Social media advertising is a form of digital marketing, that dislays paid ads to a target audience, on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (Sprinklr, n.d). A paid social media advertisement can be quickly recognised by the “sponsored” or “promoted” tag near the post (Coleman, 2021). Increasingly companies are using social media ads to grow their business and extend their brand reach to new target markets (Sprinklr, n.d). Social media advertising has a powerful role in digital marketing as it has a bearing on a company’s ability to achieve their overall business goals whether that be increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to the website or lead conversions and sales.
Gerd Altmann (2016), Pixabay [Image]
Targeted Audience
When deciding on which social network to place your ads, its useful to know where your target group are mostly engaged and concentrated. While Facebook and Instagram are highly popular platforms, if the target audience is young, then TikTok and Snapchat may be better suited (Lever Interactive, n.d.).
Building audience segments within the social media marketing platform will ensure that the correct audience is receiving messages that resonate with them. Social Media marketing platforms allow for audience profiling by building target segments based on traits of those you are targeting (Sprinklr, 2021). For example, predetermined characteristics such as keyword use, demographics, sharing habits and interests can be used to expand reach into a highly targeted segment that are more likely to take action and respond to your ad (Facebook, n.d.l). Facebook Ads Manager and LinkedIn Campaigns Manager are examples of advertising platforms that allow for audience targeting metrics to be set up for your ad campaigns.
Raising Brand Awareness
55% of people learn about brands from social media, and with an average of 2.5 hours spend on social media per person per day, companies are eager to have a presence in this space where they can share their stories and keep their brand front of mind (Mohsin, 2022). A sponsored, high-profile position in your target audience’s social media feed, or appearing in the opening of a YouTube video can boost a brands visibility, keeping it uppermost in people’s minds – even if it’s on a subconscious level (Medlicott, 2021).
An example of lifting a brands visibility, is to use Facebook Boost Post to promote high performing posts from a business page. This is an inexpensive way of reaching a wider range of your target audience beyond those that already follow your page (SproutSocial, n.d.)
Drive Traffic
With the number of social media pages and users rapidly expanding it is becoming harder to be noticed in such an over-crowded space. Those users that are active on social media are likely to follow many pages and people, but their timelines will only display a certain amount of posts (Chris, 2021). Social Media advertising can provide newsfeed visibility to this target audience and what’s more, direct traffic to a company’s website, where visitors can be converted into customers.
Build Relationships
Social media offers the opportunity to communicate with followers, obtain their feedback and build connections. User generated content has been shown to be a great vehicle for building relationships in a social media setting (Australian Academy of Digital Marketing, n.d.).
Apples “Shot on iPhone” campaign did just this. Apple asked iphone users to take photos from their phone and then shared them on the brands social media feeds. They hand-picked a few and displayed them on billboards world-wide. These captivating photos and videos went far to convince others of the camera’s quality, especially as they had been taken by every-day users, not professionals (Chen, 2021). An astounding 96% of consumers don’t trust ads, yet 92% trust earned media. Suggesting user generated content is a valuable approach for a more authentic and believable marketing campaign (Carter, 2020).
Sales and Conversions
Social selling is becoming a chief consideration for businesses to boost customer acquisition. Social advertising provides businesses a direct line to a target audience with the products they are likely to be interested in. Various ad formats such as sponsored posts, pay-per-click (PPC), display ads or video can be used to highlight products and services. For instance, Facebook offers advertisers the carousel, where a series of pictures showcase products in a single ad and incorporates a link or CTA to a landing page for lead conversion (Henderson, 2020).
Remarketing social media campaigns are another effective approach for increasing conversions. An example of this would be retargeting visitors that have abandoned their cart through ads in Facebook or Instagram that encourage them to return.
Cross channel marketing such as combining social media advertising with search can extend social reach and conversions. For example, identifying high ranking keywords from Google Ads data and inserting them in the social ad copy, reinforces the campaign and provides an extra conversional push (McCormick, 2023).
Is Measurable
The importance of tracking your social media marketing campaigns through tools like Facebook Ads Manager or Google Analytics makes it highly measurable. At a glance, metrics such as return on ad spend (ROAS), cost per website purchase or cost per lead can be viewed. Advertisers can actively respond, scaling up high-performing campaigns and cutting those that are faltering, bringing even more results (Durante, 2021).
