Amid constant adjustments to social media algorithms and search engine rankings. It can feel near impossible to get your content noticed. While organic search is the free and perhaps more comfortable option. The chances of going viral without putting some money on the table are slim. Here's How to Choose the Right Platform and Ads for Your Brand.
Although earned and owned media hold their own marketing value. Paid social advertising is the surest way to bring in traffic and sales from day one. As of 2021 75% of Gen Zers and 48% of millennials are making purchasing decisions influenced by social media ads, and in 2020, social media ad spend in the US was valued at $40.3 billion.
Whether you’re a big or small business owner. Your social media advertising is a must. Especially if you want to stand out from the crowd, gain content views and drive more sales.
Social media advertising, or social media targeting, are served to users on social media platforms.
Social networks utilize user information to serve highly relevant advertisements based on interactions within a specific platform. When the target market aligns with the user demographics of a social platform. Social advertising can provide huge increases in conversions and sales with a lower cost of acquisition.
In this blog post, we will cover all the ins and outs of social media advertising, from managing a campaign to different types of ads, as well as practical examples of how to put them into practice.
Out of the three ways to manage a campaign while Running it manually is going to be your cheapest option — and the simplest. All you have to do is choose an advertising platform and set up your campaign.
Running an ad campaign manually gives you the freedom to invest 100% of your budget into testing out ads and finding the best ones, rather than spending extra money on ad management tools or agency fees.
Plus, taking charge of your own campaigns will inevitably allow you to develop an eye for advertising so that you can learn and improve your campaigns in the future. Instead of letting someone else do the work, you can become an expert yourself and be able to speak the language, even if you do end up hiring outside advertisers down the road.
Of course, becoming an advertising expert takes time and commitment, which means that the more time you invest in advertising the more time you lose in other areas of your business. Especially if you are a business owner, spending hours on end mastering advertising might not be conducive to a busy work schedule.
And just because you invest a lot of time in becoming an advertising expert does not mean that your ads will be successful. Especially if you’re just stepping into the advertising world, it may be a gamble to invest all that time and risk not getting the results you want.
If you’re operating on a tight budget and simply don’t have the means to hire an advertising agency, running your campaigns manually is your best bet — but unless you’re already a seasoned advertiser, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort to learn.
However, if you don’t have the money or the time, there is a second option that might be more suitable.
Considering social media ad spending is expected to reach $153,974 million in 2021, it’s no wonder there are a plethora of third-party tools to help you manage your campaigns.
Sometimes on-site ad managers aren’t the most user-friendly, but third-party tools like AdEspresso or Revealbot can make optimizing Facebook ad campaigns and analyzing results much simpler than using Facebook’s Ad Manager.
Or, you can even use automated tools like Adext, which uses AI to manage the entire campaign. This way you can focus on other areas of your business while the platform does the rest.
With so many tools on the market, you’ll be able to save time, optimize campaigns and ensure that their money is going toward ads that will actually turn into sales.
Although third-party tools are often relatively affordable, they are still an additional cost to consider.
And just like manually running your own ad campaign, automated software still poses the risk of spending the money but not getting the results you want. Plus, since you aren’t controlling the entire campaign process, it might be more difficult to identify where the ads manager is falling short.
For merchants who are working on a tight budget but also don’t have the time to invest in running their own campaigns, using third-party tools is the happy medium.
Creating a successful campaign is definitely achievable with automated software and minimal invested time, and for business owners with limited resources, this is likely the best option. However, for those who have the budget and want the best ad campaign possible, the easiest option is to turn to the professionals.
While this last option is often the most expensive, it’s also the simplest and will likely reap the most benefits. Rather than relying on your own expertise or automated software, hiring a professional is the most reliable option for achieving the results you want.
Of course, the most obvious advantage of hiring an advertising professional is that they know what they’re doing — it’s their job. As a result, the chances of you getting your desired results are much higher.
Plus, hiring a managed service means there’s zero work on your part, so you can invest time and energy into other areas of your business that need more focus.
So, although you’d be paying a fee and ad spend, the hope is that your advertising will turn into consistent sales and keep you net positive.
The one downside to hiring an ad agency is that if you don’t hire a good ad agency, you could end up wasting a lot of money.
