How Much Does Social Media Advertising Cost in 2024?

On Facebook, you can access four bidding options:

1. Cost-per-click (CPC): You only pay for your ad when someone clicks on it.
2. Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM): You only pay for your ad when 1000 people see it. The average CPM on Facebook ranges from $2 to $30 depending on the industry.
3. Cost-per-like (CPL): You only pay for your ad when someone likes your business page.
4. Cost-per-download: You only pay for your ad when someone downloads your app.

For the best results, most companies use CPC. While you can use the other bidding options, CPC offers the most cost-effective choice for achieving your goals. Even if you’re looking to earn likes or conversions, social media specialists often recommend CPC.

Specialists recommend this bidding approach for a few reasons.

To start, CPC is one of the most cost-effective bidding strategies available. With CPL and CPA, your company can expect to pay more, without necessarily increasing the performance or results of your social media strategy. Impressions also rarely support long-term strategy goals, like follows or purchases.

When you advertise on Facebook, you can also select one of two bidding strategies:

• Automatic bidding: Also known as lowest cost, automatic bidding allows Facebook to tweak your bidding strategy (without exceeding your monthly budget) to help your business earn the lowest possible cost per click or action.

• Manual bidding: Also known as target cost, manual bidding provides your company complete control over your bidding strategy, which can help your team reach your preferred cost per click or action.

Depending on your experience, your business may start with automatic bidding versus manual bidding. If you partner with a social media advertising agency, like WebFX, we have the expertise to use either option and maximize its results.

As more businesses invest in Facebook advertising, the platform becomes more competitive. That’s why many companies partner with a social media advertising agency to develop, manage, and lead their ad strategy.

While every agency varies, leading providers (like WebFX) provide the following:

• Ad account setup
• Ad account optimization
• Ad development and design
• Advanced ad targeting
• Facebook Pixel installation
• Monthly reporting and analysis
• Personal consultations
• And more

We also provide your team access to MarketingCloudFX, our client-exclusive platform. With MarketingCloudFX, we make it easy for your business to review and share your campaign results. Plus, with the machine learning power of IBM Watson, you get unparalleled insights to advance your strategy.

Facebook Ad Management

Like Facebook, Instagram offers the following four bidding options:

1. Cost-per-click (CPC): You pay every time someone clicks on your ad.
2. Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM): You pay every time 1000 people see your ad.
3. Cost-per-like (CPL): You pay every time someone likes your post.
4. Cost-per-action (CPA): You pay every time someone completes your desired action, like a purchase.

While companies can use any of the above bidding options, many choose CPC. In some cases, established brands (think Target, Starbucks, or Home Depot) use CPM to build awareness and keep their business top-of-mind.

Whether you’re promoting your business on one or more social media networks, partnering with a professional team of social media specialists can help your company earn more from your social media ads.

If you decide to invest in Instagram management and advertising services, choose an experienced agency with an excellent track record. WebFX, for example, offers more than 28 years of experience. Plus, we’ve published more than 165,000 social media posts for our clients.

In fact, we’ve generated more than $10 billion in revenue for our clients in the last five years.

While more experienced social media advertising agencies, like WebFX, provide their services at a higher rate, they also offer higher value. You receive a custom strategy backed by years of experience, which can improve the performance of your ads.

This kind of approach also helps your business achieve its marketing goals.

Your agency’s role in your company’s success is why settling for “cheap” social media advertising services is often a mistake. While these agencies offer an enticing price, they often fail to deliver on their promises, which hurts your company and your reputation.

That’s why you need to go with a proven and trusted agency to maximize your online success.

Instagram Ad Management

When your company advertises on YouTube, you have access to four bidding options:

1. Cost-per-click (CPC): With CPC, you pay when someone clicks on your YouTube ad.
2. Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM): With CPM, you pay when 1000 people see your ad on YouTube.
3. Cost-per-view (CPV): With CPV, you pay when someone views your video ad for 30 seconds or until the end.
4. Cost-per-action (CPA): With CPA, you pay when a person takes the desired action, like visiting your site.

If you advertise on YouTube, many businesses have success with CPC, as well as CPV. With CPV, however, your team will need to create a video ad. While you can shoot an ad in-house, the best results come from a professional-grade video.

YouTube Ad Management

When you advertise on LinkedIn, you can use three types of bids:

1. Cost-per-click (CPC): With CPC, you pay only when someone clicks on your LinkedIn ad.
2. Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM): With CPM, you only pay when 1000 people see your LinkedIn ad.
3. Cost-per-send (CPS): With CPS, you pay every time you send a sponsored email to a user.
4. Cost-per-open (CPO): With CPO, you pay every time someone opens your sponsored email.

