Social Media Advertising in the UK: Tips and Tricks

Social media advertising in the UK is an essential part of a brand’s overall marketing strategy. With over 57 million active social media users in the UK — about 84% of the population — the potential to reach consumers on social media is huge. 

Social media advertising platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram and even professional platforms like LinkedIn offer unique opportunities to reach specific audiences. Facebook has over 44 million UK users, while Meta’s other social platform, Instagram boasts 31 million users from the United Kingdom. X offers a slightly smaller user base with 17 million UK users, while LinkedIn is home to over 30 million UK professionals. With this massive userbase, organizations have a prime opportunity to target specific groups of audiences who resonate with their products most. 

This blog explores:

• Social media advertising benefits.
• Social media advertising disadvantages.
• How brands advertise on social.

Curious about the numbers behind UK social ads? Here are some interesting and important stats to consider. 

• Mobile Spending: In 2025, spending on mobile ads is set to outpace spending on desktop advertising, with approximately £88.42 spent on each mobile user compared to £35.56 for each desktop user.
• Facebook Reigns: Facebook continues to have the most advertising reach of any platform in the UK, with 33.6 million UK users, followed by Instagram (28.6 million) and TikTok (20.8 million).
• Retail Media Becomes More Popular: Retail media advertising opportunity remains the largest in the UK, with 5.27 billion dedicated to retail ad spend in 2025, compared to 4.03 billion in 2024.
• Financial Industry Growth: In the UK, the finance industry is set to have the most ad spend in 2025, with 2.55 billion dedicated to ad spending. 

Social media advertising for the retail industry is set to increase the most in the UK, with UK marketers set to spend $7.91 billion dollars by 2027 compared to $2.7 billion in France and $4.68 billion in Germany. This means UK social teams risk losing brand awareness and potential customers by not advertising in the same areas as competitors. 

In addition to this, areas like TikTok ad campaigns are set to become a bigger focus for marketers, with UK users spending the most time (58 minutes) on the platform. Gen Z in particular is most active on TikTok, however, TikTok use is increasing among all generations. What’s more, UK marketers are projected to spend twice as much on TikTok ads than they are on Twitter and Snapchat combined. Here are some other benefits of advertising on TikTok and beyond.

Boost Brand Awareness 

While organic awareness is a great perk of social media, paid ads can significantly boost brand awareness. In the UK market, consumers are often faced with a huge amount of content, and cutting through social media noise with paid ads can help get your content in front of not just more people, but the right people. Paid social ads are scalable for even small social teams and help increase visibility to specific groups of users beyond your existing following base. This can result in more followers, a boost in engagement and more.   

Increase Leads and Conversion Rates

Social ads let you pinpoint your content’s intent — for example, you might share an organic post in your Instagram feed about a new product with a call-to-action for users to click your LikeShop link-in-bio. However, not all followers or users who see your content on the Explore page will be ready to convert or make a purchase. With social ads, you can often choose your ad’s objective, whether it’s traffic, views, app promotion, product sales, leads, website conversions (downloads, specific page visits) and more. This is a great way to sell on Instagram and other social media platforms, complement your organic content and hyper-target specific demographics. 

Hyper-Focused Targeting 

Like we touched on above, social media ads in the UK empower teams to target specific users to make sure campaigns reach the right users. With advanced targeting available in ad suites on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, brands can narrow down their audience based on things like location, age, interests and behaviors. This precision means you can take matters into your own hands — aka handpick who sees your content, to ensure you’re using your social media marketing budget efficiently.

Social media advertising offers many benefits, however, it has its challenges and limitations. UK Social teams should be aware of potential downsides to gain a holistic picture of how social ads will impact their broader marketing efforts — here are some potential challenges associated with social media ads.  

Time-Consuming 

Planning and creating your social media ads can be a time-consuming process. While planning any portion of your social media strategy takes time, planning social ads requires budgeting, goal setting, copywriting, design and ROI projections. Often, this is a multi-step process requiring one or more team stakeholders and careful planning and execution. 

Difficulties Managing Reputation 

The public nature of social media ads can mean your brand is subject to a new audience and possibly more scrutiny. Missteps in messaging, imagery or even demographic targeting can lead to negative feedback which can escalate and damage your brand’s image. Despite narrow ad targeting available, crafting a universally positive message can prove difficult, and you can’t guarantee everything within this group will respond well to your efforts. Negative reactions can spread rapidly (which is one reason many advertisers prefer to disable comments). In addition to reputation concerns, brands must also be sure to balance promotional content with content that engages users organically — misleading ads can chip away at trust and alienate existing or potential customers. 

