What it is
Paid social is advertising inside the feeds people scroll for other reasons. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, WhatsApp and whatever else your buyers actually use. Nobody searches for you, so you interrupt and then earn the right to keep their attention. That makes creative the targeting and testing the strategy. For a consumer or local business it is how demand gets built before anyone knows to search for you, and click-to-WhatsApp adverts turn a feed impression straight into a conversation. For B2B in regulated markets it is reach that can be bought against a job title, with every claim checked line by line before it is shown. We build a creative system rather than a pile of adverts. Clear hooks, real proof, formats native to each platform and a testing rhythm that explains why something worked rather than just that it did. Expect learnings within weeks. We do not guarantee a cost per acquisition, because the auction, the offer and the creative all get a vote.
Search is where demand goes to be met. Social is where demand gets created in the first place. That distinction decides everything else about the account, from the creative you need to the way results should be measured. A person scrolling on a sofa on a Tuesday evening has not asked for anything, so the advert gets about a second to earn the next one. This is why social accounts live and die on the quality of their creative and not on how clever the audience targeting was. Targeting decides who sees it. The first line decides whether anyone reads the second line. It also decides whether you are building something or renting attention at a price that rises every year. Both can be right. Only one of them is a strategy, and the difference shows up in month six rather than month one.
We build a creative system rather than a pile of adverts. Hooks that earn attention without tricking anyone, proof that survives a sceptical reader, offers matched to where the buyer is in their thinking and formats native to each platform rather than resized from a brochure. Testing runs in a structure that produces learnings, not just winners, so when something works you know which part of it did the work. Was it the opening frame, the offer, the format or the audience. That answer is what makes the next month cheaper than the last one. Without it, every win is a one-off and every loss gets repeated in a slightly different font six weeks later. We keep a close eye on frequency and fatigue too, because an audience that has seen your advert nine times is not being persuaded by the tenth. Refresh schedules are planned before performance falls rather than after.
The measurement is where most social accounts quietly lie to themselves. Last-click attribution under-credits the feed and always will, so we report the range honestly, run incrementality tests where the budget justifies them and watch brand search as the quiet signal that the feed is doing something. For regulated markets the same discipline applies to the claims. Nothing runs until it has passed review, because a misworded advert in fintech or healthcare is a compliance problem rather than a typing error, and it gets found after the spend rather than before. We also say plainly what we cannot see. Someone who saw your advert on a phone and then searched on a laptop will often be credited to the wrong channel, and pretending otherwise produces confident decisions on bad evidence. Where the numbers disagree, we show the disagreement instead of picking the flattering version.
What we do
Platform and audience strategy
The platforms your buyers use, and the ones they only pretend to use. Audience selection based on how your market actually behaves, from broad prospecting to tight account lists on LinkedIn and conversation-first campaigns on WhatsApp. We recommend where to spend and where not to bother, and we say the second part as plainly as the first.
Creative testing system
Hooks, formats, offers and angles tested in a structure that produces learnings, not just winners. Each test answers a question you can act on afterwards. Static, video and copy produced for the platform rather than resized, and refreshed before fatigue kills performance rather than after the numbers have already fallen away.
Retargeting sequences
Follow-ups that feel like a continuation rather than a chase. Frequency capped, messaging sequenced by what the person actually saw, and exclusions so past customers stop being sold to. The rule is simple. If you would find it annoying to receive, it does not run on anyone else either.
Full-funnel measurement
Attribution that admits what it cannot see. Platform-reported numbers checked against analytics and enquiry data, incrementality tests where the budget justifies the cost of running them, and brand search watched as the quiet signal that the feed is working. Reporting states its limits instead of hiding them in a footnote.
How we work
Audit
Two to three weeks of evidence gathering. Which platforms your buyers actually use, what creative has run before, what the analytics and the platform disagree about and what competitors are doing in the feed. Findings come back in writing before any spend.
Plan
One written strategy. The platforms worth paying for, the audiences, the offers and the creative angles to test first, plus the budget split and the compliance route. You approve it before anything runs. Where creative needs producing, that gets scoped here too.
Build
Creative produced, campaigns structured, audiences built and tracking tested end to end. Compliance review happens before spend in regulated markets, with claims checked line by line. Then the testing rhythm starts, with a set number of live variables at any one time.
