Show Me My Paid Social Media Channel Performance
Paid social ads built & live. Are they working?
Track & measure digital campaigns across paid, owned & earned channels
with our new feature... Paid Social.
We all know the answer to this. Organic reach has gone down the pan, for most of the big networks.
Don’t we all wish for the days when we could post on social, and all our followers would see it? So simple. Now we need to target our audience. Engage. Build customer journeys. Act like humans!
But, it’s not just the social media platforms that have changed. Humans have too. We’re bombarded every day with online content. Our attention span is diminished. We’re blind to brand speak. We scroll and scroll and scroll.
That’s where paid social media advertising has come into its own, as a way more reliable way to increase leads and sales with content.
Wait!
Example of social media advertising - Talkwalker promoted ad
Free crisis management templates.
Don’t jump into SMA without a plan. You’ve got to understand how it works, for each platform. Leap in blindly, and it’ll be your cash going down the pan.
Proven to turn leads into customers, social media adverts have to be part of your content marketing strategy. Tips for social media marketing include...
Paid social media marketing is a form of digital advertising that shares paid ads to your target audience, on social media platforms - Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest…
26% of people who click on Facebook ads, end up buying the product. Way back in 2017, the CMO survey predicted that brands will double their paid social budgets by 2023.
Social media advertising - SMA - is a way to target your audience with relevant content. You can place them on all or specific networks. Targeting with demographics, location, language, interests, age, gender, job role, education, etc.
Ignore targeting, and you’re forcing random content down the throats of random people. You’ll be lucky to get any wins with this kind of strategy. Plus, you’ll waste a ton of money.
Looking to build a social media advertising strategy?
If you'd like to learn more about paid advertising on social media, check out my Extensive Guide to SEO and PPC.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the benefits of paid social media advertising. The obvious benefits of SMA are increasing brand awareness, audience engagement, and driving more conversions.
The reason SMA works so well, is because you can target your audience precisely. Their interests, jobs, location, etc.
And still, there are more benefits…
You don’t have to spend big bucks on your paid social campaigns. Upsell your social ads to segments of your audience. Your buyers. They’re already engaged with your brand. Encourage them to spend more.
No more guesswork!
Place a billboard on the side of the road, and you can’t predict or force who sees it. Traditional advertising limits your control. Going the SMA route means you can play around with your budget, target segments of your audience, optimize your content and imagery, and more.
Social media advertising is changing every day. Improvements to targeting, positioning, costs, and ad layouts. You can use Canvas Ads - renamed Instant Experience - lead generation ads, carousel ads, etc. This flexibility means you can experiment and test, to find what works for your brand and your audience.
Obvs, we’re all looking to boost our conversion rates. Paid ads that explain to users the landing page behind the link, is proven to increase click-through and conversion rates.
Why wouldn’t you give it a go?
To win with SMA, it’s vital that you consider the following elements, when creating your paid social ads…
Determine your campaign strategy
Your SMA strategy will include…
What do you want to achieve with your paid advertising campaign? What are your objectives?
They could include…
You’ll be asked to present your SMA results, so choosing your goals and objectives is important. It means that you’ll be able to measure results and calculate the ROI.
Check out my guide - 20 Social Media Metrics that Matter. Crucial to your business, you'll learn how to track them, and the tools for measuring results.
You’re gonna need a social media analytics tool for this. You have to dig deep into your social media accounts and pull out the data that explains the breakdown of your audience. The demographics. What kind of content they’re engaging with.
Talkwalker Analytics
Social insights revealing audience preferences on Facebook and Twitter.
Create campaigns for each platform, depending on the audience segment you’re trying to reach.
This is your paid ad copy. Your messaging. And your visuals - illustrations, photos, videos, GIFs. You’ll choose these according to the social platform you’re promoting from, and the creatives that each audience favors.
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Includes your social media messaging checklist.
Find your voice and cut through the noise.
For example, Instagram is an image based social platform, so make it pretty. Facebook doesn’t like images with too much text, so keep it short.
Don’t assume that you can use one visual across all your social media accounts. Customize. Test. Optimize.
For this guide, I’ll stick with the biggies - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat. Choose which social platforms, according to your brand, your audience, your campaign. If you sell to teens, jump on Snapchat. If you’re B2B, head on over to LinkedIn.
Once you’ve chosen your platform(s), you can determine the ad formats, campaign budget and messaging to build the best social media advertising strategy.
To determine your paid ad budget, you’ll need to know your goals and objectives. If you’re looking to generate a certain number of leads, you’ll need to find out the cost per lead - CPL - on the specific social platform. For example, let’s say that on LinkedIn, CPL is $20. To generate 40 leads, your ad spend will be $800.