Unfortunately, some agencies are only self-proclaimed experts who lure customers into wasting their money, so make sure you do your research and only hire trustworthy professionals.
For those who have the budget to spend and are eager for immediate sales, hiring a managed service is the most ideal solution. And since social media advertising is easily measurable, if your ads aren’t performing up to your standards, then you know exactly who is responsible, and you can always hire a new and better agency.
If your eCommerce business only produces and sells one product, or if you already have an obvious bestseller, you can skip this step.
However, if your business has a larger product catalog, you’ll need to identify which of your products are most valuable and therefore should be central to your advertising efforts.
Ultimately, the customer is not just purchasing the physical product itself, but more importantly, what the product can do for them. In fact, Common Thread Collective identifies three levels of product problems:
Therefore, before trying to sell to your audience, you first have to understand who they are and what they want. But knowing the functional purpose of your product and what your customers actually want isn’t always black and white.
Here are a few tips to help answer these questions.
First, read reviews! Whether positive or negative, customer reviews are valuable insights to what your customers want and how they actually view your product. These reviews can come from your online store, blogs, YouTube videos or Reddit posts.
Take time to read through them — they’ll either provide reassurance that your business is on the right track, or they’ll give you insights about how to shift directions.
Second, utilize Google Trends and keyword searches to help understand how customers are thinking about different products and/or topics.
All you have to do is type in a word or phrase, and the “related queries” section will highlight which regions hold the highest search volume for that term, as well as related topics and queries, which open up avenues that could hold potential for your business.
Lastly, search for related hashtags on your brand’s social networks — this could be a great opportunity to find organic searches for your products.
While the genesis of social media has opened the door to so many new opportunities for digital advertising, you have to face the fact that all social platforms have their own limitations. Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook — all of them.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t still get creative within those limitations. There’s a world of possibilities for social media advertising, but, of course, social platforms are much different from television and magazines, so you’ll need to keep in mind a few limitations.
In a world of endless scrolling and short-form videos, it’s no wonder that Facebook users spend, on average, only 1.7 seconds with a piece of mobile content.
Therefore, marketers have less and less time to capture customers’ attention before they end up scrolling to the next thing. And the way to do this is by rejecting the traditional TV story arc — rising action, climax, falling action — and instead embracing an emerging story arc, which starts with the climax. By doing so, your ads can hook customers from the beginning and seamlessly lead them to a call-to-action.
While there is value in lifestyle product photography and ads, at the end of the day, the goal is to sell a product, so it should be your main focal point. Don’t focus too much on the models, the actors or all the fluff that goes into making ads — instead, focus on capturing the product itself and allowing it to shine on its own.
Considering over 98% of Facebook users access the app via a mobile device, it’s vital that your ads aren’t only made to fit a 16-by-9 TV or desktop screen — they need to be adjusted for mobile use, too.
Not only should your ads physically fit on a mobile screen, but they also need to be designed with the mobile user in mind. This means legible branding, large and clear text, eye-catching graphics, and interactivity whenever possible.
Now that you know your product, audience, and platform, it’s time to start putting the pieces into action.
Not sure where to start? Here are four steps to get you on your way to building a successful digital marketing campaign.
Although it might be an obvious first step, setting clear and reachable goals is a vital foundation for creating a successful campaign. It can be easy to jump into a campaign with lots of vision and ambition, but if you don’t have a focused approach, these ambitions may fall short. Whether it’s brand awareness, more social media followers or a higher SEO ranking, make sure you have a definable goal in mind that can guide you in your decisions throughout the process.
Although we already touched on this, it’s worth saying again: know your audience! The more you understand who your customers are and what they want, the better you’ll be able to refine your advertising to better meet their needs.
This goes along with the previous step, but here is where you’ll go a bit more in depth. A customer persona is a detailed description of your target customer, which highlights their demographics such as age, location, occupation, income and other details that may influence the way they make purchase decisions.
While this might not be the most fun part, assessing your budget is key to determining what your limitations are and how you should be allocating your resources. Luckily, social media marketing is generally less expensive than traditional marketing, so your investments in digital will often give you more bang for your buck.
