Social ad platforms sit on top of the major social networks including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Linkedin, Twitter and Pinterest. They offer massive scale and targeting opportunities across a range of platforms and devices.
Social ads themselves help advertisers to reach a ready-made audience. A smart social ads campaign can propel a brand forward because it harnesses the power of platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Social ads example
Source: Mobile Ads
Social Ads Benefits
Using mobile social media ads is an efficient and cost-effective way of engaging with an audience. The reduced costs of advertising are a significant plus to this method of advertising, along with the ability to reach a vast audience with ease.
Social ads are a vital part of a marketing strategy because potential customers can interact with a brand in the places they know the best. Ignoring social media ads in this day and age puts advertisers at an immediate disadvantage.
When it comes to tracking, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook offer robust built-in analytics so advertisers can see what did and didn’t work. Even just having the option to look at the number of shares, likes and comments can be a useful indicator.
Other benefits include:
- These ads help to generate that all-important conversion about your brand.
- Call to actions on social media platforms can be very effective.
- From in-app landing pages to lead-generating ads, there’s a good variety of ads formats and social media ad sizes.
Social Ads example 2
Source: Nanigans
Social Ads CPMs
Here are some of the biggest social ads offers along with their platform, rates and country.
| Platform/Network | Country | CPMs/Revenues |
| US | Around $7 to $9 | |
| US | $5 to $6 | |
| US | Around $6 | |
| US | $6.17 |
Source: Falcon.io
Below we’ve listed the best social media ads networks and platforms so you can get up and running without fuss.
List of social advertising companies
| Employees | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-50 |
Aragon Premium is a mobile app marketing agency that focuses on cost-per-acquisition marketing. They offer a range of services, including display and paid social advertising, influencer marketing, content marketing, direct carrier partnerships, programmatic advertising, and loyalty and rewards programs.
Learn more about Aragon Premium
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 36,000 | 55,800m | 17m | 27,000+ |
Facebook Ads is the biggest digital advertising platform with a major focus on mobile ads. It features the best ad format, targeting and reporting capabilities in the industry. The platform allows mobile app advertisers to run ad campaigns on their choice on Facebook itself, its Messenger app, Instagram, Audience Network (to show ads across the web) and its app for businesses Workplace.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Web
- Campaign types: CPI, CPM
- Ad formats supported: banners, carousel banners, video, slideshow
- Targeting: age, gender, location, device, mobile OS, OS version, interests, mobile user language.
- Key markets: global
Promoted App Pins is a mobile app advertising platform from Pinterest. It allows app marketers to generate installs via pins. Pins associated with iOS or Android apps have an app icon and install button attached to them for mobile users to tap on and download an app. Among Pinterest mobile measuring partners are Adjust, AppsFlyer, Kochava, TUNE and Apsalar.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
- Campaign types: CPA
- Ad formats supported: App Icon
- Targeting: Custom
- Key markets: Global
Facebook Audience Network
Expand the power of Facebook advertising with Audience Network.
Facebook Audience Network is the extension of the Facebook Ads platform on mobile apps and web, launched in 2014, to reach audiences outside of the Facebook app and its website.
The Facebook ad server allows advertisers to reach people that are registered on Facebook off the platform without compromising on targeting precision and achieve one or more of the following objectives – brand awareness, traffic, conversion, app install, product catalog sales, video views, and reach.
- Powered by Facebook with high targeting precision, 40% of the top 500 mobile apps are integrated with the system
- Supported ad formats include banner, interstitial and native
- The following platforms are supported: iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Unity, tvOS
Snapchat Ads is the Snap Inc. advertising platform that allows businesses to advertise on the platform with Snap’s unique ad formats and reach Millennials audience that has developed a high level of trust with the platform. Snapchat has 238 million daily active users that open the app 30 times a day on average and spend 30+ minutes with the app. Snap has partnered with multiple companies to better connect advertisers with snapchatters communities.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPI, CPC
- Ad formats supported: Snap Ads, Filters, Lenses
- Targeting: 300 audiences based on data derived from what content snapchatters watch, buy and post on the platform, demographics, lookalike audiences.
- Key markets: global, the Basic plan is US only.
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 3,900 | 3,000m | 57m | 4,000+ |
Twitter Ads is the Twitter advertising platform that allows app marketers to drive traffic to their apps from both on Twitter and off Twitter channels. In terms of targeting options and reach its rivals are only Facebook and Google. Twitter ads support deep linking technology that allows app marketers to link an ad to a specific part of a mobile app content.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPI, CPC, CPM
- Ad formats supported: auto-generated ads with creatives an app has on the App Store.
- Targeting: mobile OS, OS version, device (iPhone / iPad), location, gender, age, mobile connection type
- Key markets: global