Is Your Paid Social Strategy Working For You?

When it comes to paid social strategy, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

While best practices exist, and we apply them to all our eCommerce clients, your strategy should be customised to:

• The vertical you operate in
• Your mission statement and USPs
• Your customer profile
• Your measures of success

In this guide, we’ll explore how to adapt your paid social advertising based on brand size, then share industry-specific examples to help you build a strategy that drives both growth and profitability.

Understand Your Brand Size

1. Paid social strategy for small brands

If you’re new to paid social advertising or working with a smaller budget, patience is essential.

Quick wins are possible, but sustainable results come from consistent testing, learning, and refining. We start by implementing creative best practices, but it takes time to discover which USPs truly connect with your audience.

For lesser-known brands, building awareness often matters more than chasing immediate ROAS. Paid social needs enough budget to scale — even if early ROAS looks low.

Small brand best practices:

• Focus on qualified traffic to measure performance accurately (although Meta is becoming search-focused as a response to zero-click search).
• Prioritise new customer acquisition for long-term growth
• Accept that directly attributable ROAS may not be obvious and it may take some time to establish.
  

2. Paid social strategy for large brands

Established brands often fall into the “ROAS trap”, over-optimising for GA4 last-click ROAS and letting dynamic product ads (DPAs) take over.

While DPAs drive sales, they shouldn’t dominate the budget at the expense of upper-funnel campaigns. Even the world’s biggest brands, think Nike or Amazon, invest heavily in brand building. Without it, you risk losing ground to competitors and emerging disruptors.

Large brand best practices:

• Ring-fence budget for brand-led creative.
• Test upper-funnel objectives like reach or video views.
• Use third-party attribution (e.g. Fospha) to measure beyond last click.
• Retarget existing customers to aid retention and cross-sell (but do this strategically).
  

Industry-Specific Paid Social Strategies

1. Luxury brands

For high-price products, paid social advertising works best as a brand storytelling tool rather than a direct sales driver.

Recommendations:

• Allocate a higher share of your total digital budget (e.g. more Paid Social than PPC heavy).
• Drive qualified traffic rather than expecting instant conversions.
  
• Consider Pinterest early, especially for jewellery, homeware, or high-end fashion.
  

2. Multi-brand resellers

When customers know exactly what they want, Google Shopping often takes priority. However, paid social can still build brand preference and differentiate you from competitors.

Recommendations:

• Focus paid social spend on core categories and key brands
  
• Promote value-adds like loyalty schemes or exclusive drops
• Build awareness so customers choose you first, even in a competitive market
  

3. Women’s fashion and jewellery

In these sectors, Instagram-first strategies dominate. While Meta’s AI-driven targeting is powerful, brand perception plays a big role in purchase decisions.

Recommendations:

• Prioritise Instagram for awareness campaigns
  
• For men’s fashion, expect spend to shift more spend to Facebook for better conversion rates, and ensure dynamic ads have a higher % of your account share.
  

Non-Negotiables for Every Paid Social Strategy

No matter your brand size or vertical:

• Use a full-funnel approach
• Base decisions on clear audience insights
• Consistently showcase your most compelling USPs

Final Thoughts

At Genie Goals, we’ve helped brands of all sizes create paid social strategies that deliver short-term wins while building long-term growth.

If you’re ready to elevate your Meta ads strategy or reimagine your digital advertising approach, get in touch - we’d love to help.