Considering the number of people who use social media daily, coupled with the ability of advertisers to target certain demographic groups, advertising on social media can be very cost-effective, even for smaller pest control companies. For owners who may not have much in their budget for pest control ads placed on more traditional channels, social media helps level the playing field and allows local businesses to shine.

It’s not just generating leads that make social media marketing for pest control companies so effective. Ads can also be used to:

• Promote seasonal specials
• Informa about an event
• Introduce a new product or pest control service
• Encourage people to visit a webpage or read your latest blog
• Promote a coupon or special offer
• Add more users to your email blast list

More than half of businesses use social media for marketing and advertising, and if your exterminator company isn’t doing so, you’re behind at least half of your competition. To put a number on it, 7 million businesses purchase ads on Facebook, and U.S. users click on an average of 8 ads each month!

A social media ad agency can do several things for clients such as pest control companies. An agency can help promote the social media profile and influence of its clients.

Some services can include:

• Creating paid social media advertising, including research into the target customer and their social media habits and preferred platform
• Designing, revising, and testing social media ads
• Managing social media accounts on behalf of clients, including publishing fresh, relevant content, responding to comments, and tracking engagement metric

The purpose of a social media management company is to help buy pest control company owners focus on their clients, without having to engage consistently on social media themselves.

Facebook ad management refers to creating and publishing ads for pest control companies – or any business  – on Facebook. It’s open for anyone to use, working with the Facebook Ad Manager tools, but if you want to get the most out of your advertising budget, and have an understanding of which pest control ads resonate with customers and which don’t, a more strategic, planned approach is necessary.

Facebook ad management involves a deeper understanding of your customers, to develop compelling content that encourages the audience to complete a certain task, whether it’s visiting a certain landing page, filling out a request for a quote, or giving their email address for more information.

Facebook Ads Manager has a “guided creation” process that walks new users through making and posting their ads, plus a “quick creation” for those who have the hang of things and are familiar with Facebook. This tool allows users to:

• Upload an ad, or write creative ad copy
• Preview how the ad will look, both on PC and mobile, and in the Facebook app
• Enter target audience, advertising budget, and creative aspects, plus much more
• Duplicate, pause, and re-launch different ad campaigns
• Check the results of each ad and measure them against your goals

Facebook Ads help center gives users different options for their pest control ads budget, whether a business has just $5 to spend or $500,000. The site will attempt to get as many results as possible for the amount spent, and users can change their budget and parameters at any time. This lets you track the performance of your Facebook pest control ads, and change your strategy depending on your results.

Twitter offers two different types of promotional and advertising, Twitter Ads and Promote Mode. The key difference between the two options is that Twitter ads require users to manage their own ads, individually, while Promote Mode is essentially “hands-off,” an automated system that highlights the business for a flat monthly fee.

Managing Twitter ads involves:

• Set a budget and a launch date for ads
• Determine how to select your audience, including location, the type of device they use, interests, keywords, and other aspects
• Set campaign goals, such as leads, conversions, and website clicks
• Determine the format of your ad, whether you wish a promoted video, a plain text Tweet, a single still image Tweet, or a gif

The Twitter Audience Platform offers users guidance about the Best practices for creating paid tweet advertising for a pest control company and actionable ways businesses can extend the reach of their ad campaigns.

Twitter advertising allows users to set their own budget, and entering this is part of the set-up process for pest control ad set-up. There’s a total budget and a daily maximum, although users don’t have to set a total budget right away. However, it’s good to enter this, since it allows you to monitor how much you’re spending each day and make sure that you don’t go over it. The daily maximum is how much you want to spend each day, and once you reach that amount, then your ads will stop for the day. You’ll also be able to determine the pace of your ads, so you can spread them out throughout the day or spend your limit as quickly as possible. Understanding when your target audience is using Twitter most often can help you plan the schedule for your daily ads. Twitter has more details about its auction format that details.

Pinterest also has options for advertising and allows users to set their own parameters and timetable for ads to run. Business owners can either quickly promote a single pin, in just a couple quick steps, and then the Pin is automatically promoted, or you can have more control over the ads and your budget by using Pinterest’s Ad Manager. When you automate your Pinterest ads, you can choose your targeting, set how long your ad will run, determine your budget, and then publish the ad.

