What are the best social PPC platforms for eCommerce?

How social media PPC can benefit your eCommerce store

The average internet user now spends two and a half hours using social media every day – more than a third of their total time spent online. As a result, social PPC is increasingly valuable for online retailers – not only for building visibility and awareness, but driving product sales.

Today, social PPC has more than ever to offer eCommerce brands:

• Social commerce: The rise of social commerce is ramping up every year, led by Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, followed by TikTok, YouTube and WhatsApp.
• Brand awareness: Introduce your brand to a wider audience and keep it top of mind.
• Product awareness: Tease your products to new and existing audiences.
• Audience targeting: Reach specific target audiences interested in your brand and products.
• Inspire purchases: Deliver timely, targeted ads to inspire consumers and trigger that purchase impulse.
• Engage: Interact and engage with your target audience throughout the consumer journey.
• Maximise content ROI: Get more from your social content by enhancing reach, relevance and performance.
• Sell more products: Above all, generate more leads and sell more products.

In 2024, more people are buying products directly through social media and using apps like Instagram and TikTok to find local businesses.

Of course, every eCommerce store is unique and each social network has something different to offer. Choosing the right networks for your social PPC strategy is one of the most important decisions you’ll make in the early planning stage.

Best social media PPC platforms for eCommerce

So, we’ve established how important social media is for modern eCommerce brands, but which networks are the best PPC platforms for online retailers?

Meta Ads

Meta Ads provides targeted visibility across Instagram, Facebook and other Meta technologies, including Messenger and WhatsApp. That’s a combined audience of almost 4 billion monthly active users.

As an eCommerce brand, you can set up Shops on Instagram and Facebook to promote your products.

What are Meta Ads best for?

• Promote products on Facebook & Instagram
• Maximise social reach
• Multigenerational reach
• Targeting settings
• Lowest average CPCs & CPMs
• Engage with audiences
• Visual storytelling
• Brand awareness

The only real downsides to Meta platforms are declining organic reach and high competition with paid ads. Regardless, with some of the lowest CPCs and CPMs in social PPC, Meta offers some of the best performance in the game.

With Facebook and Instagram topping the list of social commerce platforms and WhatsApp also ranking in the top five, Meta Ads is the first PPC platform most eCommerce brands should turn to.

TikTok Ads

TikTok has redefined social media with its ultra-personalised, short video experience. With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, only Meta platforms and YouTube offer bigger audiences. For online retailers, TikTok Ads is also leading the way in shoppable ad formats that turn engagement into product purchases.

What are TikTok Ads best for?

• Shoppable ad formats
• Reach Gen Z and Millennials
• Short video campaigns
• Casual video content
• Viral campaigns
• Influencer marketing

TikTok is the most important social app for younger generations with 44.7% of users being Gen Z and 33.7% Millennials. So, it’s less multigenerational than Meta Ads, although Instagram isn’t far behind TikTok’s age demographics.

YouTube Ads

YouTube has the second-biggest social audience with 2.7 billion monthly active users. It’s also the second-most used social app, closely following behind TikTok.

What are YouTube Ads best for?

• Long-form video content
• High-quality video ads
• Manage & promote YouTube channels
• Brand & product awareness campaigns
• eCommerce remarketing campaigns
• Low CPM

The challenge with YouTube Ads is that you’re interrupting a viewing experience. So, you need ads that really capture attention. You may also find remarketing and awareness campaigns perform better than conversion-focused campaigns.

Luckily, with skippable ads, you’re only charged when users either watch 30 seconds of your ad – or the whole ad, if it’s shorter than 30 seconds.

Pinterest Ads

With 522 million monthly active users, Pinterest Ads doesn’t offer the same kind of reach as Meta, TikTok or YouTube. However, consumers actively use Pinterest to find inspiration, which delivers a purchase intent you can’t easily find on any other network. This means your ads fit seamlessly into the experience, connecting you with people looking for products like yours.

What are Pinterest Ads best for?

• Drive traffic with purchase intent
• Inspire purchases
• Promote visually compelling products
• Long post lifespans
• Organic reach
• Unintrusive ads

Aside from a smaller user base, the other main disadvantage of Pinterest Ads is that you can’t easily engage with your audience in the same way as Instagram, Facebook, etc.

On the other hand, organic reach is relatively high on Pinterest, reinforcing your PPC strategy with organic visibility. Posts also have a longer lifespan on the network than platforms like Instagram and TikTok – so they can keep generating leads.

Crucially, Pinterest Ads are some of the least intrusive in social PPC, effortlessly slotting into the discovery experience. With relevant ads and the right targeting settings, you can connect with audiences who are ready to buy almost instantly.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn is the biggest social network for professionals, so it may not come to mind as an eCommerce PPC platform. Let’s not ignore the world of B2B retailers or companies selling to consumers, professionals and businesses – eg: stationery suppliers.

What are LinkedIn Ads best for?

• Find high-value corporate customers
• Sell to professionals
• Network with business leaders
• Thought leadership

Professionals and business leaders are still people, who buy all kinds of products for their work and private lives. LinkedIn Ads can even tap into unique consumer interests that only exist in the workplace. For example, a pet store chain can tailor ad campaigns to professionals worrying about their pets being home alone.

How can Vertical Leap enhance your social media PPC strategy?

At Vertical Leap, we take a data-driven approach to planning, managing and optimising your social PPC strategy at every level.

Aside from helping you choose the right networks, our social media PPC services

1. Goals & objectives: First, we help you set clear social PPC goals and objectives, along with the metrics and KPIs to measure success.
2. Audience research: We define your target audiences, identify the platforms they use and analyse how they interact with retailers.
3. Platform selection: Next, we determine which social PPC platforms are most effective for achieving your goals and objectives with your target audiences.
4. Competitor analysis: We identify your competitors on each network and analyse their strategies to reveal their strengths and weaknesses.
5. Social PPC strategy: With the research and planning stage complete, we develop your social PPC strategy, incorporating each chosen platform.
6. Content & asset creation: We help you create the content and assets for your social PPC campaigns – ads, landing pages, images, video, etc.
7. Campaign setup: Once all the necessary assets are in place, we set up each social PPC account and your initial campaigns – including bids, bid strategies, targeting options and all other campaign settings.
8. Campaign management: With your campaigns running live, we monitor results, ensure everything is in working order and make any necessary adjustments.
9. Testing & optimisation: To maximise the performance of your social PPC campaigns, we test ad variations, A/B test landing pages and refine campaign settings.

Our team can handle everything from planning and research to optimising social PPC campaigns. As your social marketing strategy expands, we take on the extra workload of managing multiple networks and campaigns covering the whole customer cycle.

To take full advantage of social media’s growing role in online purchases, call our team 02392 830 281 or send us your details below if you’d just like to have a chat about various options.