Return on advertising spend (ROAS) can clue you into whether your ads are working, but they can’t tell you why if they aren’t.
In the end, the goal of social media advertising is to drive traffic and gain more sales. But before a customer hits the “Complete Purchase” button, there are several steps they have to move through to get there — and as a marketer, it’s your job to make sure they do.
Gone are the days of billboards and magazines being the only advertising mediums. As the world of content and digital marketing grows, there is a buffet of advertising options to choose from, each holding its own unique strengths and limitations. Here we’ll highlight some of the most common types of ads and how they can add value to your campaign.
Likely the most familiar type of ad, you’ll often see photo ads strewn across news feeds, sidebars, and banners. They’re a bit simpler to create than other ads like videos and stories, but you’ll need to make sure that your photos are high-quality. For instance, Sprout Social recommends 1080×1080 pixels for Instagram image and carousel ads.
Photo ads are great for building brand awareness since they place your product right in front of the customer. Just make sure that your images are consistent in style with your posts and stories so that users immediately associate the ad with your brand.
And of course, photo ads are effective in bringing traffic to your website. In fact, a Facebook study found that a series of photo-only ads outperformed other ad formats in bringing unique traffic.
Unlike organic posts, photo ads may include a call-to-action button like “Shop Now” or “Download,” which helps create a seamless purchase experience for the customer.
According to Vidyard, over half of all social media users will watch a full video if it is under one minute long, and the longer the video is, the smaller this percentage becomes.
According to a study by Instagram Business, half of the users surveyed said they visited a website to purchase a product or service as a result of viewing it on a Stories ad. And considering Instagram has 1 billion active users, this is a huge opportunity for you to make your brand known.
If you’re advertising on Facebook Stories, a photo can be viewed for six seconds, while a video can play for up to 15 seconds. On the other hand, Instagram Stories ads can be up to 120 seconds long, whether you’re using photos or videos. On both platforms, Stories ads display in full-screen format, allowing your product to be in full focus as long as you have your customer’s attention.
No, social media ads don’t have to only appear in a user’s news feed! Facebook Messenger ads, unlike photo, video, and Story ads, are displayed between conversations in a user’s Chats tab in Messenger. Potential customers can click on the ad to begin an automated conversation through Messenger, or the ad can link them to your website to browse products.
When deciding where to place your ads, keep in mind that each social media site holds its own unique audience — so find out where your ideal customers are and meet them there. If your target audience is in the age range of 60 and up, a social platform like TikTok probably isn’t your best option, but perhaps Facebook is.
And if your brand is already active on social media, find out which platforms are already performing well organically — this might be a good indicator of where you should be targeting your advertising efforts.
As the largest social media platform in the world, it’s safe to say that Facebook is a reliable choice when deciding where to advertise. Facebook is popular among a wide variety of demographics, including gender and age (shown in a report below by Hootsuite), which means there’s a good chance your target audience is engaging with the platform, too.
Aside from allowing Facebook users to connect with one another and share content online, the platform also offers merchants the opportunity to advertise their products and services online. Among a laundry list of benefits, these are a few ways that Facebook ads can help you meet campaign goals:
Plus, Facebook advertising allows merchants to target customers by location (within a 5-mile radius), occupation, interests, past activity and several other valuable data points.
Pricing for Facebook ads varies depending on several factors, including the audience you’re trying to target and the budget you set for your ads. However, as a rule of thumb, the more ad spend, the more efficient Facebook’s algorithm becomes at spending your money and increasing your ad performance over time.
Known for its glossy photos and videos, Instagram is an ideal platform for brands with products that are visually appealing and easily incorporated into visual media.
Plus, with an engagement rate 58% higher than Facebook’s and 2,000% higher than Twitter’s in 2016, Instagram holds a massive user base, although one that’s largely younger than other advertising platforms.
So, if your business and target audience fits both of those characteristics, Instagram advertising might be the best option for you.
Although organic posts and stories can be great ways to boost traffic to your website, Instagram ads can be directly linked to your product page or another landing page, allowing for quick and easy engagement with your products.
As the go-to platform for discovering breaking news and engaging with small- and big-name influencers, Twitter has been one of the most popular social media channels since its launch in 2006.
