Social media advertising is not only possible for businesses of all types, but it’s encouraged. If you’re interested in getting a campaign started for your organization, here are four basic steps you should think through before you click the launch button.

1. Define Your Audience

Before you start anything else, you need to decide who you’re wanting to advertise to. Not only will this determine your targeting settings when you’re setting up your ad, but it will also help you narrow down which social media platforms you should focus on. For example, if you’re targeting younger users, advertising on Instagram will probably bring better results than the same ads on Facebook would.

2. Determine Your Goals

Ask yourself what the purpose of your ad campaign is. Is it to get more website visits? To sell more products? This will help you determine your content and the advertising options you should choose when building your ad within the social media platform. You should also set more specific goals, whether that’s gaining 500 new followers or just seeing how many more website visits you can get in a week while sticking to your budget. Having goals like these will let you know if you were successful or not.

3. Set Your Budget

Social media ads are usually affordable, but you can quickly spend too much on them if you aren’t careful. Decide on the maximum amount of money you’re willing to spend and make sure that correlates with your goals. Research best practices for each platform to get an idea of how much you’ll need to spend to get the results you want. Set an end cap for the campaign, whether that’s spending a certain amount of money or meeting your target number of engagements.

4. Measure and Adjust

Once you get your ad running, monitor it regularly, and don’t be afraid to cancel it if it isn’t looking like it’s going to meet your goals or is going over budget. Adjust it and then start again. You should also be measuring enough data that you’re able to point to what your money got you at the end of the campaign. This isn’t only valuable for informing your marketing strategy, but it’s likely that your leaders will want to know what their investment is yielding.

Social media advertising can be an affordable and highly effective marketing method. It just takes careful planning and a willingness to adjust and adapt until you get the results you want.