Part 2: The New Recipe for Social Media Advertising Success
Last month we related social media advertising to chocolate chip cookies (Miss the newsletter? Check out Part 1 here) and discussed why social media advertising – aka paid social – has changed over the years. Since the launch of that newsletter, our world has changed dramatically and now you may be thinking…
My business shouldn’t invest in social media ads during this time!
The fact is, you’re not alone – your competitors are thinking the same thing – which is exactly why now is actually the best time to take advantage of paid social ads. With so many other businesses pulling advertising spend, cost-per-impressions on Facebook ads has dropped significantly, making it more affordable to reach your clients. And, with over 90% of the country at home, your clients are scrolling their feeds now more than ever.
We have real data reflecting these results from our iScreamSocialMedia clients. Take for example our Plastic Surgery client’s Orbera Weight Loss System Facebook campaign, which resulted in 60% more leads in March than in February, and at a lower cost-per-click! Wondering how can we help your business? Reach out today via e-mail GetTheScoop@iScreamSocialMedia.com or call (305) 455-0720.
In this month’s newsletter, we’ll continue the cookie analogies and also review the key ingredients to the new recipe for social media advertising success.
1. Ingredient #1 for Social Media Advertising Success: Retargeting
Social ad retargeting means populating ads throughout social media feeds of consumers based on individuals’ online behavior. For instance, if you have an online store selling socks, you can retarget those people who have visited your website with an enticing offer at a later time. If done properly, this can be a highly effective advertising method.
You can also retarget people who have already viewed another one of your ads or watched one of your social videos. These are considered to be “warm audiences” – because they have already warmed up to your product or service – and are generally a more cost-effective audience to target than others.
2. Ingredient #2 for Social Media Advertising Mastery: Hyper-Personalization
Hyper-personalization is all about taking your personalized consumer interactions from invasive to putting them squarely in the camp of relevant and useful.
Case-in-point: Netflix and Amazon are two brands commonly cited as having mastered hyper-personalization. A full 60% of Netflix’s rentals and 35% of Amazon sales are driven by personalized recommendation algorithms. When did you last find your Netflix or Amazon page or emails annoying? The more you know about your customer base, the easier it becomes to make a connection based on their wants, needs, and behaviors.
So how do you do hyper-personalization and apply it to social ad targeting? Here are the three components you can focus on to sharpen your strategy:
- Social listening to define best practices for personalization on social media
Social media listeningis a well-established, if sometimes under-utilized, technology. It is how you can monitor social media and the web for anything from brand-mentions to hashtags and trending terms that may be of use to you. It is also a great way to zone in on new customers and what matters to them. Quite simply take a few minutes a day or week to scan for hot topics, see what others are doing, and utilize advanced tools to track data-based information on what is trending and gaining traction. - Data Analysis
Diving into your social media analytics and website analytics is critical to discover the proper way to bake social ads to meet audience expectations and desires. You may have used your mother’s recipe to make your first batch of cookies (ads), but through data analysis, you may realize the audience actually favors a pinch more sugar than you have used in the past, or that cookies with nuts are not worth the output based on sales and so on. Basic segmentation is the first step – bucketing people by age, gender, etc. – but it lacks that truly ‘relevant’ edge, which takes us to the next step… - Context
Hyper-personalization in social ad targeting is about making sure your ads go to the right person at the right point in their customer journey. Context is what takes you off the street pushing cookies to anyone and everyone and allows you to set up your strategy in a way that now you only serve cookies to after lunch functions when everyone is in need of a tasty treat. Will you sell $10 gourmet cookies to Wall Street executive in lower quantity or provide inexpensive cookies to the masses through a grocery store? See the difference? Managing appetites is like managing audience interest. Feed your base too much and they will be sick, feed your audience too little or at the wrong time and they may go elsewhere to meet their needs. Try to feed everybody and you’ll run out of batter before you can afford more.
3. Ingredient #3 for Social Media Marketing Success: Lookalike Audiences
Imagine a set of people who are just like your existing clientele in every way except for one: they’re not your existing clientele. That is a lookalike audience.
Facebook allows you to input a user list or pull that data from people who interact with your page and find others who are just like them. You can then advertise to that audience. Lookalike audiences take a lot of the guesswork out of ad targeting, but you should make sure to compare the results from lookalike campaigns with other types of targeting to ensure you are completely aligned at every touchpoint of your strategy.
4. Stir & Bake
We wish there was one consistent recipe for social media advertising, but ultimately it depends on your marketing goals, audience behavior, and data analysis. First, you have to know the purpose of your ads – Drive more sales? Promote an online event? Increase awareness of a new service? Next, you must know your audience in order to target them in their own ideal way. Last, you have to make strategic decisions based on the data available to a relevant and welcoming presence in new feeds.