Paid media | 31/05/2018

Four tips when choosing your Facebook and Instagram campaign objective

Posted by Lawrence Greenlee

Despite the Cambridge Analytica fiasco barely months ago, Facebook has not stopped growing and it remains the biggest social media platform, with over 2 billion active users each month. Facebook has reported consistent growth, not only in the number of users (up 13% since last year) but also in advertisers’ spend, with the first quarter of 2018 seeing a 62% increase YoY.

With these significant numbers many advertisers are understandably wary of pulling the plug on this marketing channel . With the purchase of Instagram back in 2012 and seamless integrated advertising across both platforms, it’s easier than ever to deliver your brand’s message to billions of people.

When setting up your Facebook or Instagram campaign, the first step involves choosing your campaign objective to ensure you get it right from the very beginning. Luckily for us, ads manager offers options to suit all, although it can seem overwhelming to someone just dipping their toes in to the world of social ads. So, here are a few tips that will (hopefully) help you understand how to effectively approach your campaign and set it up for success.

Focus of your goal

Always remember that the wider rules of marketing apply to Facebook and Instagram advertising as much as any other channel. Whether you want to increase your brand awareness or get people to buy your products or services, you want to make sure your marketing efforts are in line with your business’ goal. You should ask yourself these questions:

  • What is my objective and how can social media advertising help me achieve this?
  • What role is social media advertising playing within my wider marketing strategy?
  • Which stages of the funnel am I trying to move my customers to and from?

Don’t get side tracked

You’ve probably heard this a hundred times but, when it comes to increasing awareness of your brand, page likes and increases in Instagram followers shouldn’t be considered as KPIs. Seen as a vanity metric more than anything else, a higher number of followers doesn’t necessarily result in a higher ad recall lift or better engagement rate for your brand. Similarly, when trying to achieve more conversions on your site, you want to make sure your campaign objective is not simply to send traffic to your site, but actually focuses on getting people to convert.

You want your social ads to reach people who will not only remember your brand but will also actively engage with it and, ultimately, perform the action you want them to. That’s why setting the right objective is paramount and the solid base of your social media campaigns.

Ask yourself:

  • What are the metrics that are most important to me and will help me achieve my objectives?
  • Are these metrics relevant or are they proxies?

 It’s all about ad delivery optimisation

When setting up an ad, your delivery optimisation is almost as important as the objective you choose for your campaign. So, what do I mean by that? In simple terms, your delivery optimisation will help Facebook deliver your ad to the users who are more likely to get you the results you’re optimising towards, as efficiently as possible. These could range from ad recall lift (the number of people who will remember your brand) all the way to purchases. Why is this so important? If your delivery optimisation is not aligned with your campaign’s objective, you might end up wasting your budget on an ad that’s not delivering the best results it could possibly achieve.

A great example is the assumption many of us have taken as given truth that clicks on your ads = conversions. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be less true and has been proven by past studies. In fact, one of the main, and most surprising, findings was that high probability clickers were 20% less likely to convert. Shocking, I know, but this is why it is paramount to choose your ads’ delivery optimisation accurately and in line with your ultimate goal.

Ask yourself:

  • Am I optimising towards my business’ goal?
  • Am I helping Facebook find more users that are likely to deliver the results I want efficiently?

Test, test and test again

As marketers, we love an A/B test. Whether it’s your audience, creative, placement or delivery optimisation, Facebook and Instagram let you test up to five different variations of these four variables, enabling you to find the perfect advertising formula that will deliver the best results.

One very interesting way to put A/B test into practice, following what we’ve discussed so far, would be to run an A/B test on an ad with Conversion as your campaign objective, and test clicks versus conversions as the ad’s delivery optimisation. If this sounds too time consuming, fear not – Facebook will guide you through the process, making it extremely easy for you to set up any A/B test. Moreover, they’ll also provide you with the test results, so you can sit back, relax and let the Facebook algorithm do its magic.

With a wide variety of clients advertising across Facebook and Instagram, we know how to integrate these platforms within your marketing strategy to help you reach your business’ goals. If you are thinking about diving into the endless world of social media advertising, or you’re not sure whether you’re maximising your current efforts, come in for a cuppa and chat to the experts, or get in touch with us!

Quick tip: Test only one variable at a time or else analysing your results will get very messy!

Ask yourself:

  • Am I testing the right variable?
  • Which variable is most important to me at this stage?

With a wide variety of clients advertising across Facebook and Instagram, we know how to integrate these platforms within your marketing strategy to help you reach your business’ goals. If you are thinking about diving into the endless world of social media advertising, or you’re not sure whether you’re maximising your current efforts, come in for a cuppa and chat to the experts, or get in touch with us!