Paid social

Paid social is advertising on social media platforms to reach targeted audiences beyond your existing followers. It covers setting objectives, building audiences, creating ad content, managing budget, and optimising for results. Unlike organic posts, paid social puts your message in front of new, specific people quickly, and lets you measure the return. It’s how you turn social reach into predictable growth.

Organic social is what you post for free to your followers, building community and trust over time. Paid social uses budget to reach new, targeted audiences fast, with measurable results. Organic grows relationships; paid grows reach. They work best together, with organic building credibility and paid driving new attention. We usually recommend a blend weighted to your goals and budget.

Your paid social budget depends on your goals, audience size, and the platforms you use, so there’s no fixed figure. We’d recommend starting with enough to reach your audience consistently and gather meaningful data, then scaling what performs. Creative and management sit alongside the media spend. We’ll help you set a sensible starting budget and grow it as results prove out.

We measure paid social against the goals you set, such as leads, sales, or reach, focusing on cost per result rather than likes. We track the journey from ad to action, test different audiences and creative, and shift budget to what works. Reporting shows what your spend is returning, so you can see the impact clearly and we can keep improving it.

The best platforms are the ones where your audience spends time and your goals can be met, most commonly Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Each suits different audiences and objectives, so business-to-business often favours LinkedIn while consumer brands lean to Instagram and TikTok. We recommend the right mix during planning rather than spreading budget thinly across all of them.