Prove
Fortnightly creative reviews and monthly reporting. Cost per result carries the verdict, but creative fatigue, frequency and audience saturation explain it. We report what each test taught us rather than just which advert won, so the next month starts from knowledge.
What it costs
Social budgets usually get spent faster than search ones, because reach is cheap and attention is not. The media budget and the management fee stay separate, and we quote the fee in writing rather than as a percentage that grows whenever you spend more. What moves the fee is the number of platforms, the volume of creative needed and how much testing the plan requires. What moves the media budget is the size of the audience and how hard you want to push into it. Creative production is scoped separately where we make it. If the maths only work with more creative than you can fund, we say so early.
Who it is for
For consumer services and local businesses building demand, ecommerce brands with a product worth showing and B2B teams selling into a defined list of accounts. For regulated markets it is reach with a compliance trail, where LinkedIn targeting is worth paying for and claims are checked line by line before spend. We work with iGaming operators, fintechs, healthcare providers and law firms, and with the gyms, clinics, retailers and trades that live and die by demand in their own postcode.
Two kinds of business come to us: local service businesses and companies in regulated markets. See everything in Be chosen.
Questions we get asked
How much creative do we need?
More than you think, less than you fear. A steady rhythm of tested variations beats one expensive shoot every time, because the account learns from volume and variety rather than from a single perfect advert. Fatigue is a scheduling problem before it is a budget problem, and a creative system fixes it more reliably than a bigger production ever will. Plan for regular new material rather than one big burst and a long silence afterwards.
Can you make the creative?
Yes. Video, static and copy, made for the platform rather than resized from a brochure. We can work with what you already have as well, and we will tell you honestly when an asset you are sitting on is good enough to run. Making something new when something serviceable exists is a waste of your money. A sensible creative system uses what you already have before commissioning anything new, then spends the savings on testing more variations of it.
How much should we spend on paid social?
Enough to produce a readable signal inside a month and not a penny more than the plan justifies. The right number depends on your audience size and what it costs to reach them properly. We set it in the first conversation and never move it without your agreement, because a quietly rising budget is how social accounts become expensive habits. Small budgets can work, but only in narrow audiences where the signal stays readable.
Do you run Instagram and Snapchat ads?
Yes. Instagram is where local service businesses usually win first, because the audience and the format suit what they sell. Snapchat earns its place for the markets that actually live there, younger local audiences and consumer offers, and it is cheap attention when the creative fits. Neither gets budget because a competitor is there. They get it when your buyers are.
Do you run WhatsApp ads?
Yes. Two things get called that. Click-to-WhatsApp adverts on Meta that open a chat instead of a landing page, and Status adverts that run inside WhatsApp itself. Both belong to paid social, and for local service businesses the chat is often the better conversion, because most people would rather message than fill in a form. The same rules apply. Tested creative, honest measurement and consent handled properly.
Paid social vs paid search?
Search meets existing demand and social creates demand that did not exist yesterday. Search converts harder today. Social builds the audience that searches later, which is why the two compound when they run together. If you only have budget for one, the deciding question is whether people already know they need you or whether you have to show them first. Most consumer businesses start with social. Most services start with search.
How long does paid social take to work?
Signals within days, useful learnings within a few weeks and a stable rhythm after that. Anyone promising a profitable account in the first fortnight is either lucky or not measuring carefully. The compounding comes from the testing process rather than from one advert that happened to travel, and the process needs a few cycles before it earns its keep. The first month is tuition. The second month is where it starts paying for itself.
Is paid social advertising worth it for B2B?
On the platforms where your buyers genuinely are. LinkedIn reaches job titles and named companies precisely and costs more per impression than Meta as a result. It earns its keep when a deal is worth thousands rather than a coffee. We will tell you which of those two situations you are in, and if the answer is neither we will say that too. There is no prize for spending budget on a platform your buyers visit once a month.
More Be chosen services
- PPCPaid media managed against profit, not clicks.
- Paid searchGoogle and Bing, built around intent and margin.
- Google ShoppingFeed, structure and bids for ecommerce that has to turn a profit.
- ChatGPT advertisingPlacement inside AI conversations, run as a careful test rather than a promise.
- CROTurning the traffic you already have into more customers.
- Landing pagesPages built for one job, the next click that matters.
Tell us what you need from paid social. We will tell you what we would do about it.