Services/Paid social

Paid social advertising, behind posts that already work.

We run social media advertising on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for brands and local businesses. Ads start from organic posts that have proven themselves, tracking is set up before a dollar is spent, and the ad account stays yours.

Fee $600 a monthPlatforms Meta ads, TikTok adsAd spend Paid by you, to the platform

What it is

What paid social is.

Paid social is advertising bought on social media platforms: you pay Meta or TikTok to show a post to people chosen by location, age, interests, behavior, or similarity to your customers. It reaches people your organic content would never find, and it stops the day the budget does.

That last part is why we treat paid social advertising as the second step. An ad is a post with money behind it. If the post does not hold attention for free, paying for reach buys more people scrolling past.

So our paid social campaigns begin in the organic account: we find the videos and carousels that already earn watch time, saves and clicks, and put budget behind those. It is cheaper than guessing, and it is how a small advertising budget competes with a large one.

What paid social management includes.

Seven parts. The first two happen before any ad runs, and they are where most wasted ad spend comes from.

Account and tracking setupBefore spend

Business accounts, ad accounts and roles set up in your name, with the Instagram account connected to a Facebook Page as set out in how to link Facebook to Instagram.
Meta Pixel and Conversions API, TikTok Pixel and Events API, checked with test events.
The purchase, lead or booking event defined once, so every report means the same thing.

Offer and landing page checkBefore spend

Does the page load fast on a phone and repeat what the ad promised?
Is the price, the shipping and the next step visible without scrolling?
We send a short list of fixes. Ads cannot repair a page.

Campaign structureSimple on purpose

The fewest campaigns and ad sets that do the job, so the budget is not split too thin to learn.
Prospecting and retargeting kept apart, with sensible exclusions.
One objective per campaign, chosen for the business goal.

Ad creativeThe biggest lever

Proven organic posts first, run as ads from your own handle.
New variations of what works: a different opening, a different first frame, a different offer.
Creator video where a face other than the brand helps.

AudiencesTargeting

Broad targeting where the platform has enough conversion data.
Customer lists, site visitors and engaged followers for retargeting.
Radius and location targeting for businesses with a front door.

OptimizationWeekly

Budgets moved toward ads that convert, away from ads that only get clicks.
Tired creative replaced before results fall, not after.
Changes made in steps, so the delivery system is not reset every few days.

ReportingMonthly, in writing

Spend, results and cost per result, next to your own sales or booking numbers.
What we tested, what it showed, what changes next.
Full access to the ad accounts, so nothing in the report has to be taken on trust.

Boosted posts and ads compared.

The Boost button and Ads Manager buy the same inventory. They differ in how much control you get, and in who the platform goes looking for.

Boosting a post in the appCampaigns in Ads Manager

SetupTwo minutes, from the post itself.Longer. Objective, audience, placements, budget and tracking are set separately.

What it optimizes forMostly engagement, profile visits or messages.Any objective, including purchases and leads measured by the pixel.

TargetingA short list of options.Full options: custom audiences, lookalikes, exclusions, placements.

TestingOne post at a time.Several ads against each other, with results per ad.

FitsA local event, a quick push on a post that is already doing well.Anything with a sales goal, a monthly budget and a need to know what worked.

On TikTok the equivalent choice is between Promote in the app and TikTok Ads Manager, where an organic video can run as a Spark Ad from your own handle and keep its likes and comments.

Meta ads and TikTok ads do different jobs.

PartHow it worksHow we use it

PlacementsOne campaign can run across Instagram feed, Reels, stories and Facebook.Creative made for vertical video first, then adapted. Facebook placements reach people who are not on Instagram, which is a reason to keep them in the mix.

RetargetingAudiences from site visitors, customer lists, video viewers and people who engaged with the account.People who already know the brand tend to need less persuading. We build these audiences from the first day.

Partnership adsA creator's post run as an ad from both handles.With creators who already made good content about the product.

Lead forms and messagesForms and Instagram DMs as the destination, no website needed.For local businesses and services where the sale starts with a conversation.

What social media advertising costs, and what moves the price.

We do not publish benchmark figures we did not measure. What an ad costs is set by an auction, and these are the things that move it.

FactorWhy it changes the costWhat you can do about it

The creativePlatforms charge less to show ads people watch and act on, and more for ads people skip.The largest lever, and the one fully in your control.

The objectiveBuyers are more expensive to reach than viewers, because every advertiser wants them.Optimize for the result you need, and compare cost per sale, never cost per click.

The audience and the countryNarrow audiences and high income markets have more advertisers bidding.Go broader where the pixel has data. Test secondary markets.

The seasonAuction prices climb toward the end of the year, when retail budgets arrive.Build audiences earlier, when attention is cheap, and retarget them later.

The landing pageThe same click is worth twice as much on a page that converts twice as well.Fix speed, clarity and checkout before raising the budget.

The budget itselfA budget too small for the ad set to collect results keeps delivery unstable. Meta's guidance for leaving the learning phase is about fifty results per ad set within a week.Fewer ad sets, or an objective closer to the top of the funnel until volume allows more.

How paid social agencies charge.

The fee model shapes the advice you get. Know which one you are being offered.

ModelHow it worksGoodWatch for

Percentage of ad spendThe agency takes a share of what you spend on ads.Scales with the workload on large accounts.The agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not it works.

Flat monthly feeA fixed price for a defined scope.Predictable, and the advice is not tied to your budget.Scope that is vague about how much creative is included.

