Ads are the opium of the marketers. Get a whiff of it and you are hooked on it like a drug. But today’s go-to-market motions have changed. Google and social media ads aren’t just about customer acquisition today.
They have an overall impact on your brand searches. Kamil Rextin, a popular B2B marketing expert did something called a ‘lift test’ and switched off performance marketing for some of his clients. And guess what? Even organic, brand, and referral channels started underperforming when ad channels and campaigns were stopped.
Turning off ads has a negative impact on other inbound channels. This is a clear indicator that social media ads are going to play a huge role in every company’s overall marketing mix. With Google’s ad bids and cost of acquisition increasing by the day, you need social media ads to play the balancing act.
If you’re spending thousands on ads with no proportionate returns, this article is for you. Let’s talk about how you can leverage the right social media platforms for running successful ads.
What is social media advertising?
Social media advertising involves creating and distributing paid content across channels where your audience most likely spends their time. Organic social media marketing relies heavily on building a following over time. In contrast, social media ads put your message in front of tightly targeted audiences, whether they follow you or not.
I remember launching my first Facebook campaign back in 2016 for an agency. The process was much simpler back then. Create an ad creative, set a budget, choose some basic demographics, and watch the results roll in for as low as a dollar.
But now, we have a complex system of ever-changing algorithms, privacy regulations, specific creative requirements, and media formats to take into account. Social media advertising is rampantly increasing with a value of $276.71 billion today, and is touted to reach $406.45 billion by 2029.
From Instagram Stories that disappear after 24 hours to LinkedIn thought leadership campaigns targeting C-suite executives and WhatsApp Broadcast messages, there are a lot of options at your disposal.
But before getting into the channels themselves, let’s address what you need to know before spending another dollar towards social media ads.
Things to know before setting up social media ads
Some basic housekeeping if you’re exploring social media ads for the first time. Or even if you’re looking to hit refresh and start over with renewed goals and KPIs:
- Know your audience intimately. I’m not talking about basic demographics like “women 25-34, C-level, recent job change.” I mean understanding their professional challenges, personal aspirations, content consumption habits, and decision-making processes. What keeps them up at night? What makes them laugh? What problems are they trying to solve?
- Define clear objectives. “More sales from LinkedIn thought leadership” isn’t really a strategy you can take to your strategy meetings. Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with social media ads. Building brand awareness? Generating leads? Driving immediate conversions? Getting appointment bookings? Each objective requires different platforms, budgets, content approaches, and measurement frameworks
- Understand the platform’s native environment. Each social network has its own culture and communication style. Content that performs brilliantly on LinkedIn often falls flat on TikTok. Respect the native experience of each platform.
- Set realistic budgets and expectations. Social media advertising isn’t a magic button. It’s a testing ground that requires patience, analysis, and refinement. I tell my clients to approach their first three months of ad spend as paid research — you’re learning what resonates with your audience.
- Be prepared to iterate quickly. The most successful advertisers run multiple variations simultaneously, analyze performance data religiously, and aren’t afraid to kill underperforming ads quickly. Perform tests and relentlessly experiment to arrive at the most optimal ad and social media ad strategy.
Now that we’ve covered the foundations, let’s explore why social media advertising deserves a place in your marketing mix.
List of Best social media platforms for running ads in 2025
The social advertising landscape continues to evolve rapidly. Here are the platforms that deserve your attention this year:
1. Facebook
Despite predictions of its decline, Facebook remains an advertising powerhouse in 2025. With the largest and most diverse user base across demographics, the platform offers unmatched reach and remarkably sophisticated targeting options.
Facebook continues to excel in B2B lead generation and consideration-stage content. The recent improvements to its automated optimization tools have made it more accessible for smaller advertisers without dedicated media buying teams.
If you’re just starting with social advertising, Facebook often provides the most straightforward entry point with its robust campaign management tools and extensive audience insights.
2. Instagram
Instagram is the single most sought-after visual platform for brands in fashion, beauty, travel, and lifestyle industries. What sets Instagram apart is its seamless integration of shopping features, as it creates shorter paths to go from discovery to purchase.
While Facebook may have higher conversion values, Instagram works as a great brand building platform with long-term brand recall with visually appealing creatives. The platform’s evolving formats such as stories, reels, shopping, and collaborative posts provide multiple touchpoints to engage audiences at different stages of their journey.
For brands with strong visual identities and lifestyle positioning, Instagram consistently delivers among the highest engagement rates across platforms.
3. WhatsApp
One of the most interesting developments in social advertising has been the rise of WhatsApp marketing as an advertising option. While WhatsApp itself doesn’t host ads within the app, Click-to-WhatsApp ads (CTWA) on Facebook and Instagram are smart ways to implement conversational marketing.
These ads essentially reside in the Meta ads manager platform. And you can configure the CTA button to prompt users to initiate WhatsApp conversations with prospects who click on it. This form of WhatsApp marketing bridges the gap between social media ads and personalized messaging.
