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Is targeted advertising on social networks effective: strengths and weaknesses

Social networks are constantly evolving, without stopping. And along with them, targeted advertising is developing and changing – the best way to express yourself and your product to social network users. With the help of targeting, you can bring new brands to the market, increase audience loyalty to the product, drive traffic through arbitration, and do a lot of other interesting things that bring good income.

Moreover, all of the above can be done with maximum efficiency and high conversion, since targeting allows you to clearly distinguish exactly the target audience among all users of the social network. But, is targeted advertising really that effective? Is it possible to get high income with minimal investment using only one target? What are the pros and cons of this promotion? Let’s look at the answers to all these questions.

Table of context

Strengths of targeting (effectiveness)

Summarizing all the data, we can highlight the 5 most significant advantages of targeted advertising, which really make it highly effective and profitable.

1. Pinpoint “hit” on the target audience

Advertisers have the ability to show ads only to users who are specifically related to their target audience. So, he can customize impressions based on the specific characteristics of his potential customers. Depending on the social network, among these parameters will be:

  • floor;
  • age;
  • GEO;
  • interests;
  • social status;
  • Family status;
  • place of work;
  • and so on.

Using such settings, you can narrow down a wide range of consumers to those who are already theoretically ready to purchase the advertiser’s product. For example, if a person sells electronic cigarettes, then with the help of targeting settings, he can show his advertising materials only to people who are really interested in vapes, steam rooms, etc.

2. Detailed statistics on advertising campaigns

After launching an advertising campaign, the user can track all its indicators as accurately as possible and, as a result, optimize certain processes in order to get even more potential customers and sales. Moreover, all these actions can be performed in your personal account, without the need to connect any third-party services.

3. Ability to reach a large number of potential customers

Social networks are places where a huge audience is concentrated daily, some of which will definitely be potential customers for a specific product. And this is very beneficial for the advertiser, as he can communicate about his service or product to a multi-million audience of the social network. Therefore, the conclusion is obvious – in terms of audience coverage, targeting can be called a very effective solution for advertising campaigns of any scale.

But there is one important point here. Many affiliates, webmasters and other specialists believe that only young people (schoolchildren, students and other insolvent audience) use social networks. In reality, everything is far from being the case – according to statistics from various social networks, about 90% of the total number of their users are people aged 25 to 45 who open their pages at least once a day.

4. Low price compared to offline promotion methods

Of course, the cost of targeted advertising is constantly growing, as is the number of social media users. But today, targeting is considered one of the cheapest methods of promotion. For example, let’s compare this form with advertising in the media and on billboards:

Type of advertisement media/billboards Targeting
ability to change settings changing anything after the launch of the campaign is difficult, time-consuming and expensive you can change the settings as needed, even urgently – the dynamism is as high as possible
audience random exclusively targeted (with the right campaign settings)
average monthly reach about several tens of thousands of people (depending on the source of advertising broadcast) about half a million (or more / less, depending on the settings and the target audience itself)
price $500 per month or more about 100-200 per month

Of course, targeted advertising can compete with contextual advertising, but we specifically compared it with the media and billboards, on which advertisers spend huge budgets, getting a minimal effect in return.

5. You can promote a product without having your own website

Targeted advertising is an ideal tool for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs (including affiliates, webmasters, etc.). Indeed, to promote your product, you do not need to buy a domain and create your own website – you just need to register on the social network itself and connect an advertising account (the conditions for connecting it depend on the specific network).

Why targeted advertising can be ineffective

There are several negative factors that directly or indirectly affect the effectiveness of targeted advertising. The most serious of them:

  • strict requirements for the content of advertisements, their strict moderation by the advertising system;
  • fast “burnout” of creatives that “get bored” with users, because of which you have to constantly create new creatives;
  • you need to make separate settings for each social network, which increases the risk of error (although there are a lot of paid services that allow you to work with several social networks at the same time);
  • too many different settings, when working with which you can make a mistake (especially for a beginner).

In addition, the effectiveness of targeted advertising can also be reduced due to the fact that the advertiser does not follow trends and generates irrelevant content.

How to increase the effectiveness of targeted advertising

Is targeted advertising on social networks effective: strengths and weaknesses
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To avoid all the above problems and not encounter difficulties in the process, follow these recommendations:

  1. Show your product not only on photos, but also on videos — short videos show high performance and conversion in a wide variety of niches and audiences.
  2. If it redirects a social network user to your site, then be sure to adapt it for mobile devices, since today more than half of the total traffic in the same search engines falls on tablets, smartphones and other modern gadgets.
  3. Do not think that social networks are already overloaded with advertising, and today it no longer shows such effectiveness as it used to. On the contrary, social network administrators are constantly creating new opportunities for advertisers and offer them favorable conditions for placing ads in different parts of the site.
  4. If you work with a female audience, then remember that decisions here are usually made on emotions. And men are more balanced in terms of selecting the best option for a product or company to apply for a particular service.

And most importantly – do not forget to follow the trends and constantly analyze the market. For example, today it is very effective to promote on TikTok or Instagram Stories, although just a couple of years ago these platforms did not provide advertisers with wide opportunities to promote their products.

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