Not sure if it’s the right time to hire a paid social expert? There are several telltale signs that you need to get your social media advertising up to speed.

First, if you are relying primarily on word of mouth, and that word of mouth is slowing down — it’s time. Word of mouth game-changing number of new customers when you’re starting out, but after a while, your growth will start to plateau. As your company scales up its operations, its marketing efforts and customer acquisition efforts need to follow suit.

Second, if you’re spending more than 20% of your paid social media budget on retargeting or remarketing –– it’s time to level up. There’s no shortage of advertising “rules,” and most of them merit those air quotes. But one rule of thumb in paid social seems to really hold water: the 80/20 rule. Maybe it’s worth departing from it sometimes, but if your paid social lead ignores it completely, it’s time to hire someone who won’t.


Third, if you aren’t regularly testing your ads — yikes! Social media advertising may seem like a field for creatives, but it also takes quantitative skills. Frequent A/B testing, a form of user testing where two variations of the same ad are shown to similar audiences to see which version converts better, is a big part of the paid social job description, and an ideal candidate will have a vision for testing and analysis. This lets them fine-tune your paid ads for your audience, iterating towards the most effective designs, fonts and call-to-action phrasing.