outside Sydney where you have several stores located close together then you might choose an ad targeting “women aged 25-39″ within 25km of my store locations along with other factors such as interests/behaviours etc., which could include “new mums”, “yoga enthusiast” etc.
2. Learn from Other Companies
Once you’ve learned about your target audience, the next step is to actually start planning your ad budget. Your first step in this process should be researching how much other companies are spending on social media ads.
To get started, look at the top brands in your industry and see how much they spend on social media marketing. You can also take a look at how much they spend on TV ads or billboards as well as other marketing channels like direct mail and email marketing.
The goal here is simply to learn what other similar companies are spending so that you can determine an appropriate range for yourself.
3. Choose Your Platforms
Choose the platforms that are relevant to your business. If you’re a startup in the tech industry, and you’re selling a new app, it makes sense to advertise on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Select the platforms that have the right demographics. If your target customers are young professionals in their mid-20s to early 30s, then Instagram might be a good choice for you but if they’re retirees over 65 years old who love golfing and country music (and live within 50 miles of your store), then Pinterest might be better suited for reaching them.
Then choose the platforms that are most affordable. Each platform has its own pricing model based on factors including the number of followers and impressions generated per month; some will charge by impressions (i.e., how many times someone sees an ad), while others charge by clicks (i.e., how many times someone clicks on an ad).
Know which one works best for each situation before making any commitments. Thus, choose which medium will be most effective at driving traffic back into stores/websites etc.
If after all this research into which platforms work best where there still isn’t enough budget left over to promote across multiple channels simultaneously and focus marketing efforts only where returns exceed costs.
4. Set a Monthly Budget for Your Business
Now that you’ve gone through the process of creating your campaign, it’s time to set a budget. Many businesses have an overall budget that they’re shooting for in terms of social media ads.
For example, they might want to spend $500 on Facebook ads every month. In this case, they’ll calculate how much money they can afford each month by looking at their total sales or profits from the previous year and dividing by 12.
That way, they know exactly how much money they can spend on ads without digging too deep into their pockets.
But if your business doesn’t have any idea what its potential is yet or if you just don’t want to spend more than $200 per month on ads you’ll need more advanced planning tools like Google AdWords’ automated bidding features (which automatically adjust themselves based on various factors like competition level).
In this case, all you need is a general sense of how much profit each new customer will bring in over time; once again: divide total profits by 12 months in order to figure out how much money you can afford to lose per month.”
5. Find out How Much Money You Have To Spend on Social Media Ads
The most important step in creating a social media ads budget is determining how much money you have to spend on social media ads.
This means considering not only what your current marketing budget is, but also how much your business can afford to spend on other marketing activities.
Businesses that are just starting out with social media should create an initial budget of not more than $1,000 per month.
The reason for this low figure is that many businesses don’t see results right away it may take several months or even years before they get an idea of the ROI of their ad campaigns and make adjustments accordingly.
If you’re managing multiple pages on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for different products and markets, be sure to add up all your costs across all platforms so that you know exactly what portion of your overall marketing budget goes toward each platform in order to determine whether it’s worth investing more time into one platform than another (or whether it makes sense for now).
6. Learn about CPC, CPM, and CPI
You need to understand the difference between CPC, CPM, and CPI. CPC stands for cost per click. This is the amount that you pay when someone clicks on an ad on your social media account.
CPM is for cost per 1,000 impressions. This means that you pay a certain amount of money every time your ad appears in front of 1,000 people without anyone clicking it.
Finally, CPI is cost-per-install and works by paying a certain fee every time one of your ads gets installed on another device or app (so it’s really only useful if you’re trying to get people to download something).
CPC is often seen as the most effective metric because it’s easy to track: simply pay Facebook or Google when someone clicks on your paid post.
However, this can lead some businesses into making bad decisions since they don’t consider other factors like how long they want their ads running before they start making significant profits from them or whether or not their target audience has the money to buy what they’re selling right now anyway (or ever).
7. Invest in Content for Each Platform
By now, you should have a good idea of what content to create for each platform. But there are more considerations that you need to keep in mind when it comes to your social media ad budget.
The first thing is that not every image or video will work across every social network. You may want to consider investing in custom graphics or animations for Facebook and Instagram ads but keep it simple on Pinterest and Twitter.
For example, videos tend not to perform as well on LinkedIn as they do on Facebook (which makes sense because LinkedIn users are generally older than those who use other platforms).
Also remember that even if the same visual asset can be used across multiple channels, its usage needs to be unique for each one.
A good example would be using an infographic on Pinterest but featuring it as a standalone post rather than including it within a blog post or newsletter as part of your editorial calendar.
8. Tools for Social Media Advertising
Now that you’ve got a grasp on the basics, it’s time to get your hands dirty. To create a social media advertising campaign, you’ll need to choose which tools will help you best.
The following are some of our favourite platforms:
- Facebook Pixel – This is a tool that allows advertisers to track their ads and determine whether they’ve been effective at generating conversions or not. It also provides access to insights into user behaviour such as page visits, ad engagement and other statistics.
- Facebook Ads Manager – This tool offers marketers an interface for creating campaigns on Facebook using all available features like the power editor feature which allows users to manage multiple accounts simultaneously while allowing them flexibility in managing different campaigns at one time.
- Twitter Ads Manager – This platform offers advertisers all the necessary information needed for optimizing their campaigns including performance metrics data from previous promotions so they can learn what works well with their target audience before launching new ones.
- Instagram Ads Manager -This software offers marketers access through mobile devices or through traditional desktop computers so no matter where they’re located when working on their business’ social media promotion strategy there’s always somewhere nearby where they can quickly log in and start making changes if needed. You may also want to look into other popular advertising platforms such as LinkedIn Ads Management Platforms (LAMP), Reddit Advertisements Management Platforms (RAMP), Google AdWords etc., but these aren’t nearly as common as some others listed above because they’re more niche-focused than general marketplaces like Facebook or Twitter.
Conclusion
Social media advertising is a great way to get your products or services in front of larger audiences.
But it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, and it’s important to consider the cost of your ads before choosing which platform to use. By taking the time to plan ahead and budget accordingly, you can make sure that social media ads are an effective part of your next marketing strategy.
About the Author!
Delan Cooper is a writer with years of experience in marketing communication. He is involved in many businesses and entrepreneurs including Asia Media Studio, a social media agency in Bangkok. He also enjoys meeting new people and reading more books to get inspired for his own book.
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