How to Run Paid Social Media Ads

Running paid social media ads doesn't need to be intimidating. With a clear plan, you can reach new customers and grow your business without burning through your budget. This guide will walk you through a step-by-step process for creating, launching, and managing successful paid social campaigns.

Start with a Clear Goal

Before you even open an ad manager, you need to know what you’re trying to achieve. Just “running ads” isn’t a strategy. Your goal dictates everything that follows: the platform you choose, the people you target, and the ad creative you use. Without a specific objective, you’re just spending money without a way to measure success.

Most goals fall into one of three main categories:

• Awareness: Getting your brand in front of as many new people as possible. This is great for new businesses or for launching a new product. Success is often measured by reach (how many people saw your ad) and impressions (how many times your ad was seen).
• Consideration: Encouraging people to interact with your brand. This could mean driving traffic to your website or blog, getting video views, or generating engagement (likes, comments, shares) on your posts. You’re moving people from knowing you exist to actively thinking about you.
• Conversion: Driving a specific action that has direct business value. This is the heavy hitter: getting sales, capturing leads with a form, or prompting app downloads. This is where you measure things like sales, cost per lead, and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Be specific. Instead of “get more sales,” a better goal is “generate 50 sales of our new product this month with a ROAS of 3x.” Instead of “increase website traffic,” try “drive 1,000 clicks to our new blog post this week at a cost of less than $1 per click.” A clear, measurable goal is your north star for the entire campaign.

Choose the Right Social Media Platform

Don't just run ads everywhere. Your target customers likely spend more time on one or two platforms, so focus your energy and budget there. Each platform has a unique user base, content style, and ad format.

Meta (Facebook & Instagram)

Best for: B2C, eCommerce, local businesses, and reaching a massive, diverse audience.

With billions of active users, Meta's platforms have unparalleled targeting capabilities. You can target users based on incredibly specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. Instagram is highly visual, making it a powerhouse for fashion, beauty, food, and travel brands. Facebook is great for community-building and reaching slightly older demographics. If your customers are people, they’re probably on a Meta platform.

TikTok

Best for: B2C, brands targeting Gen Z and Millennials, and products that can be showcased in short, engaging videos.

TikTok is all about authentic, trend-driven content. Slick, corporate-style ads usually fall flat here. The most successful ads look and feel like native TikTok videos. If you can create fun, user-generated content (UGC) style creative, you can achieve incredible organic reach and brand awareness at a relatively low cost.

LinkedIn

Best for: B2B, service providers, software (SaaS), and anyone targeting professionals based on job title, industry, or company size.

LinkedIn is the professional network, and its ad platform reflects that. It's more expensive than others, but the audience quality for B2B marketers is unmatched. It's the place to run ads for a webinar targeting marketing managers or promote a whitepaper to CTOs at enterprise companies.

Pinterest

Best for: eCommerce, DIY, home decor, fashion, and wedding planning. The audience is primarily female and in a "discovery" mindset.

People use Pinterest to plan future purchases and find inspiration. They are actively looking for ideas and products. This makes them highly receptive to ads that feel like helpful suggestions. Visually appealing product shots and "how-to" style content can perform incredibly well.

Craft Compelling Ad Creative

Your creative - the images and videos in your ad - is your most important lever for success. An average audience with amazing creative will always beat a perfect audience with bad creative. People scroll fast, so you need to stop them in their tracks.

Hook Them Immediately

You have about three seconds to capture someone's attention. For video ads, this means your first frame has to be incredibly compelling. Don't waste time with a slow intro or a fancy logo animation. Start with the most interesting part of your story, show a striking visual, or ask a provocative question.

Authenticity Trumps Polish

On platforms like TikTok and Instagram, ads that look like they were filmed on a phone by a real customer often outperform high-budget productions. This user-generated content (UGC) style builds trust and feels more genuine. Encourage your customers to create content with your product and ask their permission to use it in your ads. It’s authentic social proof that works.