While many businesses focus their ad strategy on CPC, some do use CPS and CPO. If you’re looking to recruit applicants, for example, CPS and CPO can help your business reach top candidates and fill the opening. For lead generation, however, CPC is a go-to choice.

For many companies, advertising on LinkedIn is a new adventure, which is why it’s helpful to partner with a social media advertising agency. With their experience, as well as advertising expertise, they can help your business build a campaign that allows you to hire top candidates, reach valuable leads, and more.

With a talented and award-winning team of more than 500 digital marketing specialists, WebFX removes the uncertainty, stress, and frustration that can come with advertising on social media. Plus, we partner you with a dedicated account manager, ensuring you always have a familiar point of contact.

That’s why we’ve received more than 350+ four- and five-star reviews from our clients.

LinkedIn Ad Management

If you advertise on X, you can access five different bidding options:

1. Cost-per-click (CPC): CPC allows you to pay for every click on your X ad.
2. Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM): CPM lets you pay for every 1000 impressions on your X ad.
3. Cost-per-engagement (CPE): With CPE, you pay when someone interacts with your X ad.
4. Cost-per-follow (CPF): With CPF, you pay when someone uses your ad to follow your business.
5. Cost-per-download (CPD): With, you pay when someone downloads something, like an app.

While CPC works well for businesses advertising on X, CPE also offers value. When people engage with your ad and your company, whether by commenting or reposting, it demonstrates the importance of your ad campaign.

You’re moving people to act, which can lead to several benefits.

For example, that initial engagement can generate brand awareness. It can also result in future, organic interactions between your company and that user. As engagement increases, potential customers move through the buying funnel, which can result in a later purchase or new lead.

While you can now exceed the 280-character limit on X, that doesn’t change the challenge that comes with advertising on the network. If you want a campaign that makes the most of your social media advertising costs, professional management services can help.

With the hands-on approach of our social media specialists, your company receives a campaign tailored to you. Plus, you have a consistent point-of-contact for chatting about your strategy, reviewing your results, and more.

Unlike other social media advertising agencies, WebFX provides you with a partnership. We invest ourselves in your success and measure our performance by your results, which is one reason why our client recommendation score is 488% higher than the industry average.

Twitter Ad Management

Pinterest offers two bidding options:

1. Cost-per-click (CPC): This bid strategy charges your company when someone clicks your Pinterest ad.
2. Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM): This bid option charges your business when 1000 people see your Pinterest ad.

Due to the high average cost for impressions, it’s cost-effective to use CPC. With CPC, you also ensure people interact with your ad and take notice of your pin, which may include a product, blog post, or another feature.

For many businesses, Pinterest is a new social media advertising channel. While you may feel comfortable with promoting your business on Facebook or Instagram, advertising on Pinterest poses new challenges and risks. It also requires more of your team’s time.

WebFX can help your business use Pinterest to your advantage. With a custom strategy, plus data-driven decisions from our proprietary and client-exclusive software, MarketingCloudFX, we can generate brand awareness, engagement, and even sales from Pinterest for you.

All these actions can help your company experience real growth.

Pinterest Ad Management

When it comes to TikTok pricing, you can choose from these four bidding options:

• Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM): With CPM, you’ll pay for every 1000 impressions on your TikTok ad.
• Optimized CPM (oCPM): With oCPM, you still pay for every 1000 impressions, but oCPM targets users most likely to complete a conversion or similar advertising goal.
• Cost-per-thousand views (CPV): With CPV, you’ll pay for every 1000 video views. Your views can be either 2-second or 6-second views.
• Cost-per-click (CPC): With CPC, you’ll pay for every click your TikTok ad receives.

The best TikTok bidding strategy for your business depends on your advertising goals. For example, you might want to use CPC or oCPM if your goal is to increase conversions. Meanwhile, CPM is an excellent choice for increasing reach.

Between ever-changing trends and well-edited videos, TikTok advertising presents a unique challenge for many companies. If you don’t have the time to learn another new social media platform, consider turning to professional management services.

At WebFX, our team of social media experts will create a custom plan to optimize your TikTok account for advertising success. We’ll help you create a video that’ll make a splash, set up tracking, and, with ongoing management, we’ll also provide goals-driven reporting.

Take advantage of TikTok advertising for your business by partnering with WebFX.

TikTok Ad Management