Have you heard? iOS14 got upgraded again? Topics like how would Apple's new privacy policy affect your advertising have been already talked about in the previous articles, and it's time to talk about some other marketing platforms.

 

1. Instagram ads

 

When you create a campaign with Facebook Ads Manager, it selects both Facebook and Instagram placements by default. But since advertisers can choose to run ads on either one of them, let's still consider Instagram as one of the Facebook alternatives.

 

Instagram has more than 1 billion monthly active users.

 

Just as every other channel, the costs of Instagram ads vary from different niches, targeting options, and ad formats. On average, the CPC, cost per click, can go between $0.70 to $2.00. However, for highly competitive niches or industries, CPC might reach up to $3.

 

Instagram audiences are much younger than Facebook active users, so if age is an important factor in your marketing strategy, then Instagram might be a good choice of alternative to Facebook.

 

What ad formats are available on Instagram?

 

#1 Stories Ads

 

Instagram Stories ads exist within Instagram Stories, which are accessed from the top of your Instagram feed. Like any other ad, Stories ads are clearly labeled. But when done right, they fit so seamlessly into the organic content flow that users might fail to notice they're watching ads.

 

#2 In-feed Photo or Video Ads

 

 In-feed ads tend to be more expensive than Stories ads.

 

#3 Collection Ads

 

Instagram collections enable advertisers to showcase their brands and multiple products in the feed and ensure a seamless post-click experience for your customers. These ads Include a cover video or image and a list of products featured below.

 

#4 Explore Ads

 

These ads will appear when someone clicks on a post from Explore and scrolls down. Explore Ads aren't displayed in the Explore grid or in the topic channels.

 

#5 Carousel Ads.

 

An in-feed ad format that allows combining multiple creative pieces in one ad.

 

2. TikTok ads

 

 

TikTok is no doubt the "it" platform nowadays. Short videos are so good for displaying your product, especially if your product is something functional. And not to mention how many users TikTok has.

 

We did make a video about TikTok before, but to be honest, it is a bit general, thus this month we'll make another one specifically talking about how to do your marketing with TikTok.

 

So if you are interested in this platform, remember to turn on the notification bell and come back on time.

 

3. YouTube Ads

 

 

YouTube is the third largest social media channel, the search volume on Youtube is even higher than most searching engines. So Youtube obviously got an amazing audience for you to explore.

 

On Youtube, there are two major ways to put your ads:

 

#1 Put out video ads

 

Once you create your video and choose your type of ad, you need to set your YouTube Ads campaign. Youtube ads campaign can be optimized basing on country, state, zip code, language, device, gender, age, interests, keywords, or topics, if you want to narrow down your audience, it would be a good choice.

 

#2 Collaborate with influencers

 

Yes, no matter which social platform, you can always choose to work with influencers to promote your business. However, Youtube influencers have an advantage - Youtube videos allow them to explain and demonstrate things in a more detailed way to their audience. Which is a good thing for many product promotions.

 

4. Twitter ads

 

 

Let's talk about a more traditional Facebook alternative - Twitter. People have been saying that Twitter is dead, but the fact is, it still has almost 300 million active users.

 

Given that Twitter is widely used both for personal and business purposes, it allows advertisers to promote a wide variety of products and services, which means your competition of attracting attention might get more fierce on Twitter than some other platforms.

 

However, Twitter ads are known for their amazing targeting feature. With keywords and hashtag-based targeting, you can reach people who have mentioned a specific word or hashtag in the last seven days.

 

As Twitter is one of the very few platforms where hashtags are used as intended – people really track different topical hashtags to discuss topics of their interest, hashtag-based targeting can be extremely effective for specific niches.

 

 

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There are 3 ads formats on Twitter:

 

#1 Promoted tweets

 

Promoted Tweets are similar to Facebook in-feed ads. They look like regular tweets but are marked with the 'Promoted' label in the lower-left corner.

 

Promoted tweets might cost between $0.50 and $2 per action. And these actions include likes, retweets, follows, website visits, etc.

 

#2 Promoted accounts

 

Instead of promoting a single tweet, you might want to promote your brand's entire account. The card will be displayed in users' timelines, search results, and the 'Who to Follow' section.

 

When using this format, you'll need to pay from $2 to $4 per follower.

 

#3 Promoted trends

 

These ads are displayed under the 'Trends for you' section in your timeline and in the Explore tab. This is the most expensive Twitter ad format. It costs about $200,000 per day to serve the ads at the top of the Trends section.

 

5. Quora ads

 

 

Quora is one of the most popular Q&A platforms for the last few years. Quora ads are effective for promoting mid-price products to the US-based audience. The main advantage of Quora ads is low competition, you can win your audience's attention at relatively low costs.

 

Finding niche-specific or brand-related questions by keywords or topics, you can provide detailed answers and showcase your products when it's relevant.

 

Except organic marketing like providing answers, there are also three types of ads format you can choose on Quora:

 

#1 Image ads

 

These are typical ads that include a headline, brief description, image, and a link to your landing page. You can choose to display your image ads below targeted topics, questions, and questions that contain specific keywords or phrases.

 

#2 Text ads

 

Text ads look native on Quora's text-based platform, which allows advertisers to insert brand messages into organic conversations occurring on the platform.

 

#3 Promoted answers

 

This format is a great way to boost the visibility of your answers or someone else's feedback about your brand. These campaigns usually cost less than other ad formats - the CPC for promoted answers will start from $0.1.

 

However, it's also important to understand whether your product or service fits there. Even though there might be a lot of open discussions on the relevant topic, paid campaigns might fail to drive expected results.

 

6. Reddit ads

 

 

Reddit advertising is one of the best options if you don't want to prepare a huge budget for ads. It has more than 430 million active users every month.

 

There are two ad formats available on Reddit:

 

#1 Reddit Promoted Posts

 

These are posts pinned to a given subreddit for a fee. You can promote your own posts as well as anyone else's ones. Mind that users are allowed to upvote or downvote your paid posts.

 

So make sure your posts appear below highly relevant topics and don't evoke negative emotions.

 

#2 Display Ads

 

These ads show up in the sidebar. To launch a display campaign, you'll need to work with a Reddit account manager. And this format is also very expensive, the minimum quarterly spend is $50,000.

 

7. Pinterest ads

 

 

Pinterest works well for eCommerce stores, especially in food, and home interior-related niches.

 

The CPC usually costs from $0.1 to $1.50 for Pinterest advertising.

 

If your offering appeals to Pinterest users' interests, you can expect great results from advertising on this platform. While delivering higher CTRs, Pinterest ads result in lower CPAs than other advertising channels do.

Pinterest has four types of formats:

 

#1 Promoted Pins

 

These are standard Pinterest ads. You can find them among regular pins in the news feed.

 

#2 Buyable Pins

 

 These ads will be shown as Promoted Pins. Instead of linking to a brand website, these pins allow users to buy products without leaving Pinterest.

 

#3 Promoted Video Ads

 

Promoted videos can be displayed in the news feed, search results, and the "more like this" section.

 

#4 App Install Ads

 

Available on iOS and Android devices, these ads also appear within the Pinterest feed, allowing users to download a promoted app directly from Pinterest.

 

Indeed Facebook is still the gigantic social network, but it's not your only option and also not necessarily the best one.

 

Except for the 7 recommendations that are mentioned above, there are still a lot of other platforms, such as Snapchat, Tumblr, Bing, Google ads... you can try as many social media advertising networks as you want to, and find the one that suits you the most!