Conclusion
With its ability to harness existing customers and reach new audiences, social media provides amazing possibilities for building brand awareness, traffic, relationships, sales and conversions. Evidence of the effectiveness of social media campaigns can be found in measurable metrics so marketers can set up with confidence, their brand strategy for growth and improvement.
What key objectives can be satisfied with Facebook Advertising?
Facebook askes for campaign objectives to be chosen so the best results can be achieved (Facebook n.d.a.). There are 6 objectives to choose from:
1. Brand Awareness
This objective allows for a brand to be introduced to a new audience and provides an opportunity for a brand to distinguish itself. The awareness ad is shown by Facebook to people who are most likely to remember it. Facebook achieves this by applying Ad Recall Lift that positions your ad into the newsfeeds of users that are most likely to read it and be interested (Evans, 2020). Machine learning is used by Facebook to predict the recall metric based on past user behaviour and their interactions with ads (Facebook, n.d.b)
2. Traffic
The traffic objective aims to direct people to a destination, such as a website, app, messenger, or event page. Facebook accomplishes this by presenting ads to users who are inclined to click based on their willingness to do so in the past.
Once potential customers are at a featured destination, the chance of them learning more about your business and transacting with you, increases (Sheng, 2021).
Consistent messaging within the ad and the landing page will be important to reassure audiences they have ‘landed’ on a relevant page. This will also improve the odds that the ad is approved by Facebook (Evans, 2020).
3. Engagement
The engagement campaign objective focusses on likes, reactions, comments, video views and shares. It concerns itself with building social proof around an ad or a post and driving event sign-ups. Once again, Facebook looks at past behaviour to determine who is most likely to engage with your ads (Moore, 2021).
4. Leads
The objective of lead generation ad is to collect contact information from users, generally in return for an enticing offer, such as an email newsletter or free trial. The ease of an auto fill form within the ad means the user does not have to leave the platform they originally went to, resulting in a smoother UX and heightened lead generation, all in a short amount of time.
A disadvantage to this campaign is that there is little opportunity to share information about the business with the user, which may hinder the lead from becoming a customer (Evans, 2020).
5. Sales
Ads with a sales objective will display specific products from an online storeto those who have exhibited interest in them before. Facebook can recognize this interest through its pixel. The Meta Pixel is a piece of code placed on a website that reveals the actions users perform there; such as add to cart or a page visit and assists to evaluate advertising effectiveness (Facebook, n.d.c).
This type of sales ad requires a product catalogue to be created and integrated with Facebook so relevant items can be shown or retargeted to an already interested audience (Sheng, 2021).
6. App Promotion
This objective helps drive mobile app installs, by showing ads to those who have previously installed an app from an ad, therefore are more likely to do so again. Upon clicking, users are sent directly to the App Store or Google Play where they can download your app (Moore, 2021).
What are the main Facebook advertising formats available?
Photo ads
The photo ad is the most straight forward and commonly used format. Advertisers can bring together high-quality images and compelling copy to convey their offering. Add in a CTA with a link to your website and this ad format can be impactful on website traffic. A photo ad can be created quickly and simply by publishing and boosting a post with an image, directly within your Facebook page (Facebook, n.d.d).
The drawback of a photo ad is that only a single image can be displayed which maybe too restrictive in getting your message across (Stanley, 2022).
Video ads
According to Zuckerberg, users are spending nearly half their time on Facebook watching videos, largely due to Facebook’s personalized algorithms, target certain videos to an audience based on their interests and behaviour’s (Bleu, 2023).
Products, services, or a brand can be showcased through video ads, they are particularly useful for product demos, tutorials and highlighting the product in motion. A CTA can be included to push audiences towards a desired destination such as a website or landing page.
Stories Ads
Stories ads are optimised for a vertically held, full screen mobile (Stanley, 2022). People hold their phone vertically most of the time, so story ads allow for a more comfortable and natural way to view and immerse into videos and imagery (Facebook, n.d.e). They have a convenient swipe up feature, prompting users to go to a landing page.
