Meta Ads may have been the go-to advertising platform in the 21st century, and it is massively popular for a reason, but that is not all there is in the marketing world. Whilst you might feel inclined to do Meta Ads simply for their acclaim, there are a plethora of platforms out there that might also work for you. These platforms are popular on their own - with each having its personalities, communities, and segments of people. Some of which might even be better suited to your target market than Meta Ads.
So, if you want to try expanding your marketing strategies from Meta Ads to other platforms, or perhaps you want to reduce costly spending and maximize your budget, here are the top 10 alternatives to Meta Ads you should check out!
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Top 10 Alternatives to Meta Ads:
Who is it for
Recruitment, higher education, and high-value B2B products and services.
Why use it
Laser-focus targeting for specific groups of audience. Be it hiring for a particular marketing role, or selling Saas products to help professionals streamline workflow, Linkedin’s targeting allows you to bypass uninterested groups and focus solely on marketing to your ideal prospects.
Best targeting feature
Linkedin allows you to target users of specific professional traits and education backgrounds who are more likely to be interested in your products/services.
Available ad formats
Native Ads, Sponsored Messaging, Text Ads, Dynamic Ads.
Who is it for
Larger businesses with a bigger budget, targeting a younger crowd. It’s been reported that the general cost of advertising on TikTok ranges from country to country. If you are a small business, opt for the self-service option and promote your brand using In-Feed Video (minimum $50/day/campaign) option while you wait for the general advertising cost for TikTok to drop to a more accessible range.
Why use it
The study conducted by Influencer Marketing hub showed that TikTok has the highest social media engagement rates across 100,000 user profiles, with a huge percentage of demographics under 30 years of age. With users spending roughly 52 minutes on the app daily, the potential for brands to get their message in front of a large audience is tremendous.
Besides some extra room for creativity, advertising on TikTok is an absolute time-saver as the same ad can be posted on other social media and eCommerce platforms as well. You may also choose to have your ads shown on partner apps besides TikTok, such as BuzzVideo (Japan), TopBuzz (US and BR), Babe (Indonesia), and News Republic (Worldwide).
Best targeting feature
Geo-location targeting. A report from Later discovered that live videos are often shown to users in the same geo-location first, which has great potential for smaller businesses to increase local brand awareness.
Available ad formats
In-Feed Ads, Spark Ads, Top View, Brand Takeover, Brand Hashtag Challenge, Branded Effect
Who is it for
Businesses who want to interact and converse directly with customers.
Why use it
You only pay when you’ve achieved your marketing objective (eg. app installs, follows, etc), so you are assured that you’re being cost-effective by paying only for actual performance. You can also engage your target market directly in a casual manner and spread your message faster. It is an untapped market filled with people actively engaging in conversations around you.
Best targeting feature
Twitter’s keyword targeting option allows advertisers to speak directly to users who have demonstrated interest and intent based on their interaction with tweets containing specific keywords. Unlike Facebook which only offers topics targeting, Twitter allows you to be more precise in your targeting, zoning in on highly relevant users most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
Available ad formats
Carousel Ads, Image Ads, Video Ads, Moment Ads, Text Ads, Twitter Takeover, Amplify Pre-Roll Ads, Follower Ads.
Who is it for
Businesses who want to increase memorability and serve ads to a diverse and actively engaged audience.
Why use it
According to Dentsu International’s The Attention Economy survey, it is reported that Spotify Ads are highly effective in engaging people’s attention, resulting in significant purchase intent uplift. As people are actively listening to music or podcasts when ads are being shown and the ads are unskippable, users need to listen continuously to get the content they want. Thus, it increases the ad recall and brand awareness - memorability is definitely an asset you'd want in the current age of attention deficit where attention is short and ads are plenty.
Best targeting feature
Context targeting. Spotify is the only platform where you can serve your ads according to what users are listening to in terms of music, genres, podcasts, and real-time contexts. This gives you a very unique and relevant targeting to listeners; for example, if you’re a fitness company, you can promote your gym classes to people listening to a workout playlist.
Available ad formats
Audio Ads, Video Ads, Podcast Ads, Custom Experiences (ie. Sponsored Playlist, Overlay, Homepage Takeover, Leaderboard).
Who is it for
B2C business targeting Gen Z or Millenials with capabilities to create highly unique and immersive creative assets.
Why use it
Snapchat’s internal data shows that Snapchat users are 63% more likely to discover new brands and make purchases than users on other platforms. On top of that, Snapchatters are also one of the largest groups with the highest global spending power at $4.4 trillion. With 332 million daily active users spending at least 30 minutes a day on Snapchat, you are bound to hit a mark. Snapchat Ads is also one of the only platforms to have advanced AR tools, which accordingly, would be the future method of advertising. The foresight report by Snap Inc shows that they expect to see a 37% increase in the proportion of US Gen Z shoppers who use AR before buying a product in 2025.