Match the Format to the Platform

Don't be lazy and run the same exact ad everywhere. A square image designed for Instagram's feed will look terrible as a vertical Instagram Story. Every placement has its own best practices:

• Stories & Reels (Instagram, Facebook), TikTok, YouTube Shorts: Full-screen vertical video (9:16 aspect ratio). Use text overlays and captions, as many people watch with the sound off.
• Feeds (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn): Square (1:1) or 4:5 vertical images and videos get the most screen real estate. Carousels are also great here for showcasing multiple products or features.

Write Copy That Connects

Your ad copy supports your visuals. Keep it clear, concise, and focused on the user's benefit. Start with a strong headline that addresses a pain point or highlights a key benefit. In the body text, quickly explain what your product is and why they should care. Always end with a clear Call-To-Action (CTA) like "Shop Now," "Learn More," or "Download Free Guide" that tells people exactly what to do next.

Define and Target Your Audience

This is where you tell the platform who you want to see your ads. Getting this right means you’re spending your money efficiently, reaching people who are actually likely to be interested in your offer.

Core Audience Targeting

This is the most common starting point. You can build audiences based on:

• Demographics: Age, gender, location (down to the ZIP code), and language.
• Interests: Targeting people who have shown interest in specific topics, brands, or hobbies (e.g., "skincare," "Starbucks," "hiking").
• Behaviors: Targeting people based on purchase behavior, device usage, or life events (e.g., "Recently Moved," "Engaged Shoppers").

Custom Audiences

This is where things get powerful. Custom Audiences are built from your own data. You can upload a list of customer emails or phone numbers, and the platform will find their profiles. You can also create audiences of people who have visited your website, added an item to their cart, or watched a certain percentage of your videos. Retargeting these warm audiences is one of the most effective strategies available.

Lookalike Audiences

Once you have a high-quality Custom Audience (like a list of your best customers), you can ask the platform to create a Lookalike Audience. The algorithm will analyze the traits of the people in your source audience and find millions of new people who share similar characteristics. This is a fantastic way to find new customers at scale.

Set Your Budget and Bidding Strategy

How much should you spend? There's no single right answer, but you can approach it intelligently.

You can set either a daily budget (e.g., "$20 per day") or a lifetime budget (e.g., "$500 to be spent over the next two weeks"). Daily budgets give you more control, while lifetime budgets allow the platform to spend more on days when it sees better opportunities. If you're a beginner, a daily budget is often easier to manage.

Most platforms will try to get you the most results for your budget using an automated bidding strategy, and this is the best place to start. Just tell the platform your conversion goal (e.g., "Purchases"), and its algorithm will bid for you to achieve that goal as efficiently as possible.

Launch, Measure, and Optimize

Your work isn't over when the campaign goes live. The best advertisers are constantly monitoring their results and making adjustments to improve performance.

Know Your Metrics

Don't get overwhelmed by all the data. Focus on the metrics that line up with your campaign goal:

• For Awareness: Look at Reach and Impressions.
• For Consideration: Track Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Cost Per Click (CPC).
• For Conversions: The most important metrics are Conversions, Cost Per Conversion (or CPA), and Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

Always Be Testing

Never assume you know what will work best. A/B testing is the process of running two slightly different versions of an ad to see which one performs better. You can test almost anything: the headline, the image or video, the call-to-action button, or the audience you're targeting. The key is to only change one variable at a time so you know exactly what caused the change in performance.

Start by testing two completely different types of creative, like a static image versus a video. Once you find a winner, make it your new control ad and test something else against it, like a different headline. This process of continuous improvement is how you turn good campaigns into great ones.

Final Thoughts

Running successful paid social campaigns is a methodical process: start with a clear goal, choose the right platform and audience, develop compelling creative, and continuously measure and optimize. Stick to this framework, and you'll be able to effectively reach new customers and grow your business.

As you scale your campaigns, you'll find that the best ad ideas often come from your organic content. Understanding what resonates with your existing community is the perfect fuel for your paid strategy. At Postbase, we help you manage that entire organic process - from seeing your entire content calendar in one place to engaging with all your comments and DMs in a single inbox. By getting a handle on your organic social media, you gain invaluable insights into the creative styles and messages that will make your paid ads perform even better.