Twitter advertising offers two options for brands to create ads:
Although a relatively newer player in the social advertising game, TikTok holds huge potential for reaching potential customers, especially younger audiences.
According to eMarketer, many of TikTok’s social commerce capabilities have primarily focused on product ads that appear as native videos on users’ “For You” feeds. The ads are full-screen and appear for nine seconds, just like an organic TikTok post. Under each advertisement, users can tap the “Shop Now” button, which brings them directly to the merchant’s eCommerce site to complete their checkout.
Besides in-feed ads, other ad options on TikTok include Brand Takeovers, which means that your ad will be displayed as soon as a user opens the app, or a Branded Hashtag Challenge, which encourages user-generated content through trending hashtags and fun video challenges, like a popular dance or creative filter.
Like Instagram, Pinterest is a highly visual platform, decorated with whimsical wedding photos, cooking videos and fashion reels. But with that being said, Pinterest is largely geared toward women with a 71% female user base.
Considering Pinterest users intentionally use the platform to find and purchase products, Pinterest is one of the most ideal platforms for social media advertising. Promoted pins easily blend into the Pinterest boards without distracting users like some other platforms do. In fact, 85% of weekly Pinners have made a purchase based on Pins they see from brands.
Especially beneficial for eCommerce retailers, Pinterest has a highly targeted search engine that allows brands to advertise their products by promoting their highest-performing pins.
As the world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn holds a large professional user base and is able to target customers based on job qualifications. Thus, LinkedIn advertising is largely geared toward a corporate audience.
Considering 69% of LinkedIn US users earn $50,000 or more per year, this platform tends to hold the highest average disposable income and high-quality leads in certain industries.
However, unlike most other platforms, which focus on B2C advertising, the nature of LinkedIn makes it better suited to B2B advertising campaigns. So, service businesses and B2B product businesses tend to get better results on LinkedIn than other platforms.
There are four types of LinkedIn ads:
After you’ve determined your social platform and the types of ads you want to display. Then, It’s time to put your advertising wheels in motion. To help get you started? Here are five social media hacks to get more eyes on your content and start turning viewers into customers.
Targeting an audience means to zone in on a select demographic, whether it be age, gender, occupation, or interest — but you can’t target everyone using the same tactic.
Using keyword search, surveying and interviewing customers and creating clear customer personas, you’ll get a better picture of who your customer is, and therefore you’ll be able to target them more accurately.
Not only should you be targeting new and potential customers, but also make sure to retarget existing customers. This will help remind customers of your brand even if they’ve already made a purchase, and it’s much more cost-effective than advertising to potential customers.
This may go without saying, but a key aspect of social media advertising is upping your social media strategy. Promoting and repurposing your organic content across social media channels will help you to tell your brand story and make it stand out.
Using remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA), you can tailor your PPC search ads based on whether a customer has previously visited your online store as well as which pages they viewed. This way you can target users who are already familiar with your business.
However, you can take this up a notch by combining paid search with social ads to target both those who know and don’t know your brand.
By first targeting with social ads, you can build brand awareness and help customers become more familiar with your products. Then, when they see your PPC ads later on, they’ll feel more comfortable and inclined to click on your website.
Quality score is a ranking metric that search engines use to indicate the quality of your keywords and PPC ads, and therefore it’s a key aspect of social media advertising. The higher your quality score, the higher your ad will rank and the more impressions it will get at a lower cost per engagement.
By posting organically to social advertising platforms and tracking engagement with each ad, you’ll be able to pinpoint which paid ads are top-performing — these are the ones you want to promote.
One of the key ways to bring traffic to your website and consequently drive sales is by optimizing your ad content. Among other ranking factors like keywords, page speed and mobile-friendliness, one potential SEO factor is user engagement. These metrics include click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, and conversion rate, among others.
However, even if user engagement isn’t a core ranking factor for search engines. High CTRs and conversion rates will still achieve better organic search rankings and more conversions.
If all of this sounds like a lot of work, and you don’t know where to begin. Hire KLB Solutions’s team of professional marketers to get your project off the ground. We conduct competitor research, help you identify your audience, and get your ads running. We take the time to connect conversion tracking to ensure that you get the most out of your ads budget.
Hire our team for your next advertising project.
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