Best targeting feature
The Snap Audience Match (SAM) allows you to match data from your existing customer list (email, mobile advertiser ID, or phone number) with the Snapchat community, so you can retarget your customers with more ads and create lookalikes targeting a similar audience.
Available ad formats
Single Image Ads, Video Ads, Filter Ads, AR Lens, Story Ads, Collection Ads, Dynamic Ads, and Commercials.
Who is it for
Food, home decor, handmade goods, and e-commerce businesses selling high-end products.
Why use it
Pinterest is a unique platform where the users' intention is to go on the app to discover something new. As such, Pinterest is primed for people who love to shop. Pinterest found that 83% of weekly “Pinners” have purchased a product based on the content they saw from brands on Pinterest. Furthermore, Pinterest claims that on average, their ads would yield 2x higher return on ad spend for retail brands, with 2.3x more efficient cost per conversion than ads on other social media. With women being the overwhelming majority of users, it is the perfect place for women-focused brands to direct their marketing efforts.
Best targeting feature
Expanded targeting allows you to reach more people by automatically targeting your ad to people searching for similar keywords or interests to those you selected. Just like advertising on other search engines, there’s no better time to engage users who are searching for products similar to yours.
Available ad formats
Try-On Product Pins, Idea Pins, Promoted Pins, Video Pins, Carousel, Collection, Shopping.
Who is it for
Brands offering niche products/services.
Why use it
With over 200 million users, Quora has a user base comparable to Pinterest and Twitter, filled with high-quality and informative audiences. As the platform is saturated with users seeking solutions to particular challenges or questions, you can establish a good reputation and brand leadership by providing answers to these audiences - so long as you don’t become too salesy. Moreover, with a minimum daily budget of $5 required to get started, small businesses can experiment with different strategies to discover what works best.
Best targeting feature
Like Google, Quora’s Contextual Targeting option allows users to reach high-intent users directly via relevant topics, keywords, or questions.
Available ad formats
Image Ads, Text Ads, Promoted Answers.
Who is it for
Businesses that want to leverage Telegram ads to advertise their Telegram channel or groups and expand their community.
Why use it
Telegram is one of the fastest-growing communications channels with a steadily increasing number of monthly active users, reaching 500 million in April 2022. It only recently launched the ads feature in October 2021 and is still undergoing test mode, so it’s relatively new and undiscovered. What makes it appealing for advertisers is that your ads will be displayed through a public channel with more than 1000 subscribers that are relevant to the topic of said channel. This might help you drive more users to your channel or groups and expand your community involvement to engage with new customers and interact with existing customers.
Best targeting feature
You can select languages and topics suitable for your audience and even combine several languages and topics. You can also control the specific channels (including individual channels) and topics you want your ads to show - or not to show, making sure that you maintain relevancy within the context of the channel.
Available ad formats
Sponsored Messages.
WeChat Ads
Who is it for
Large B2C businesses that want to appeal to the masses and get exposure predominantly in China. It is important to note that advertising in WeChat requires a level of Chinese proficiency, so if this is not your forte, you might want to check out agencies that can help you with that.
Why use it
WeChat is the no.1 main messaging app in China with 1,3 billion monthly active users globally in 2022, second only to Whatsapp. Not just used for social networking, you can also use the app to order from a restaurant, go shopping, make payments, send money, and so much more - it is really an all-in-one app. This presents an opportunity for your business to not only advertise to new and existing customers within the channel but also to leverage the store features to immediately drive traffic and purchases. That said, it is the best gateway to the Chinese market, both within and outside China.
Best targeting feature
WeChat does have some targeting options such as demographics, behavior and industry-specific categories. However, it has been reported to be unreliable. As such, it is most suitable for B2C companies that do not have a specific niche and just want to reach a larger mass.
Available ad formats
Moments, Official Accounts (Banner Ads), Mini Program/Games.
Who is it for
Businesses looking to reach niche audiences with specific topics and interests. Though Reddit users are predominantly male, there are many subreddits such as AskWomen and XXFitness that are also primarily targeted toward women.
Why use it
As one of the most prominent forum sites, there are almost all kinds of people, interests, and conversations that anyone can enjoy on Reddit and that you, as a marketer, can tap into. With the ability to upvote or downvote certain posts, Reddit visitors have reported having more trust in companies and products reviewed on the site. Therefore, if you are able to display value-adding content and be authentic, you could tap into the large network of trusted customers and drive purchases. As Reddit users constantly search for fresh content on subreddits or other websites, a little research prior to crafting an ad would allow you to channel quality traffic to your website.
Best targeting feature
Subreddits that are highly relevant to your products/services are a goldmine for lead generation. Each subreddit is made up of users who already possess a high level of interest in the topic related to your products/services.
Available ad formats
Promoted Post, Promoted Video, Promoted Carousel, First View, Takeover
Closing thoughts on the Top 10 Alternatives to Meta Ads
Identifying the right advertising platforms for your business is half the battle won. If you are looking for ways to supercharge your Meta Ads & PPC advertising efforts reach out to us today!