If you’re interested in paid social media advertising but don’t have a huge marketing budget, you’ll need to choose which platform you advertise on wisely. The wrong decision could cost you a lot of money that could’ve been better spent elsewhere, such as PPC or in-person advertising.
Paid social media advertising should always come after you’ve exhausted other options for organic growth, such as SEO or organic posts. You might get quick results, but not necessarily the ones you were hoping for.
In this article we’ll review two paid social media solutions that can benefit small businesses: TikTok for Business and Reddit Ads.
TikTok for Business
With over 25 million users in the UK and nearly 2 billion users globally, TikTok is an incredible marketing and advertising tool for businesses of all sizes.
Many restaurants, coffee shops and even hobby shops have gone viral on TikTok, leading to huge queues outside their doors. TikTok has many success stories linked to it; but is it a good option for most small businesses?
Pros
Audience reach
The clearest advantage of TikTok for Business is its vast audience. With over 25 million users in the UK across a broad age range, your business could reach a huge number of users in a matter of hours. And, with TikTok Shop, you can funnel users directly to an ecommerce store without them leaving the app.
Drive traffic directly into your TikTok Shop
TikTok for Business has a broad range of campaign types to choose from, including lead generation, and video views, although driving traffic directly into your TikTok Shop is a great way to boost sales.
All campaign types can be easily created in TikTok Ads Manager in the following steps:
- Select the campaign objective
- Set the campaign budget
- Upload your video/photo, ad copy and calls to action (CTA)
- Submit
Smart+ Campaigns is a feature that can build high performing campaigns with machine learning and AI, which avoids fatiguing your audience by refreshing CTAs and format variations.
Unleash your creativity
One of the best aspects of TikTok ads is that it encourages creativity.
TikTok is a vibrant, fun platform and for ads to succeed they should try to match the energy of organic posts. Let your imagination run wild!
Want to advertise on TikTok for Business?
Whether it’s increasing sales, generating leads or boosting engagement, TikTok for Business can help. Campaigns are easy to set up and you can track your performance in Ad Manager.
Right now there are some great offers to boost your first campaign:
- Spend $200 → get an additional $200 ad credit
- Spend $500 → get an additional $500 ad credit
Sign up to TikTok for Business
Cons
Ad-free subscription service
TikTok has recently introduced a subscription service in the UK where users can pay £3.99 a month to not see ads. It’s not clear yet how popular this subscription will prove to be, but it could lower the number of people who see your ads.
Ads easily skipped
Due to the nature of the platform, promoted content on TikTok is quite likely to be skipped. Adverts often need to be disguised as regular videos in order to stand a chance of being watched, and even then you might only have two, at most three seconds before the user loses interest and moves on. This is because users usually go on to TikTok for entertainment rather than for information gathering.
Time-consuming creating adverts
Creating a TikTok advert can also be more time-consuming than you realise. The platform encourages ads to be in video format, which means filming and editing the advert. There are AI software options that can create a TikTok ad for you, although these can take just as long if you don’t get the prompts quite right. Added to that, many users dislike AI ads, finding them disconcerting and cheap.
Reddit Ads
Reddit has surged in popularity since Elon Musk took over Twitter and rebranded the platform X, and in 2026 became the fourth most visited social media platform in the UK (leapfrogging TikTok in the process).
The platform allows users to join various forums (known as subreddits) regulated by volunteer moderators, who remove any posts or comments that contravene the mod rules. The size and scope of these subreddits can vary enormously: r/unitedkingdom has 1.1 million weekly visitors, while more niche communities can have 500 members total.
Pros
Target niche, hard-to-reach audiences
One of the most obvious benefits of Reddit Ads is that you can target audiences through keywords and niche communities of your choosing. This could be hobbyists or a city, and means that your ads can appear in relevant communities and conversations.
Varied ad types
Another advantage is that Reddit has a wide range of advertising options, with some requiring minimum creative input. These include
- Promoted posts
- Display ads (banner)
- Video ads
- Carousel ads
- Text ads – great for impressions
Self-serve or use an account manager
You can either self-serve your Reddit Ads campaigns or you can hand over control to a campaign manager (at a cost).
Setting up a campaign is easy: just create an account, select your campaign type, set your budget and publish.
Sign up to Reddit Ads today
Do you want to target hard-to-reach communities? Sign up to Reddit Ads for free to see how many users you could reach with keyword and community targeting.
Cons
Ad-free subscription
Similar to TikTok, Reddit has an ad-free subscription (Reddit Premium). However, at £6.49/month (or £58.99/year), it is unlikely to significantly impact the number of users that your adverts will reach.
Invasive ads
Unlike TikTok for Business, where most users will simply scroll past an advert they don’t like, on Reddit users will downvote or ‘ratio’ (when a post gets more comments than upvotes because it is a silly question/controversial) an ad if it is poorly designed or repetitive. This can be quite brutal and will need someone on hand to remove any inappropriate comments unless you disable votes and comments.
Ads on Reddit are relatively intrusive, often appearing mid-comments or between posts. Be mindful of how you format your ads and what the campaign objective is. Text ads are great for brand awareness but will result in low clicks.
Risk of going too niche
There can also be issues with targeting the right audience. Go too broad and your ad will likely get a high number of views but likely be placed in front of uninterested audiences. Go too narrow and although your ad will be relevant to a higher proportion of users, it is unlikely to generate a high number of clicks.
Which is better? TikTok for Business or Reddit Ads
Ultimately this will depend on your objectives, your business (including its linked products), your budget and how skilled you are at video editing/graphic design.
If you want to increase your reach, TikTok for Business is the best option because the platform has over 25 million users in the UK. However, TikTok has recently introduced a subscription charge of £3.99 a month for those who don’t want to see ads, which could diminish this number.
If you want to generate more clicks, Reddit Ads is a good way to target niche audiences with relevant ads. With over 100,000 communities, you can select which keywords and forums (subreddits) your ads appear in.
The simplest option is Reddit Ads. While TikTok for Business and Reddit Ads have similar campaign creation tools, static images cannot be the main element of a TikTok advert. This means that you’ll have to create a captivating video, which can take time and effort. Reddit Ads, by contrast, can use static images or even text.
The best option for small businesses is most likely to be TikTok for Business, particularly those in hospitality. This is because ads can reach wide audiences and link directly to an in-app ecommerce shop. That said, Reddit Ads is a good option for small businesses that target niche audiences, such as hobbyists.
Some tips on paid social media
While getting your business on social media is exciting, and can result in thousands, potentially millions of people seeing your brand, the numbers can flatter to deceive. It’s very easy to spend a lot of money on social media ads without seeing great returns.
Here’s some tips to keep in mind:
- Before you create the ad, make sure the landing page is working smoothly. If it is a lead form, double-check that the lead form works before pushing it live.
- Be strict with your spending. It can be tempting to pump more money into a social media campaign after seeing promising numbers. Consider the success of the campaign and explore other options before repeating the same campaign again.
- Don’t expect views to equate to sales immediately. People rarely make a purchase after seeing a brand for the first time; instead, repeated exposure establishes a familiarity for audiences, which in turn makes them trust a brand more easily.
- Track website traffic in conjunction with a social media campaign. Social media apps keep users within the app when they click on a link, which gives a cramped user experience and encourages them to return back to the app. If someone is interested in your business, they may visit the website directly.
- Consider how you will capitalise on success. If you do go viral or generate a lot of leads, make sure you can handle the increased volume of sales. A good CRM can help manage your sales funnel – check out our review of CRMs ideal for small businesses.
Want to know more about advertising?
- Five tips to get your business started with social media advertising
- Free advertising ideas for small businesses