I’m going to talk about the social media platforms that you can use in your SMA strategy. I’ll keep it to the top five, otherwise you’re gonna get awful bored.
TL; DR
In no particular order…
Facebook’s organic reach plummeted - due to algorithm updates - when the platform announced that it would reduce presenting branded content to users. Meaning that the likes of you and me, only see content that’s relevant to us.
Marketers panicked.
But, Facebook triumphs when it comes to ROI for paid social ads. It has the largest user-base of any social media platform, and it’s the most engaged. It also has detailed and easy to use ad targeting. An essential for successful social media advertising.
SMA example - Facebook sponsored ad, with CTA Sign Up button.
Let’s look at Facebook advertising best practices...
Define your target audience
Facebook’s audience targeting lets you choose specific people. Those that are potentially, going to buy your product.
Build your audience
Use parameters that include…
Facebook - Build custom audiences for your paid media promotions.
Custom audience
Remarketing ads target audience members who’ve previously connected with your brand. They could be a former customer, current customer who’s going off the boil, or someone who engaged with your page and/or visited your website.
Lookalike audiences
You have a client base that’s buying your product. You want more of the same. Lookalike audiences are just that. Prospects that are similar to your existing customers.
Go find those lookie likies!
Make your paid ads pretty
With so much content on social media, your ads need to stand out. Or be ignored.
Nothing worse than a scroll-past.
Don’t be boring. Entertain. Make consumers stop in their tracks. Make them think. Laugh. Question. Use written content that resonates, exciting images, intriguing videos.
Globally, videos will make up 80% of all online traffic by 2021. Facebook’s on it, encouraging marketers to get on board. Listen!
Call to action
Your goal is to get as many clicks as possible. You’re gonna need some mighty powerful CTAs…
The Facebook ad types you can choose, include…
Instagram boasts a potential advertising reach of about 1.08 billion.
What are you waiting for?
Instagram jumped on social media advertising when Facebook bought the platform in 2013. Initially for select brands, it’s now open to all businesses.
Managed in Facebook’s Ad Manager, it offers precise targeting, and the ability to create ads for both social media platforms, simultaneously. Add Instagram Shopping to the mix, and increasing conversion rates is a cinch.
Here are some Instagram paid social best practices…
Choose your ad objectives
You should consider targeting consumers across their buyer journey…
The ads types you can choose, include…
Target your audience
You can - as with Facebook - create custom and lookalike audiences. Audience categories include…
Choose your ad format
You can run your Instagram ads in news feeds and the Explore tab. There are currently five formats available, but with the platform evolving every day, look out for more…
Twitter has a potential advertising reach of about 326M.
Big enough for you?
While Twitter works it’s paid ad magic for many brands, you can’t use the spray and pray method. You need a comprehensive social media advertising strategy, to get the big wins and avoid wasting money.
Twitter social media advertising works because, if we choose to - as consumers - we can scroll on past them. They don’t upset the flow of our feeds.
You’d think that was a bad thing, no?
Not at all. Twitter says that 41% of users purchase products after seeing an ad within 30 days.
Twitter ads offer value for money - decide who to target and how much money you’re looking to spend.
Nice ROI.
Twitter promoted ad formats
You’ve got three to choose from…
Social media advertising example of a promoted tweet.
Twitter - Who to follow, for promoted accounts.
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71% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as part of their advertising strategy.
Using the LinkedIn Campaign Manager...
Set your ad objective
Decide what you’re looking to achieve...
Target the right users
LinkedIn is a business social media platform. This means - unlike Twitter, Facebook, Instagram - targeting options are more professional-oriented…
Choose multiple options, to define your targeting more precisely, and exclude audiences that aren’t relevant to your campaign or brand.
Choose your LinkedIn ad format
Your choice of ad will depend on your target audience. Test different types, to see what works. While some LinkedIn users regularly check their inbox, others may simply scroll through their feed. You have several ad formats to choose from, along with placements
Sponsored InMail
Message ads are sent directly to your target’s inbox. Personalized, they perform will when targeting a niche audience, not in your network. Premium users are able to send 5 to 30 InMail per month.
Sponsored content
These look like a regular post, but they include a CTA button - learn more - and feature a promoted label. They appear in users’ news feed, on desktop and mobile. You’ve three types to choose from - a single image, video, carousel.
Social media advertising - Sponsored content, with 'Download' CTA.
