Every day, billions of tiny stories flicker past our thumbs. Some make us laugh, some make us curious, and a few make us click. That canvas is impossibly large: as of early 2025 there are roughly 5.24 billion active social media user identities worldwide, and the typical internet user spends about 2 hours and 21 minutes a day inside those feeds.
It’s no wonder brands treat social as the world’s busiest storefront. In 2024, global social media ad spend swelled to an estimated $253B and became the single largest advertising medium; industry forecasters expect social to grow another ~9% in 2025 even as broader markets wobble.
Most importantly, this is where discovery happens. Nearly 3 in 10 adults say they find new brands via social media ads, making the channel a top-tier spark for awareness. While with people aged 16-34, this risesto the #1 discovery source. Your future customers are already scrolling; the only question is whether your story earns the next second, and the click after that.
Let’s explore social media ads to help you jump into the game.
What are social media ads?
Social media ads are paid stories that slip into the places people already linger – feeds, Stories, Reels, Shorts, carousels, pre-rolls.
Instead of yelling from a billboard, you borrow a moment in someone’s scrolling rhythm, show a tiny scene where your product solves something real, and invite a next step. What makes them powerful isn’t just the targeting; it’s that they look and feel like the content around them, so the message arrives as part of the experience, not a break from it.
And the reach is tangible. Platform ad tools put potential paid audiences in the billions: YouTube’s ad reach tops ~2.53B people, with Facebook around ~2.28B at the start of 2025. For marketers, that means your best 15-30 seconds can meet a massive, targeted crowd today.
Types of social media ads
Social platforms give you a handful of stages to perform on. Choose the format that best tells your product’s story in the exact moment your buyer is scrolling.
Think of each format as a different stage:
- In-feed short-form video is the headliner – human face, fast cuts, product on screen immediately.
- Stories/vertical full-screen ads slip into a friend-like moment; big text, simple scenes, quick taps.
- Carousels unfold a idea-per-card mini-story; perfect for B2B or complex products.
- Static images still win when they behave like posters: bold value, unmistakable product, clear CTA.
- If your catalog is the star, shopping/collection and dynamic ads turn the feed into a storefront.
- For services, lead-gen forms keep people in-app and lower friction.
- And when you need longer attention, in-stream video (YouTube skippables, six-second bumpers) pairs a sharp opener with a matching landing page.
- Finally, creator-amplified ads (Spark/whitelisting) blend real-post credibility with paid reach – the trusted voice, delivered on target.
How to create a social media ad
Begin with the moment you’re interrupting and the job you need done. Who’s scrolling, where are they, and what feeling already lives there – annoyance, curiosity, ambition? Write to that feeling and choose a format that fits it.
Open hard and honest. Earn the first two seconds with a line or hook that makes a thumb pause, and get the product on screen immediately. Show the problem, then the “aha” in motion – one clear action, one visible result. Keep the voice conversational, like one person helping another, not a brand delivering a speech.
Prove it without breaking the spell. A quick demo, a real review, a timestamped before/after – whatever builds belief fastest while staying compliant. Then make the next step effortless: a plain-language CTA, a simple offer or guarantee, and an end card that matches the landing page exactly so the click feels like a continuation, not a detour.
Polish for the phone in their hand. Vertical framing, large readable captions, crisp pacing, sound that adds meaning but isn’t required. Trim anything that doesn’t move the story forward. If a stranger watches with the sound off and still gets it (and wants to tap) you’ve built the right ad.
Measuring social media ad performance
Measuring social media ad performance is just as important as creating and launching the ads. After all, this is where you will get to see if your idea translated and captured the attention of the audience.
Here are the main aspects to track:
- Attention: did the hook earn a pause?
On Meta, a “3-second video view” is exactly that – someone watched at least three seconds of your ad. So your hook rate (3-second views ÷ impressions) is the first truth signal before clicks or purchases show up. A cross industry average holds around 30-40% hook rate for social media ads.
On YouTube, view rate (views ÷ impressions) plays the same role for video, telling you how many people chose to keep watching after the ad appeared.
- Click intent: did the video result in a visit?
The next metric you will want to track is the CTR. It defines how many of the viewers clicked on your ad to view the actual product page. Once again, CTR varies across industries, but on an average it hovers around 1-2% for e-commerce.
- Purchase intent: did we get the right audience?
Lastly, you want to evaluate if the traffic that came to the product page was the right one and ready to purchase. For this, and overall marketing effort evaluation, ROAS is the metric you want to oversee.
Usually social media ad campaigns have target ROAS which regulate ad spend and ad iterations. Allowing the team to stop underperforming campaigns and double down on the ones that work for you.
How to track ad performance?
You can calculate your ad performance metrics manually or use third party solutions to input your data and measure it over time.
Alternitevelly, you can use services like Billo that help you create the social media ads from scratch and then help iterate based on industry standards and your own performance metrics. All you have to do is enter the product URL and follow the intelligent suggestions of Billo IQ.
Social media ads summary
Social media ads are native, story-like placements that meet people where they already scroll. They let brands tap a massive audience and drive discovery (especially among 16–34-year-olds) amid record ad spend and continued growth.
Winning in this massive market today is not just about your product, but about building the ad and then iterating it based on actual performance. Social media ads are affected by a lot of factors – from the mood of the person scrolling to the tone of the creator. So the best way to find winners is testing and improving on the original content.
Looking to automate this process? Check out Billo Creator Marketing Stack.