The format is particularly effective for businesses where consultative selling, conversations, and scheduling appointments are crucial in their buying process. The integration of WhatsApp Business API tools into the WhatsApp Business account can help automate responses and sell through chatbots without overwhelming your staff. Alternatively, you can also use the WhatsApp Broadcast feature to send campaigns to your existing contact list.
4. LinkedIn
For B2B marketers, LinkedIn continues to justify its premium pricing by delivering access to decision-makers in a professional setting. While people could argue that it’s more of a digital billboard, the platform’s targeting capabilities around job titles, company size, industry, and seniority remain invaluable for reaching business audiences.
LinkedIn has successfully expanded beyond simple boosted posts to paid InMails (now, Sponsored Messaging), dynamic ads, and video formats. For complex B2B sales with longer sales cycles, LinkedIn’s ability to nurture prospects through thought leadership content is particularly valuable.
The platform’s higher ad costs compared to other social networks can be offset by higher quality leads and decreased sales cycles for B2B products and services.
5. Reddit
If your target audience includes tech-savvy professionals, hobbyists with deep subject matter expertise, or niche interest communities, Reddit deserves your attention. What makes Reddit unique among social media ad channels is the platform’s organization around interests rather than social connections.
It’s a perfect channel if you’re looking to reach people that actively discuss relevant topics rather than indulging in random social scrolling. For brands with authentic value to add to specialized communities, Reddit’s hyper-targeted approach can deliver exceptional results.
6. Quora
Quora has quietly established itself as a powerful platform for reaching people actively seeking information and solutions. The question-and-answer format creates a receptive environment for educational content and thought leadership positioning.
What separates Quora from other platforms is intent. Users are directly looking for answers and expertise, creating natural openings for relevant plug-ins of your products and services.
Quora’s topic targeting capabilities allows precise alignment with the subject matter, and its relatively lower competition often translates to more affordable cost-per-click rates.
6 Key benefits of social media advertising
With thoughtful and data-backed execution, social media advertising delivers advantages that traditional channels simply cannot match. Here are the five most compelling benefits you can place a bet on:
1. Precision targeting beyond traditional channels
Nothing in advertising history has offered the targeting capabilities of today’s social platforms. We’ve completely moved on from the old days of “I know half my advertising is wasted; I just don’t know which half” — to some of the most granular audience selection and campaign tracking.
Social platforms allow you to reach people based not just on demographics but on behaviors, interests, and previous interactions with your brand.
2. Cost-effective compared to other digital or real-world formats
For smaller businesses and startups, advertising channels like television, hoardings, radio, and print usually remain financially out of reach. Social media has democratized advertising by removing these barriers to entry.
Because measuring their impact is sacred for growing companies, unlike established brands that can afford to experiment with brand presence. While television advertising might require tens of thousands of dollars just to get started, effective social campaigns can begin with daily budgets as low as $5-10.
This accessibility allows brands to start small, test different approaches, and scale up gradually based on performance data. More importantly, social channels allow you to control exactly how much you spend and adjust in real-time, which is a far cry from media buying.
3. Immediate feedback and performance data
You don’t have to launch campaigns and wait weeks or months to measure their impact? Social media ads provide immediate performance metrics, allowing you to see what’s working and what isn’t within hours of launching a campaign.
This rapid feedback loop means you can optimize campaigns while they’re running rather than waiting until completion to apply learnings to the next round. Being able to shift budget from underperforming ad variants to high-performers in real-time has revolutionized the approach to campaign management.
4. Enhanced creative flexibility
From short-form vertical videos to interactive polls, carousel formats to augmented reality experiences, social platforms offer the creative flexibility that traditional channels don’t offer.
No more rigid content formats. For instance you could transform a product-dense white paper or how-to manual into engaging carousel posts that drive insanely high engagement. All you need is the smarts of aligning the right message with the right format, and on the right platform.
5. Advanced retargeting capabilities
We’ve all experienced this as consumers. You browse a product online, and suddenly it’s following you across the internet. Social platforms excel at helping you reconnect with people who’ve already shown interest in your product or service.
Whether they’ve visited your website, engaged with previous content, or abandoned a purchase, retargeting allows you to continue the conversation strategically.
6. Competitive intelligence gathering
Social media ad platforms provide high visibility into competitive strategies. The ad libraries available on major platforms like Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and LinkedIn let you see exactly how competitors are positioning themselves and how their creative approaches are evolving.
For instance, scrolling through your competitor’s Facebook Ad Library or filtering LinkedIn posts of company profiles for ads can help you discover how competitors pivot to different forms of storytelling and use case-driven marketing.
Tip: Make it a habit to spend a few minutes every day reviewing your competitors’ campaigns to gather insights that inform not only your advertising and campaigns but also the broader positioning.
Experimentation is the name of the game with social media ads
As you develop your social media ad strategy, remember that platforms will continue to evolve, algorithms will change, and new channels will emerge. But the fundamental principles will remain constant:
- Understand your audience
- Deliver genuine value through content
- Measure what matters
- Adapt quickly based on learnings.
Because with social media advertising, you’re not only optimizing for instant gratification with revenue — but towards a sustainable culture of building an engaged community that eventually champions your brand.
