Major platforms
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) remains the largest.
TikTok has grown rapidly, particularly for reaching younger demographics.
LinkedIn dominates B2B advertising with professional targeting.
Pinterest, Snapchat, and X (Twitter) serve more niche use cases.
The targeting difference from Search
Paid Search targets intent, you reach people actively looking for something.
Paid Social targets characteristics, you reach people based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and lookalike audiences.
This means Paid Social often works higher in the funnel, building awareness and demand rather than capturing existing demand.
How pricing works
Most platforms use auction-based pricing with options for CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click), or optimization toward specific actions like purchases or leads. The algorithms increasingly push advertisers toward conversion-optimized bidding where the platform decides how to spend your budget to maximize results.
Creative matters more
Because you're interrupting rather than answering a query, the quality of your creative is critical. Ad fatigue is real, the same audience seeing the same ad repeatedly leads to declining performance. Growth teams typically test multiple creative variants continuously.
Attribution challenges
Paid Social attribution has become harder post-iOS 14.5. Platform-reported conversions often differ significantly from actual results due to tracking limitations. This is where the MTA challenges lie.