How effective are social media ads? And what do consumers want from ads?

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From TV and print to podcasts, influencer partnerships, live streams and social media ads, how many channels are there today?

The media is more fragmented than ever.

Promisingly, 49% of Internet users say they are likely to buy brands they see advertised.

While advertising isn’t the only way consumers discover brands, if that’s what you’re banking on, it’s crucial to get it right.

Gen Z and Millennials account for two-thirds of the market - AI-generated image - MidJourney
By the end of 2020, 98% of consumers worldwide said they had visited a social network in the previous month. Meanwhile, global social media ad spending increased by 50% in a single year. With ads saturating our feeds, standing out is key.


So how can your brand’s social media presence inspire bangladesh whatsapp lead engage your audience – especially if you’ve paid attention to their attention?

Using our latest insights, we explore how social media fits into the consumer journey and how brands can make the most of their advertising across multiple platforms.

How did social media evolve into a place for research?

The role of social media in users' daily lives has changed - it now plays a significant role in the path to purchase.


Compared to other media channels, social media consumes the most time. Globally, consumers spend nearly 2.5 hours a day switching between different platforms.


While traditional sources like TV ads (36%) and word of mouth (32%) are still more popular for brand discovery than social media ads (27%), social media is the second most prominent research channel after search engines, with 42% of people conducting product research on social media platforms.

Even if consumers discover a brand through a different source, social media is the foundation of many people’s purchasing journey.

This is where they go to get more information, and what they find there may motivate them to proceed with a purchase.


Understanding what consumers want when researching products is closely linked to how brands are perceived online.

Powerful online purchase motivators such as coupons and discounts (40%), reviews from other customers (36%), loyalty points (27%), and the product having many "likes" or good reviews (22%) can increase the effectiveness of a social media ad.

Who is using social media to find products?

Worldwide, nearly 3 in 10 social media users use social media primarily to research products to buy.


That said, reasons for using social media vary widely by age and region.

Gen Z and Millennials make up two-thirds of the market for people who use the internet for product discovery. This is no surprise, given that they are among the biggest users of social media worldwide.


Unlike their older counterparts, who use social media more sparingly, these age groups spend more time on social media than the global average of 2.5 hours per day.


This presents a huge opportunity for social media marketers targeting younger consumers, as well as for advertisers in emerging markets. In places like the Middle East and Latin America, consumers spend more than 3 hours a day on social media.


The impact of ads seen on social media is not consistent across the world, but they are making good progress. In developed regions like Europe and North America, for example, social media ads have the potential to reach a quarter of consumers.

Across all five regions we track, social media ads are a more important means of brand discovery than ads on other sites.
28% of internet users say that social media ads help them discover new products, meaning that social channels have achieved and maintained a truly global reach.


Ad blocking has overwhelmingly demonstrated the steps adults are willing to take to protect their online experience from unwanted, intrusive or irrelevant content.


Fortunately, the situation with social media is a little different—and more positive for marketers. The popularity of accessing social media via mobile apps is what protects it from web-based ad blockers.


One of the most successful ways to find an audience on social media is to target users who follow certain types of accounts.


For example, followers of beauty experts, fitness experts, or other influencers are 60% more likely than average to use social media to find products to buy.

Who clicks on social media ads?
24% of global internet users clicked on a sponsored post or social media ad in the past month.
These consumers are most likely to be millennials, married (50%) and working full-time (54%). There’s a roughly even gender split here, with a slight male dominance (53%).

Users who click on social media ads are also 27% more likely than average to donate to charity on a monthly basis , and nearly half believe it is very important to contribute to the community in which they live.

These are consumers who care whether the brands they buy from are socially and environmentally responsible .

Two-thirds also say they would prefer to pay more for sustainable or eco-friendly products, and more than 4 in 10 want brands to be transparent about how they collect data.

This consumer segment is also much more likely than average to have paid for digital products in the past month, from dating services (81% more likely) to eBooks (64% more likely).

Clearly, users who click on social media ads have no hesitation in purchasing products from the ads they see. In the United States, for example, more than 30% of consumers who clicked on a social media ad also purchased something they saw in an ad — within the past week.