Performance feeA share of attributed revenue, or a fee per lead.Aligned on paper.Arguments about attribution, and pressure toward discounts and retargeting that flatter the numbers.

HybridA base fee plus a smaller percentage or bonus.Covers the work and shares the upside.Complexity. Ask for a worked example at your budget.

Our fee is $600 a month, or 12% of ad spend once spend passes $5,000 a month, whichever is higher. There is no minimum spend, though below about $1,000 a month the data arrives too slowly to optimize against. Whatever the model, ad spend is billed to your card by Meta and TikTok directly. We never resell media and never hold your budget.

The first sixty days.

Paid social campaigns need a setup stage and a learning stage before they can be judged. This is the order.

01Access and audit.You add us to Meta Business Suite and TikTok Business Center. We review past campaigns, tracking and the organic account.
02Tracking and page fixes.Pixels, server events and conversion definitions tested end to end. A short list of landing page fixes goes to you.
03First campaigns.A simple structure, proven organic creative, a budget the ad sets can learn on.
04Read and replace.After enough results, weak ads are replaced and the winners get variations. Budget moves in steps.
05The sixty day review.Cost per sale or lead against your margin, and a plain recommendation: scale, hold, or stop.

What the ads report says.

Ad platforms grade their own work. We read their numbers next to yours.

We reportBecauseWe treat with care

Cost per purchase, lead or bookingIt is the number that decides whether the campaign pays.Cost per click. Cheap clicks from people who never buy are the most common false win.

Return against your own sales dataPlatform reports claim sales that would have happened anyway.ROAS as reported by the platform, taken alone.

New customers and returning ones, splitRetargeting existing buyers looks efficient and grows nothing.Blended results that hide where the sales came from.

Results per creativeIt tells you what to make next, for ads and for the organic account.Reach and impressions as a measure of success.

Hook rate and hold rate on videoThey show whether an ad loses people in the first seconds or later.View counts, since a view can be very short, as what counts as a Reels view explains.

Do it yourself

A first paid social campaign on a small budget.

If you are testing advertising before hiring anyone, this is the order we would follow. It avoids the expensive mistakes.

Install the pixel and test it. Make a test purchase or form fill and check that the event arrives.
Pick one goal. Sales, leads, bookings or messages. One campaign, one objective.
Choose three organic posts that already did well, judged by watch time, saves and clicks.
Run them as ads from your own handle, in one ad set with broad targeting in the places you can serve.
Set a budget you can leave alone for two weeks. Changing it daily restarts the learning.
Judge by cost per result, compared with what a customer is worth to you.
Replace the weakest ad with a variation of the strongest. Repeat every two weeks.
Add retargeting last, once there are enough visitors to retarget.

If nothing works after two rounds, look at the offer and the page before blaming the ads.

Who paid social is for, and who it is not.

A good fit

A brand with a product that already sells, a page that converts and organic posts that people respond to. A local business with a clear offer and a way to take bookings or calls. A team that can share real sales numbers, so ads are judged against them.

Not a fit

A product nobody has bought yet, because ads amplify demand and do not create it. A budget too small to collect results. Anyone who wants the agency to own the ad account, or who needs guaranteed returns.

About paid social advertising.

What does a paid social agency do?

A paid social agency sets up tracking, plans campaigns, produces or selects ad creative, manages budgets and audiences, and reports on results. The good ones also tell you when the problem is the offer or the landing page, not the ads.

How much should we spend on social media ads?

Enough for an ad set to collect results every week, or the system never settles. Work backwards: what a customer is worth, what you can pay to get one, and how many results a week the platform needs. We calculate this with you before anything is spent.

Who pays for the ad spend?

You do, directly to Meta and TikTok, on your own card and in your own ad account. Our fee is separate. An agency that bills your media through its own account can hide what was actually spent.

Who owns the ad account and the pixel data?

You do. We work through roles you grant in Meta Business Suite and TikTok Business Center. If we stop working together you remove the role and keep the account, the audiences and the history.

Is boosting a post enough?

For a local event or a quick push, often yes. For sales or leads, Ads Manager lets the platform optimize for that result and lets you test one ad against another. Boosting mostly buys engagement.

Do you run Facebook ads even though you do not manage Facebook pages?

Yes. Meta ads run across Instagram and Facebook from one campaign, and Facebook placements often reach buyers Instagram misses. We do not plan organic content for Facebook, which is a different job.

Do you make the ad creative?

We start from organic posts that already work, then edit variations. For new footage we write shot lists for your team, or source creator video through UGC content.

How long before paid social campaigns show results?

Tracking and setup take the first weeks. Campaigns then need time and volume to settle. We review at sixty days against your margin and recommend whether to scale, hold or stop.

Do you guarantee a return on ad spend?

No. Nobody controls the auction, your competitors or your conversion rate. We commit to correct tracking, disciplined testing and a report you can check against your own sales.

Can you run ads without managing our organic account?

Yes, if the account already produces content worth promoting. If it does not, we will say so, because the first months of budget would go to finding out what good creative looks like.

Do you run Google, YouTube, Pinterest or LinkedIn ads?

No. We run advertising on Meta and TikTok, the same two platforms our organic work covers. For search advertising you need a specialist in that.

What about iOS privacy changes and tracking?

Browser and device privacy rules mean a pixel alone misses events. Server side tracking through the Conversions API and the Events API recovers part of it. We also compare platform reports with your own order data, because no ad platform sees everything.

Start with the audit.

The free audit shows which of your posts have earned a budget, and whether the account and the page are ready for one.