Five key benefits of social media advertising for your business

Written by Lynsey Campbell

Introduction.

Social media is a huge part of any digital marketing strategy.

A presence on social media platforms is critical to allow businesses to reach target audiences online with engaging content.

But it’s likely this isn’t revolutionary news to you. As we write this, it’s 2025 – if your business isn’t doing some sort of organic social media marketing, you’re either very brave or very foolish.

However, have you given social media advertising a chance? With an effective social media advertising strategy, you can use creative paid ads to reach new audiences, maximise brand visibility and increase website traffic.

And we’re not just talking about boosting a post on Facebook when you feel like it – we’re talking a fully-scoped social media marketing strategy that focuses on paid ad campaigns.

We’re not here to confuse you with a bunch of marketing buzzwords or social media jargon. We believe in doing social media marketing right, so we’re sharing some knowledge that may help you get going with your next marketing campaign.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Social media advertising isn’t just for big brands. Businesses of all sizes can achieve results with the right strategy, targeting and creative.
The key benefits include reaching the right audience, boosting brand visibility, generating leads, and doing it all with flexible budgets.
Unlike organic posts, social ads give you more control: who sees them, when, and how often.
With the right support, your ad spend can be tracked, optimised, and tied back to real business outcomes.
At Scoot, we help SMEs run paid campaigns that drive leads and sales without wasting budget.

Why more businesses are turning to social media advertising.

It may be that you’re already doing some sort of social media marketing with a steady flow of organic content going out on your channels of choice.

But with the benefits of social media advertising being noted by more companies than ever before – social media ad spend in the UK is forecasted to hit £9.95 billion in 2025 – if you haven’t tried it yet, now is the prime time to get involved.

1. Reach your target audience

In our opinion, one of the biggest benefits of social media advertising is the efficiency of reaching your potential customers with extensive levels of targeting and a laser focus.

Being aware of who your target customers are, their demographics and interests means you can really drill down and reach the right people who will resonate with your brand.

Social media ad campaigns let you target by age, gender, location, interests, job titles and more, giving you total control over who will see your marketing efforts online.

2. Cost-effective advertising

Don’t get us wrong, we’re old-fashioned at heart and love the smell of a freshly printed brochure, but traditional media is changing – it can be pretty pricey too.

Social media advertisements can cost as little as a few pounds per day, meaning you can kick off an ad campaign without breaking the bank.

There’s also the extra benefit of ongoing customisation. There’s no worse feeling than sending a design to print only to realise that the client’s sent the incorrect info and you’re going to need a reprint.

Noticed a typo on an ad? Decided against the graphic? Unlike print, you can easily pause, edit and relaunch ads on your channels quickly and easily. No reprints required.

3. Effective ROAS

In the fast-moving world of social media, paid ads offer an opportunity to prioritise audience engagement quickly and use each social platform’s ad formats to drive conversions for your business.

Whether that means a brochure download, an enquiry or a purchase, paid social media marketing is optimised to enhance leads and continually upgrade ad delivery to improve your return on ad spend (ROAS).

4. Real-time performance tracking

No matter the social media channel or advertising formats you choose, each platform comes with built-in analytics.

Multiple platforms do things differently, but at their core, their native campaign managers will share data that helps you see what’s working and what’s not.

This means you’re always aware of how your social ads are performing, how your ad budget is being spent, and what you may want to test for future campaigns.

5. Re-engage previous website visitors

With the advanced capabilities of social media advertising platforms, you can reach users who’ve shown an interest in your brand or been on your site before.

Just think about it – a tailored social media campaign that speaks directly to potential customers ready to buy or enquire.

Whilst ads for a broader audience can help build brand awareness, more targeted ads can share your company’s brand in a relevant and engaging way to create a loyal customer base.

Social media marketing myth-busting.

So you’ve got this far, you’re keen.

But you’ve tried social media advertising in the past. You’ve been stung before, and you don’t want to get hurt again.

We get it.

But not all the horror stories you hear about social media advertising are true. We’re here to bust some of the big myths, once and for all…

"I boosted a post before and it didn't work"

Boosted posts aren’t quite the same as a fully-considered social media advertising campaign.

A boosted post starts either as an organic post on a Facebook page, for example, or a new post created solely for boosting. Meta makes it super simple to do this within a few clicks, and your boosted post is live.

On the other hand, social media ad campaigns offer a multi-step set-up process with precise targeting, placement, creative and caption options that can sometimes outweigh a simple boosted post.

It’s worth noting that the choice you make should be based on your goals. A general rule of thumb to follow:

Boosted posts are a great way to quickly and easily get a larger reach and aim for growth in engagement. They offer fewer goals and placement options, but they’re a good way to dip your toe in the marketing water.
Social media ad campaigns take some time and expertise to set up, but can offer extra business objectives (e.g. lead generation and sales) that boosted posts don’t. They also offer more placement options, like Facebook Feed side ads, Messenger ads and Instagram Stories ads, and opportunities to test ad creative, like trialling video ads against image ads to see which resonates more with your potential customers.

“I don’t have a massive ad budget”

We hear you – advertising online can be daunting.

But the best thing about social media advertising is that you don’t need a mammoth budget to get started.

Recommended spend will differ depending on the social media platform you’re advertising on, but you’ll likely find that paid social media campaigns are a fraction of the cost of other marketing efforts you may have tried.

From even just a couple of hundred pounds per month, you’ll likely start seeing results. Whether your goal is brand recognition, growing website traffic or increasing sales, we recommend starting small to get things going.

When you start to see results and build meaningful connections with your target audience, then you can start to grow your budget and focus on optimising your social media marketing strategy for the results that are most important to your business.

"Social media is just for brand awareness"

Yes, brand recognition is a huge part of a strong social media strategy, but that’s not all it’s good for.

Paid social media marketing campaigns offer comprehensive goals to select from, meaning you can tailor these to align with your overall digital marketing efforts.

That might mean targeting existing customers with engaging offers based on observed consumer behaviour.

But it might also mean creating engaging content that’s focused solely on increasing brand awareness. That’s not a bad thing, or a lesser goal. In fact, customer data shows that a whopping 78% of people are more likely to buy from a brand after a positive social media experience.

Maintaining positive brand sentiment and building brand loyalty across social media platforms is just good business sense.

So, is paid social media marketing for you?

Social media advertising might seem intimidating if you’ve not tried it out.

Picking a budget, selecting a goal, and choosing the right ad format – these things are all crucial to creating a cost-effective social media advertising campaign that will deliver results.

But with the multiple ad formats available across social media platforms, we recommend any business looking for growth in the digital world get started with social media advertising.

Stop wasting time and budget on guesswork. Let’s plan a paid social media campaign that drives leads, sales and growth for your business.

Book your free 30-minute discovery call now