Make Ad Campaigns That Work

Advertising is a key element of social media success. However, crafting ad campaigns can seem overwhelming and uncertain, especially if it’s uncharted territory for your business. How do you know if your ads are effective? By creating an efficient advertising budget, targeting your audience and optimizing your ads, you can set yourself up for success.

Budgeting for Ads

How can you create an efficient budget for your social media ads? This answer can vary widely based on the size of your company or marketing department. While some companies spend thousands daily on paid social, others may only be able to budget a few dollars. Instead of giving hard and fast figures, it’s better to think in terms of minimums and percentages. 

On average, companies spend about 11% of their marketing budget on social media, with a portion of that going to social media ads. If you’re a smaller company looking to dip your toes in the whirlpool of paid advertising, it may be best to start with something close to the minimums on each platform, and then increase ad spending once you’ve had time to assess results and determine the relative value of advertising.  Meta (Instagram and Facebook) only requires $1 a day, and so does X. LinkedIn is a bit more expensive, requiring $10 a day. 

ROAS: A Key Strategy Pillar

Understanding the minimums isn’t enough to craft your budget. You also need to understand the return on ad spend, or ROAS, that your ads will likely generate. This should help frame how you choose to allocate your social budget. Your spending will likely be heavily shaped by your audience and business goals, but ROAS demonstrates where your ads are performing most effectively. CPC, or cost-per-click, is an excellent metric for businesses looking to increase website traffic through social advertising.Sometimes, CPC on social media is categorized as CPLC, or cost per link click. If you’re not too worried about clicks, but you’re very interested in driving up brand awareness, CPM, or cost per mille, may be the metric for you. CPM measures the cost of garnering 1,000 impressions on a given ad. Impressions might not automatically lead to sales, but they will increase general awareness surrounding your brand.

Meta has an average CLPC of $0.90 and CPM of $7.75. LinkedIn is a pricer platform for advertising, with an average CPC of $5.58, and a CPM of $33.80. It’s important to consider not only how many people view or click on an ad, but the long-term impact your ads have on customer acquisition and retention. While LinkedIn is significantly pricer, it also boasts a ROAS of 2.3. This means for every dollar you spend, you can expect to make back 2.3X your money through new customers or purchases. In contrast, Facebook has a ROAS of 1.8. While general statistics are helpful when you’re just entering the social advertising space, profit from advertising can vary wildly, based on your particular business. The key to success with paid advertising is to identify where your audience is online, and focus your resources towards reaching them. Advertisement targeting can help with this step.

Ad targeting refers to choosing to display your ads to particular people on social platforms, rather than just randomly displaying the ads to any user. Ideally, ad targeting will allow you to effectively reach consumers interested in your product or company. While there are a variety of strategies when it comes to targeting, two main ones stand out. First, you can focus on targeting existing customers or contacts. Let’s say that a customer has previously bought one of your products. Utilizing your own CRM data and targeting tool, you could choose to show them an ad for the same product at a discounted rate. The second strategy involves finding new customers based on things like geography or interests. Here’s a breakdown of some common targeting techniques.

Demographic targeting

Demographic targeting refers to focusing on viewers based on factors such as geography, race or gender. This can be an effective targeting approach if your product or business appeals to a certain age group. 

Interest/Behavioral targeting

Behavioral targeting allows you to cater your ads based on consumer action like browsing history or prior purchases. This approach helps you reach customers who are actively searching for the products or services you offer.

Predictive targeting

Predictive targeting leverages to AI to predict audiences’ future purchasing behavior. These predictions can be used to connect audiences with the best products for them.

Retargeting or remarketing

Retargeting focuses on identifying past customers and aiming to make them repeat customers.  

Custom targeting

By using your own customer data, you can build a custom audience that mirrors your past customers.

Targeting increases your chances of driving conversions with your ads, and makes sure no ad spend is wasted. Try out targeting today!

Optimizing ads

Even if you’ve determined a strong advertising budget and effectively identified your target audience, there are still a few ways that you can optimize your ads. Here are two ways to make sure your ads are effectively connecting with your audience and driving sales or awareness.

A/B Testing 

A/B testing refers to testing two different versions of a similar ad (version A and version B) to see which performs better with audiences. For example, the two versions of an ad may have the same images but different copy. Based on how audiences react to the different versions, this testing can inform your ad strategy moving forward. 

Experiment with Ad Creative

Ad creative refers to the visual and textual elements of your ads. This includes things like your ad headline, image and call to action. Creative elements often vary based on platform. For example, the ad creative for a Facebook ad will likely be different from the creative for a Snapchat ad. Experimenting with creative can optimize your ads, especially if paired with A/B testing. Switching up your creative elements uncovers what elements of your ad connects with audiences effectively.

Trial & Error: The Pathway to Success

Success in social advertising is never guaranteed and rarely achieved overnight. Slowly tweaking and assessing your ads will drive audience engagement and eventually, business success!