Messenger
Messenger ads appear in Facebook Messenger chats tab. As this is where people converse with friends and family, it has a less business-like quality than ads seen in a news feed (Stanley, 2022). After tapping on an ad, users will arrive at a detailed view within Messenger containing a call-to-action leading them to a predetermined destination or launch a conversation with your business (Facebook, n.d.f).
Carousel ads
Carousel ads provide more scope for multiple products to be displayed with up to ten images or videos within a single ad that users can browse through. Each image has its own link and can even be set up with its own distinct landing page for consumers to visit. Facebook offers a feature in which the order of the images is optimised based on their performance (Facebook, n.d.g).
Slideshow ads
Facebook slideshow ads use images and sound to generate an ad that is reminiscent of a video but without involving the time and cost involved with producing an actual video. Another benefit of slideshow ads is that they use five times less data than regular videos, ideal for slower connection speeds (Facebook, n.d.h).
Playables
Playable ads offer an interactive preview for a mobile app, so users can get a sense of the app before installing it. Once the short, interactive demo is played, a call to action sends the high intent user straight to the App Store or Google Play Store to download the app (Facebook, n.d.i).
Collection ads
Facebook Collection ads provides an instant storefront allowing users to browse through a catalogue of products tailored to the individual, or in Facebooks words “Suggested For You”. Customers can move seamlessly from discovery to purchase without leaving Facebook. This type of ad is designed with customer acquisition in mind encouraging conversions and sales (Facebook, n.d.k).
How can you target audiences when creating a Facebook advertisement?
How can you target audiences when creating a Facebook advertisement?
Core Audience
Facebook pulls a core audience through rigorous audience profiling, providing categories such as location, demographics, connections, sharing habits, interests and behaviours.
It’s also critical to deliver content that resonates with customers – content that is hyper-relevant and personalized (Sprinklr, 2021).
Custom Audiences
Is an ad targeting approach that searches for an existing customer base across the Meta technologies. Sources such as customer lists, website and app visits are used by Ad Manager to build a custom audience consisting of people who are already acquainted with your business (Facebook, n.d.l).
Businesses can retarget potential customers who have shown an interest in their brand or connect with existing customers.
Lookalike Audiences
Once a solid custom audience is in place, it can be expanded upon by creating a lookalike audience. Advertisers can extend their reach to new users who share similar interests or demographics with the custom audience. If customer lists and Facebook followers are under-developed Facebook can still conjure a look-alike audience via website visits using the tracking pixel located on your website (Kim, 2022).
Explain the key elements that make up a great Facebook advertisement.
Choose an objective that supports your business goal
Facebook offers six objectives that businesses can choose from to achieve their respective goals: Brand Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, Sales and App Promotion
Establish Your Target Audience
Defining the target audience will ensure advertising campaigns are seen by those that are likely to find the content interesting and engaging (Aura Ads, 2023).
Use Placement Optimisation
A Facebook ad placement is anywhere that an ad can be placed such as the Facebook News Feed, Instagram feed, or even in Messenger. By activating all placements Facebook will determine which one is optimally performing and most cost-effective (Mendenhall, 2019).
Mobile-first marketing
With social media becoming a largely mobile-first experience. tactics such as keeping headings and copy concise and utilising slideshow formats are important considerations when creating Facebook ad campaigns (Mendenhall, 2019).
Write a gripping headline
A headline that captures attention will stand out and contribute to lifting click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates (Berry, 2022).
Always include a CTA button
Encourage users to take action with a CTA button to improve click through rate to a desired destination.
Use high quality imagery
Eye catching, high resolution imagery or videos will attract users and should complement your ad copy.
Use less text
Succinct copy with only relevant data will result in a more uncluttered ad in which users will be drawn to the visual, being it an image or a video. Facebook specify Images used in a Facebook ad must not feature more than 20% text (Burducel, 2023).
Boost performing organic posts
When organic posts are commanding impressive engagement without promotion, boosting the post may reach an even wider audience.
Leverage Facebook Remarketing
Facebook allows you to remarket to existing leads, reengaging those who have already interacted with your business in the past. This is especially pertinent considering that retaining customers is 5 to 25 times cheaper than finding new ones (Aura Ads, 2023).
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