Posted In: Digital by
Fran Haigh,
July 7, 2025
By Fran Haigh, Paid Social Account Manager
When it comes to paid social, many marketers fall into the trap of focusing solely on conversions. The conversation often revolves around ROAS, conversion rates, and CPAs — and while those metrics matter, they only tell part of the story of how the user came to complete the purchase. The real beauty of paid social is its versatility: when used strategically, it can influence every stage of the customer journey, from first impression to final purchase.
Today’s blog is going to focus solely on the ‘Discovery Process’ within the customer cycle – a time when consumers enter the home & garden market (often when something breaks or needs renovating) and begin an extensive research phase where individuals actively seek out inspiration, ideas and information on trusted brands to help inform their decision.
In our recent research report, Changing Rooms Changing Minds, we discovered that while online search dominates product discovery, social media plays a vital role in inspiring younger consumers in the home & garden market. Social platforms like TikTok and Instagram are no longer places for people to spy on their old classmates or find the latest TikTok trend; they are now marketplaces of ideas, aesthetics trends and inspiration for their next home renovation.
So, how do you optimise your paid social campaigns for discovery, not just conversion?
When it comes to creative and messaging, it is essential to note that the tone and content you want to convey to these people are entirely different from the messaging you are portraying at the conversion stage. These people have either never heard of your brand/product or are still at the discovery research stage, so throwing in hard sales techniques is going to push them away which results in money being wasted.
In our report, we found that social trust matters to audiences, with 20% of consumers relying on word-of-mouth recommendations from family, friends or peers for product discovery. This is where low-fi and UGC content comes into its glory. Young consumers are more likely to engage with brands that feel real, accessible and recommended by somebody they can relate to. This is why low-fi content or creator/influencer partnerships can push your paid campaigns further than a traditional carousel or static image. Whether it is an unboxing, product demo or lifestyle shoot this content taps into peer validation and trust. Although, as we are moving into a new era of paid social, where creatives have become the new targeting, it’s important to not solely run UGC content, you need to create a creative eco-system that is full of different formats and styles – you could even blend two formats for example enhanced UGC where it uses the style of UGC but edit these to become more formal.
When it comes to messaging, you will need to know what your audience(s) barriers and motivations are, so you can tailor your messaging to their wants and needs. It is also important to note that you may have multiple audience personas who will have very different pain points, so it is important you are able to tailor your creatives to each one.
When it comes to messaging, you need to understand your audience’s barriers and motivations in order to speak directly to what matters most to them. Don’t forget, if you have multiple audience personas, they most likely will have different needs and pain points so it’s key to tailor your creative to each one accordingly. One-size-fits-all creative no longer works on paid social – young consumers are expecting creative that feels personal and relevant.
Not to sound like a broken record, but your targeting and campaign structure will look very different to your conversion campaign. For starters, you want to avoid optimising your campaign towards conversion, you can optimise your campaigns towards traffic, brand awareness and engagements (all dependent on budgets, goals and content).
When it comes to targeting the key is to keep it broad but intentional. Building super niche and overly restricted audiences is so 2020. To get the best results in 2025 (and beyond) you need to give the algorithm room to learn and optimise, and that starts with a broad audience targeting. Sure you can pop a few interests in there to ensure it’s heading in the right direction but it’s important to keep it nice and broad. The beauty of paid social platforms like Meta is it has an extensive amount of data and learnings so it knows exactly who to target for your audience, it is all about trusting the system. The next ingredient to your secret sauce is first-party data – this is what is going to fuel your paid social campaigns and your algorithm. Feeding the account with data-rich audiences like email or customer lists (and turning them into lookalikes) will mean that you are building smarter audiences that actually reflect your real customer base and allow machine learning to work harder for you. The better quality data you feed it, the more you will get out of your campaigns.
To conclude, to get the most out of paid social, it is important to move away from viewing it as solely a conversion tool, and recognise its power to catch audiences at the different points of the customer journey. Trust is the most important factor in the discovery phase, you need to focus on building trust and brand reputation with your audiences, rather than pushing for sales from them.
Want to read more of our learnings from Changing Room Changing Minds? You can read more here
Privacy Policy