Text ads
Pay per click text ads show up on the right side of your screen. They include the user's profile pic - yikes - an image, headline, blurb, and CTA. While they’re less in your face than sponsored content, they still work well.
Social media advertising - LinkedIn paid text ad - Read The Guide CTA.
Dynamic ads
Similar to a text ad, but personalized. They include the user’s name and include a profile photo. You may have seen them in the format of company spotlights, follower ads, job ads, content ads.
If you’re heading over to Snapchat to sell your wares, you know your customer base. The younger generation are all over Snapchat, and if you’re selling products that cater a younger demographic, get your paid ads on Snapchat.
You know your demographic if you’re heading to Snapchat. But what about the basics of creating and scheduling.
Taco Bell doesn’t play favorites when it comes to choosing a social media platform for its ads. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat.
— Taco Bell (@tacobell) May 5, 2016
Snapchat and Twitter, where followers can use AR and become… a taco.
Snapchat objectives
Snapchat - popular amongst Millennials and Gen Z - supports the following ad objectives…
Snapchat ad types
This is a social media platform that’s still evolving, so stay tuned…
Snap Ads
These are the most common, appearing in stories. It’s a snap without attachments - web view, long-form video - that links to your website, and can autofill with user name, email, etc. You can also engage app users, linking to your app page.
Collection ads
Similar to those on Facebook and Instagram. The ad includes four thumbnails, with one link per image.
Filters
Geofilters and Audience Filters - advertising events and location-specific stores - add an overlay of a sticker to an image or video.
Story ads
Story ads are exclusive to Discover feed. You can buy a Discover tile that includes 3 to 10 snaps. Users can swipe up to see more of your content - products, videos, app installs.
Commercials
Six-seconds, non-skippable videos. Appearing in Snapchat’s premium content.
Sponsored Lenses
Facial recognition tech - by request, only - used mostly by larger brands.
It’s a bit pricey.
Here’s how to build the best social media advertising strategy...
What’s the goal of your social media advertising strategy?
Gosh, you’ll waste a heck of a lot of time and money, if you don’t have a plan.
Prioritize your goals. Here’s some inspiration…
Brand visibility
Make your brand more visible online, and you’ll increase brand recognition, loyalty, and conversions. Your reach and impressions will grow, which will lead to boosted brand awareness.
Website traffic
If you’re looking for more eyeballs on your content - blogs posts, landing pages, product pages - you need more traffic to your site. Your traffic goal will increase the number of unique visitors to your site, and the number of pageviews,
Engagement
Measure consumer engagement - likes, shares, comments, retweets - to find out what content is working and what isn’t.
Lead generation
Paid social media advertising is a given for lead gen. Push your gated content, subscriptions, demos, etc.
Sales
Launching a new product? Test types of paid ads on social, to identify consumer interest in your product, and offer promos to increase sales.
Goals sorted. Now you need to decide which social media platform(s) you’ll run your paid ad campaign on.
Ask yourself the following questions…
This is going to need a lot of testing. You’re going to be targeting new consumers, who probably haven’t heard of you before. You need to choose the most relevant target audience, and share content that resonates.
Use targeting to build a custom audience. Filter by interests and user likes. Fine tune by purchasing behavior. You’ll find consumers who are engaging with brands similar to yours, and you’ll find new customers.
Don’t forget to check out the demographics of your targeted audience. Similar to your existing customer base? Your loyal customer base, happy to spend money on your products?
Talkwalker Analytics - audience demographiics.
Save your audience
Great feature on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. You can save your audience, and update your targeting settings.
For example… you’re looking to target marketing experts in the US. Save that audience. After testing, you realize that you need to fine-tune. Filter by industry - marketing experts in the automotive sector - and you’ll have your niche audience.
Save, and hit them with some ads!
What content do you want to push in your ads?
While you want your ads to stand out. Be seen. You don’t want to disrupt users’ social media time. Sneak into consumers’ feeds, pages, on their walls, and timelines, with what looks like organic content. Irritate users, and they’ll turn your ads off. Scroll past in a huff.
Consumers recognize spam. Don’t be a pest.
Try for slow burners. Make them laugh, think, question. So, they might not react immediately, but chances are, they’ll be back.
Suspicious of old-school advertising, consumers are using ad blockers to disappear banners, ads, and pop-ups, with 47% of consumers blocking intrusive ads. Aim for…
Create a funnel for users coming from ads
Prospects arriving via paid ads, need a purchasing funnel to journey through, to buying your products.
Purchasing funnel - for users coming from ads
Your bidding strategy is how your cash will be used to display your paid ads. How you define your bid strategy, depends on the platform you choose, your paid ad, your goals, and your budget. Here’s the basics.
