Sustainable Social Media Advertising and Monetisation: Digital Payments, Consumer Behaviour, and ESG Governance

Digital commerce ecosystems increasingly depend on the alignment between social media advertising formats and digital payment systems, yet existing research has examined these mechanisms in isolation, overlooking their combined influence on consumer behaviour, conversion, and long-term value creation. This study addresses that gap by developing an integrative conceptual framework that examines how advertising formats and payment infrastructures jointly shape sustainable digital monetisation within an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework. Methodologically, the study adopts a structured narrative literature review of interdisciplinary peer-reviewed studies and selected high-quality institutional reports, drawn from Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, and Google Scholar, covering publications from 2015 to April 2026. A four-stage PRISMA-adapted selection protocol was applied to ensure transparency, replicability, and analytical rigour across the review process. The findings demonstrate that advertising formats including native advertising, influencer marketing, user-generated content, short-form video, live streaming, and augmented reality drive consumer attention and purchase intention, while payment systems encompassing digital wallets, BNPL services, and in-platform checkout shape transactional trust and friction. Conversion and customer lifetime value emerge as joint outcomes of this interaction, mediated by consumer trust and transaction friction. The study further identifies key sustainability tensions related to digital carbon footprints from data-intensive formats, financial vulnerability associated with frictionless credit tools, and governance concerns surrounding transparency, privacy, and platform power concentration. The study contributes an integrative conceptual model linking advertising formats, payment systems, consumer behaviour, and ESG dimensions within a unified framework, supported by six theoretically grounded hypotheses (H1–H6) to guide future empirical research in sustainable digital commerce.