Privacy and Data Concerns 

While social platforms are typically transparent when it comes to rules regarding privacy ads, it’s up to the social team to ensure their ads comply with the region they’re based in and the region they’re promoting to. 

In the England and Wales, the Competition and Markets Authority (CAMS) monitors online practices to ensure brands remind transparent with consumers. Brands must clearly identify any paid content clearly in the caption, usually with a hashtag reading ‘#ad’ or ‘#sponsored’. This includes any influencer or creator who is paid to promote a product, not just boosted or promoted posts. In addition to not disclosing whether a post is sponsored or not, brands must also be careful to not share misleading ads, which can lead to legal action in severe cases. What’s more, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has strict standards regarding how people’s data is used. This means brands must ask user’s for their consent to use data for marketing purposes, like email lists, for example, and they must make it easy for user’s to opt out. Failing to do this can result in legal repercussions and reputational damage. 

Potential for Low ROI 

Social ads can have potential for a low ROI for a few factors. These factors include poor targeting, ineffective creative or ineffective budget allocation. If brands don’t target the right users, they’re unlikely to convert — or, if they do take a specific action, like visiting your website, they’re unlikely to return or make a purchase.

So, how do popular UK brands utilize ads across their social media platforms? We examine fashion, luxury, and retail brands to examine how they advertise on social media.

Public Desire (@publicdesire)

Public Desire uses ads to drive brand awareness and engage with a fashion-forward audience. These ads are strategically targeted based on user demographics, interests and behaviors to ensure they reach the right style-conscious consumers who are more likely to be interested in their products. They also use influencer partnerships and UGC in their ads to boost their authenticity. 

Oh Polly (@ohpolly)

Fashion and retail brand, Oh Polly, uses social ads to reach their audience with eye-catching imagery and trendy fashion collections. They use platforms like Instagram and TikTok to share high-quality ads that highlight the latest styles, promote seasonal launches and more. They also target their ads based on detailed demographic data, interests and user behaviors (like intent to shop) to ensure they reach the right audience. They often promote UGC from influencers and real customers, to direct traffic to their website and boost online sales. 

Mulberry (@mulberryengland) 

Mulberry takes a more hi-fi, glossy approach to social media ads to showcase their luxury leather goods and accessories to reach their audience. Mulberry shares ads on platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest that both showcase the product while highlighting the craftsmanship and quality of their products. These ads often feature high-quality images and videos of their iconic bags and accessories in stylish, aspirational settings. Similar to other brands, Mulberry targets users based on demographics, interests and purchasing behaviors to ensure they use their ad spend effectively and reach the right people.

Brands can use Dash Hudson’s Social Analytics and Monitoring to gain detailed insights into their ad metrics through a comprehensive, user-friendly interface with real-time data on KPIs like link clicks, return on ad spend, engagement rate and proprietary metrics like Effectiveness Rate that help brands drill down to precisely how impactful their content is. Social teams can measure influencer and creator ROI, and also source creator UGC to discover potential influencer partnerships for future ad campaigns. With Dashboards, brands can also customize reports for ads and specific campaigns, to dig into their earned and owned ROI to measure ad performance.

Why is social media advertising effective? 

Social media advertising is effective in the UK because it enables brands to reach a highly targeted audience. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer advanced targeting options based on demographics, interests and behaviors, ensuring ads are seen by relevant users. This increases engagement and conversions. Social media ads blend seamlessly into users' feeds, making them more engaging and less intrusive. Additionally, real-time performance tracking allows brands to optimize their campaigns for maximum impact.

How much does it cost to advertise on social media in the UK? 

The cost of advertising on social media in the UK varies based on factors like the platform, target audience, ad format and campaign objectives. Most platforms, like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, use a bidding system where advertisers set a budget and bid for ad placements. Costs can range from a few pence to several pounds per click or impression. For example, Facebook ads might cost between £0.30 to £1.50 per click, while LinkedIn ads can be more expensive, often ranging from £3.00 to £7.00 per click. Brands can manage their spending by setting daily or campaign budgets to ensure they stay within their financial limits while achieving their advertising goals.