How effective is social media advertising?

Did you know that there are more than 2.38 billion active users per month on Facebook are? Or that there are more than 500 million daily Instagram-users are? And did you know that 74% of global marketers are already investing in social media marketing, including social advertising? Not to mention 70% of companies say they generate leads on social media and 58% of marketers say social media has helped them drive sales.

These are just a few of the many statistics related to social media advertising that prove its impact and importance. Just like the statistics that support the effectiveness and impressive reach of social media advertising, this marketing tactic allows you to nurture your leads in real time. Allowing you to interact with your followers and audience and build and maintain relationships with them directly on the platform.

The icing on the cake? Social media advertising is more cost effective than traditional advertising. With social media ads you can easily set a budget and add or remove this amount within the social platform you use.

Getting started optimally with social media ads?

1. Think about your budget.

One of the most daunting things about social media ads is determining your budget. That's because there are so many unique and flexible options on every social platform for your ads and campaigns. To help you plan your budget, you need to align your marketing goals with your social media advertising strategy. Consider the amount of money you feel comfortable withdrawing from the larger marketing strategy to approach your social ads.

2. Choose what type of social media ad you will run.

The landscape of paid social advertising is constantly changing; new technologies, channels, formats and trends emerge every day. That means there is no one-size-fits-all answer to which social channels you should advertise on. That's why testing different channels is the best way to determine what works best for your business and your audience.

Here are some of the most popular social media platforms you can advertise on and which audiences might be interesting for your business.

Facebook:
About 69% of adults use Facebook - although 25-34 year olds are the largest number of users on the platform, Facebook still has the largest age range of active users of another platform. This includes teenagers and seniors - in fact, 62% of online seniors, aged 65+, are on Facebook.

So Facebook ads offer many extensive options in audience targeting, which makes it tremendously attractive.

Instagram:
Instagram is ideal if you focus on younger generations. That's because 75% of 18-24 year olds use the platform and 57% of 25-29 year olds. Meanwhile, only 8% of people over 65 are on the platform.

LinkedIn:
It's no secret that LinkedIn is a professional network - which means you're likely to want to place more formal, business and career related ads on the platform. It also means that the demographics on LinkedIn that you want to target include current or future members of the workforce.

There are over 660 million LinkedIn users and 37% of adults in the US aged 30 to 49 use the platform. And when it comes to students and university degrees, 51% of U.S. graduates would be on the platform.

3. Make your ad relevant.

Your ads should be relevant to your target audience and customers. There are a few ways you can make sure that this is the case.

a. So use your buyer personas to address the interests and needs of your target audience and customers.
b. Conduct customer feedback surveys and focus groups to meet the needs of your target audience, even when they are not actively looking for solutions.
c. Search engine optimisation (SEO) your social content so that it is more likely to appear organically when specific keywords and phrases are searched for (and use image alt text when you can)

4. Design a beautiful, eye-catching advertisement

On social media it seems as if there is an endless amount of new visual content. So, how can you make your social media ads stand out?

Your ads need to be engaging, beautifully designed and eye-catching - they need someone scrolling through their feed, stopping in their tracks and wanting to take a closer look at your content.

You also want your ad to look on-brand, so your audience can easily associate the ad with your business. (This will help you build brand recognition as well). So be sure to add your logos to your visuals, animations or videos.

Here are some of the elements you'll want to think about when designing an effective social media ad that attracts the attention of your target audience:

• Images
• Videos
• Font
• Colours
• Written content and messaging
• CTA buttons

5. Write copy that converts.

Every word and character you include in your ads counts. This is especially true for social media advertisements that often have a limitation in word and text.

In short, to ensure that your copy converts all while being simple, direct and short, you must:

• Be convincing (but not too salesy, that scares you)
• Communicate your value proposition clearly
• You've never lost a customer from some humour. 😉

Then once you've created your social media ad, you want to make sure it's successful among your target audience. Time to measure your campaigns.

6. Measure the success of your ad.

With social media advertising comes a lot of metrics that you need to monitor to determine success. It is vital that you focus on the social media metrics that matter most to your campaigns.

To get you started, here are six of the most monitored metrics related to social media advertising that you might consider keeping an eye on:

Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR is the number of clicks on your ad divided by the number of prints (clicks/prints). The metrics indicate the relevance of your content among your audience and the quality of that traffic.

Costs
The costs are of course the amount you are willing to spend every day on your various campaigns.

Conversions
The conversions are your transactions, leads, requests for quotes... Of course you want to get as much as possible out of this.

Cost Per Conversion
Each campaign must have a core conversion target (registrations, installation of the app, downloads, visits to blog posts). To calculate the cost per conversion, divide the amount of money you spent by the number of conversions that resulted. This gives you insight into whether your ads are profitable and helps you project your future ad spending.

Conversion ratio
The conversion ratio of the number of visits to your landing page resulting from your social media ads gives a good idea of the quality of the clicks you receive and the performance of your landing page. You can also compare your social ad traffic with the conversion rate of traffic from other sources.

ROAS
The Return On Ad Spend shows the relationship between the budget (cost) you spent and the conversion value the campaigns generated. This allows you to quickly see if your campaigns have been profitable.

Digi-tips:

- Make sure you have proper conversion tracking set up (measure everything you do).
- Don't make your targeting too extensive if you have a limited budget. It is better to focus on target groups that you know are interested in your product/service (remarketing, customer match list, website visitors, similar audiences...).
- Build custom and lookalike audiences (higher intent buyers).
- Start with a clear strategy and goals. Be realistic about this as well.
- Test different ads, visuals & copy in A/B. This way you find out what performs well and can continuously optimize to what performs well.
- Video material works tremendously well in social media advertising. So definitely bet on this.