Pinterest Ad Manager features:

• Set the goal for your campaign, like what action you want people to take after viewing it (visit your website, download a coupon, or enter their email address)
• Select targeting options, including keywords, demographics, and interests
• Set the budget and launch date for the ad or ads
• Choose the pin you want to promote and set the tracking parameters

Users have the opportunity to review and edit the ad before launching it, although make sure that you check Pinterest’s guidelines for advertising to ensure that your content is permitted.

Users can determine how much to spend on Pinterest ads and promoted pins by setting a maximum bid for what they’re willing to pay for impressions of their promoted pins. The platform has bid “floors,” the minimum amount that each bidding model has (for example, cost per click, cost per impression, whether it’s a promoted video, and more), but users can define their own “ceiling.” Pinterest has a help center that explains the bidding process and the different kinds of things you can bid on in greater detail.

LinkedIn may not be the most powerful social media platform for every kind of business, but if you provide goods or services for companies, such as pest control, then creating a professional network to promote your business can be very successful. According to LinkedIn’s own research, about 80% of members are decision-makers in their business, and therefore the audience may have over twice the buying power of the average social media audience.

LinkedIn advertising is a little different from other types of platforms. It’s important to take note of the LinkedIn notes about ad relevance and relevance of particular posts.

To create a LinkedIn ad:

• Set your goal, including the action that you want people to take after viewing the ad.
• Choose the format, such as a display ad, pay per click texts, sponsored content, or sponsored InMail messages to targeted customers.
• Set up the LinkedIn Campaign Manager account.
• Define the maxim budget and select either cost per click or cost per impression (per 1,000 impressions). There’s also a cost per send for the InMail option.

LinkedIn also tracks the conversions from people who clicked on your ad, which is very useful for determining the success of a particular campaign.

YouTube offers both video and non-video advertising:

• TrueView ads, one of the easiest and most affordable ways to advertise. These are seen at the beginning of videos and offer viewers an option to skip. You only pay for a TrueView ad if a viewer takes action, such as clicking onto a website, or if the ad is played t the conclusion.
• Non-skippable ads, which play either before a video or in the middle of videos 10 minutes or longer. These are best for a carefully targeted audience.
• Bumper ads, which last just six seconds and are played at the end of videos.
• Overlay ads, banner ads that run along the bottom of a video.
• Display ads, seen above the list of recommended videos.
• Cards & sponsored cards, which are small op-up ads that are less obtrusive, appearing at the corner of a video.

YouTube is second only to Google for the number of users and therefore has a wide audience. However, if you don’t have high-quality videos for your business or a consistent YouTube channel, you may not see as much success from the platform. That being said, YouTube marketing can be a great choice for pest control companies, as you can show the process of extermination, or show local customers common household pests so that they can identify the pests or droppings and other indications of a pest. When using YouTube advertising, make sure to use SEO best practices for pest control social media marketing.

Instagram offers several choices for advertising:

• Video ads up to 1 minute
• Photo ads
• Stories ads, optimized for mobile
• Carousel ads, which allow viewers to swipe multiple photos
• Collections ads, combining videos with product catalogs, and in-app purchasing

All Instagram ads are administered through the Facebook Ads platform.

Instagram ads are priced in the same way Facebook ads are, with bidding for each type of ad set through the Facebook Ad Manager feature.

Smart social media marketers won’t recommend that you advertise on every platform right away, because only some will have real potential to boost your sales. A social media ad strategy should be carefully planned, based on your target audience and where they are on social media; your competition and where it advertises; and your goals for your social media advertising investment.

Measuring success starts with setting quantifiable goals, such as conversions, lead generation, impressions, adding names to an email address, and driving traffic to your website. The success of each campaign is evaluated to see which ads contribute to these goals.

This may be one of the most important questions to ask any provider of social media advertising services. Since all digital marketing—including social media advertising—is based on data, there should never be a time when results information is difficult to obtain.

Agencies should have a process for providing reports on a regular basis (preferably every month). The reports should offer a complete picture of where your budget is going and how well your campaigns are performing. Ask prospective agencies for a sample of the reporting they’ll send you.

There are various ways that agencies will charge you for their services. No one way, such as an all-in-one package or a monthly management fee, is better than another. Just make sure you completely understand exactly how you’ll be billed, and what is and isn’t included in a proposal.

Some agencies may ask you to sign a 12-month contract, but you may want to think twice before signing it. A month-to-month agreement can give you the advantage of being able to move to a new agency or provider if the current one isn’t getting the results you need.

A great agency that gets great results won’t hesitate to share case studies and contact information so that you can get in touch with the agency’s clients. You may want to move on to the next social media advertising company on your list if an agency won’t be transparent about references.