How to achieve social advertising success: a step-by-step guide
Social media is the top activity after checking email for multi-tasking audiences as people react to the big screen and share the experience. Think about your own behaviour as you watch live sports, a big premiere or an awards show. When something interesting happens, where’s the first place you turn? Your phone, right? And what app do you pull up? Facebook? Twitter? You want to tell others what you just saw or see what others are saying. What about when you see an interesting brand or product and inspiration strikes? Perhaps Pinterest? Or something that makes you think about work? LinkedIn? Or maybe you just want to kill time during an ad break. Instagram? Snapchat?
How to achieve social advertising success: a step-by-step guide
With this in mind, brands and agencies need to be able to harness the power of social by delivering successful ad campaigns across connected devices, which can be easily achieved in five simple steps.
1. Address the right audience
Contrary to traditional segments like TV or display, social is characterised by good native targeting options such as likes and interests. However, auction-based marketplaces mean that bidding can be fierce: many brands are targeting the same people, which increases the value of auctions, and in turn reduces the return on investment of each bid.
Independent targeting solutions can help brands and agencies find untapped and under-priced inventory, which can be achieved by building on affinities. Few brands, for instance, know that Bruno Mars’ fans have also been found to engage highly with L’Oreal Paris. Being able to identify these ‘fringe audiences’ provides a much bigger pool of consumers, enabling brands to become more granular with their targeting.
2. Act now
Once brands have established the audience they intend to target, there is then opportunity for them to ‘seize the moment’ by delivering content at the right time to the right device. This can be achieved by leveraging a number of real-time triggers to maximise reach and engagement. Think live sport or even a change in weather: Usain Bolt generated nearly 403K tweets during the Rio 2016 Olympics when he flashed a grin at his competitors in the men’s 100-meter dash as he stormed past them to take the gold medal. A toothpaste brand could have capitalised on this moment by delivering a well-timed ad to encourage consumers to think about getting a pearly white smile like Bolt’s without invoking marketing penalties.
3. Automate your processes
To synchronize their messages with milestone events, brands first need to identify current hot topics and then establish which ones are relevant enough to concurrently deliver the respective complementary message. This can be achieved with automated software that can identify this before an ad appears on consumers’ newsfeeds. Of course, a degree of caution should be exercised before social splurging. In the event of natural disasters like heavy flooding or a hurricane, for example, apparel companies should think carefully before drawing attention to their products – as American Apparel learned in 2012. However, in less severe circumstances, the delivery of ads by sunglasses brands could be welcomed in a heat wave.
4. Activate the auctions
Auctions can deliver high efficiency, but the results will only be as good as the data the auction bidding process is based upon. To avoid overpaying, marketers should have rules-based bidding technology in place to deliver key metrics and ensure all ad buying falls within the proper constraints. This will enable reaching the right audience at the right price.
5. Analyse your results
At the conclusion of a campaign, it is crucial that brands properly take the time to analyse the results in order to identify successes, missed opportunities or areas of weakness, and consolidate them to ensure better results can be achieved the next time around. Cross-screen and cross-publisher tools provide the insights required to effectively analyse campaign results and help brands adjust their cross-channel strategies, tactics and budgets accordingly.
Targeted social media ad spend is unquestionably growing in importance, and brands have a responsibility to harness the power of digital by employing the right strategies and tools to reach their intended audience with the right message at the right time and on the right device.
Kirsty Brice, Director marketing, EMEA, 4C.
Tel: +44 7795 254381
Email: kirsty.brice@4cinsights.com
Web: 4cinsights.com
Twitter: @kjwyllie