If you want to drive traffic and sales immediately, using paid ads is the most efficient way. Today, ads are affordable and measurable. They promise specific targeting as well as a strong presence across multiple channels.
What advertising platforms are suitable for dropshippers? Here are the top 10 paid ads that you should run to advertise your dropshipping store and boost sales.
1. Facebook Ads
Facebook is the world's biggest social media platform. As of January 2022, its monthly active users hit over 2.9 billion.
There are many benefits of advertising on Facebook. You can micro-target your exact audience by setting their gender, age, location, spoken language, interests, education levels, behaviors, job titles, and so on.
It is reported that Facebook ads deliver the highest retail ROAS. Currently, Facebook is at the top of the most popular social media sites for marketing. 
Moreover, Facebook allows you to choose from a variety of objectives, ad types, and ad placements.
Certainly, to run Facebook ads, you should make enough preparation. Here's a video to help you.
2. Google Ads
Google is the most popular search engine. It has over 70% of the search market share. What's more, it captures almost 85% of mobile traffic.
I highly recommend you to run Google Shopping ads. Up till now, Google Merchant Center is integrated with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and PrestaShop, which enables seamless synchronization of product data.
Shopping ads are run automatically. In other words, you don't need to submit a list of keywords and add titles, descriptions, and URLs. You don't need to bid on keywords, either. However, don't forget to set negative keywords regularly to exclude irrelevant searches.
If you are also running a brick-and-mortar store, you may consider promoting local inventory to get store visits.
3. Amazon Ads
Amazon is the biggest online marketplace, which owns the largest piece of pie for e-commerce sales. It has 310 million customers worldwide, and nearly 3,700 new sellers join Amazon every day.
If you dropship on Amazon, you must get familiar with Amazon Ads.
Among all Amazon's ad products, the most popular one is "Sponsored Products." It is an easy and highly effective way to get your product in front of new customers. It's extremely helpful whether you've just launched a new product or need to boost sales of the existing ones.
Notably, "Sponsored Brands" is becoming increasingly popular. The biggest advantage is that there are no competitor listings in sight because Sponsored Brands ads are banner ads that feature your logo, tagline, and thumbnails for a few products. If you do private label dropshipping, this is a great choice.
4. Instagram Ads
Instagram has nearly 1.48 billion active monthly users. Over 60% of its users are young people aged between 18 and 34.
Instagram Live Video delivers the highest ROI, and its use will grow significantly in 2022.
(Source: Hubspot)
It's recommended to use it with Instagram Shops, promoting content that reflects your brand's values, or content centered on your brand's products/services.
If you are selling fashion products, and good at creating amazing visual content, don't hesitate. By the way, you can easily set up Instagram ads through Meta Ads Manager.
5. YouTube Ads
Since YouTube has over 2 billion users and about 1 billion hours of content being watched per day, YouTube ads should be in your marketing mix.
YouTube ads are cost-effective - each view may cost between $0.1 and $0.3 depending on your industry and target keywords. In comparison, the average CPC of search ads is estimated to be between $1 and $2. Moreover, it's proven that video ads have a bigger impact than standard image ads.
6. TikTok Ads
TikTok is currently the most downloaded app in the world, with 1 billion active users.
Of these active users, 47.4% are between the ages of 10 - 29, which includes the likes of Gen Z and younger Millennials. Thanks to interesting video posts on TikTok, it is also the most engaging social media app.
All in all, by leveraging the power of TikTok, brands are reaching younger audiences and going viral.
If you choose to advertise on TikTok, bear this in mind: "Don't Make Ads. Make TikToks!" Be more creative, more authentic, and create content that truly speaks to your audience.
7. Facebook Messenger Ads
As of January 2022, the monthly active users of Facebook Messenger worldwide hit nearly 1 billion.
In today's cutthroat marketing environment, reaching people faster is critical.
It is with Messenger ads that you can reach people on Facebook faster, send personalized messages and benefit from better local targeting options.
In this way, you can easily get many qualified leads in a short time, lower marketing costs and build customer loyalty.
8. Snapchat Ads
You may also consider advertising on another message-based platform - Snapchat. Snapchat is a fast-paced and interactive app. Snapchat has more users than Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
372 million people use Snapchat every day, and it reaches 75% of millennials and Gen Z.
Advertising on Snapchat means less competition and more opportunity. Snapchat has helped many businesses to drive increases in ROI.
Snapchat ads are full-screen, immersive, and engaging. What's more, it's easy to create them. You can launch ads on Snapchat with just $5 a day, which means that you can test, learn and optimize campaigns on a budget.
9. Pinterest Ads
Pinterest helps users to find useful, relevant ideas, and bring them to life.
Every month, 433 million people use Pinterest to find ideas and inspiration for their next purchase. The purchasing power of Pinterest users can't be underestimated. 88% of them buy products they pin. On Pinterest, there are 45% of American people with a household income of over $100K.
By running Pinterest ads, you can pay less per click and get 2 times higher return on ad spend.
It is because Pinterest ads not only allow you to target the right audience using demographic information and specific search terms, but also reach people with the same interests and find Actalike audiences.
10. Twitter Ads
Twitter is among the most popular social media. The number of Twitter users worldwide is expected to hit over 340 million by 2024.
Twitter is also a platform where people discuss trending topics that they feel strongly about. As of 2021, over 50% of users got news regularly from Twitter, followed by Facebook.
Additionally, Twitter's monetizable daily active users hit 229 million as of Q1 2022. 53% of Twitter users are more likely to be the first to buy new products.
All in all, Twitter is the place to to break your latest news. With Twitter ads, you can double down on your efforts and impact.
Wrapping up
It is by learning about these different ads that you can develop a good advertising strategy to attract target audience and boost sales. Unlike SEO, paid ads deliver immediate results, so don’t hesitate to apply paid marketing to advertise your dropshipping store.