Here are the bidding options that most ad platforms offer…
The success of your paid social media advertising depends on…
Each online advertising platform has its own way of bidding, but if you stick with social media platforms - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter - it’s relatively simple.
Test. Test. Test.
As with any content, it’s essential that you refresh and update. If it’s not working, out of date, boring. Improve it. Whatever you do, don’t leave paid ads live that are flopping.
Such a waste of money.
Here’s some tips on refreshing your ads…
Social media campaigns up and running. Are they working? Our new feature - Paid Social - combines your owned, earned and paid data into a real-time dashboard. Centralizing your reporting, streamlining your KPIs, giving you full visibility of all your digital campaigns. This means you can optimize performance, and deliver a positive ROI on all your social media content, paid or otherwise.
Track in real-time, the performance of your social media ads so you can update any campaign that’s underperforming.
Identify social ads that aren't working, with Paid Social, and repurpose.
It’s not unusual for brands to spend up to 20% of their digital marketing budget on social media advertising. None of us have money to waste, so you want to make the most of what you spend. Our combined social campaign dashboard means you can identify the organic messages that are performing best, for each social channel. Then, repurpose them to create ads for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Paid Social - rework high-performing organic content for paid ads.
YAY! No more spreadsheets.
With all your social data stored in one place - no more collecting from several sources - you’ll save so much time. And, you can receive an automated report at the end of each campaign.
Receive automated campaign reports, so you don't have to chase your PPC manager.
Posted an ad and getting dodgy comments? No one needs that.
Paid Social will find negative comments using sentiment analysis - working in 90+ languages - and notify you, so you can suspend the ad and deal with the comment.
Quickly identify negative comments, with Paid Social, and stop a crisis in its tracks.
Keep these SMA best practices handy, optimize your social media ad campaigns…
Quality Score is how Google rates the quality and relevance of your keywords and PPC ads.
A high quality score means you’ll get a higher ad impression share, for the same budget. But, the cost will be lower per engagement. To improve your Quality Score, you’ll need to increase your post engagement rates.
Check out my guide... understanding the difference between paid vs earned vs owned media, will help you capitalize on social media advertising.
The key to paid social media ads is to be picky. Cast a narrow net and maximize those engagement rates.
How do you increase post engagement rates?
Easy. Share your best content.
Check out tweet activity on Twitter to find the top tweets, and share like crazy…
Twitter Analytics, to find high performing content.
Tweet Activity on Twitter, to find social media advertising content.
Before you lay down the cash for your ad campaign, test with your organic content. If it works there - with a similar target audience - you can feel fairly sure it will work for your paid ads.
Once your paid campaign is live, run A/B tests and tweak content to perfect it.
One of the reasons that paid social media advertising is a winner, is the fact that you can optimize audience targeting so specifically. Where they live. How much they earn. What content they engage with. Where they visit. What they buy…
The more you filter, the better the performance from your ads. Once the results start rolling in, you can look to increase your audience. Remember lookalike audiences?
We scroll and scroll and scroll. And then we scroll some more. Did I see your ad? Did it jump out at me?
Your ad has to hit users between the eyes, so they stumble in their scrolling. Stop and go back. Click the CTA. Experiment with images, colors, video, GIFS, fonts. Write cracking headlines that make them curious to find out more.
Then test.
Even if I don’t scroll past your ad. Even if I see it and read it. There’s no guarantee that I’ll remember it after one viewing. Get in there and reintroduce yourself. I won’t mind, just so long as you’re offering me something that will make my life easier.
Social media advertising is a powerful way to drive engagement and conversions. Every day, ad platforms are developing new ways to target audiences.
With the majority of consumers using social media, brands can tailor content to the platform and the audience. Targeting our preferences, interests, likes, behavior, and more…
What’s not to like?!!
To help you create your social media advertising strategy, download these 8 essential marketing freebies...
Drive marketing initiatives. Maximize brand awareness. Increase your customer base. Rock social media. Nail video marketing. Triumph over your competitors.
Competition is fierce, with brands grappling for a dominant online presence. Marketing and communication professionals need to create digital campaigns that impact. Social media advertising is a proven method, if you've got the cash, the know how, and the time. We've added a new feature to our analytics suite - Paid Social.
Combining paid, owned and earned data into real-time dashboards, gives you the complete picture of how your digital campaigns are performing, so you can do deep analysis, and maximize the ROI of your social media activities.
If you'd like to learn more about how Paid Social will help you rock your digital campaigns, have a chat with one of our social media experts. You won't sorry.