Posts tagged Facebook ads
What Twitter’s Ad API Means for Social Advertising
Mar 21st
The following excerpt is from an article written by Tim Peterson, staff writer, and published on AdWeek.com. To learn more about Twitter’s ad API and how it can help retailers further their reach, view the full article.
Advertising on Twitter just got easier. As previously reported by Adweek and TechCrunch, the social platform has rolled out an ad API that will let social marketing developers buy Twitter ads within the dashboards marketers already use to manage their Twitter and Facebook accounts and campaigns.
Twitter has been testing the API since last month with its launch partners, which include Salesforce, Adobe, TBG Digital, HootSuite and Shift, the company said in a blog post announcing the news.
The biggest implication of the ad API is that advertisers will be able to run more campaigns on Twitter in a quicker, more automated fashion. Previously, either advertisers or the social ad firms they hired had to manually create and execute a Promoted Tweet campaign one at a time. The API would let them create conceivably dozens of campaigns simultaneously.
That could lead to more ads in users’ Twitter streams, though Twitter’s product manager for revenue April Underwood said that won’t be the case. ”The ads API is not focused on bringing more ads to users. The genesis of why we’re building it is focused on simplifying the ads-buying experience for marketers,” Underwood said, emphasizing that it will have “no bearing on the volume of ads users will see.” Translation: If Twitter sees an ad isn’t performing, it will pull it just as has historically been the case.
Instead, Twitter seems to be banking on API partners’ ability to let advertisers create more targeted campaigns.
The API also enhances advertisers’ targeting capabilities. Twitter made strides last year by adding interest-level targeting, but API partners would be able to layer in their own analytics as well as advertisers’ customer data to compile new audience profiles. Advertisers can also take advantage of the real-time reporting data flowing through the partners’ dashboards in order to shift their budgets, Underwood said.
“Because we have a robust listening solution and engagement solution, we can listen to what people are saying [on Twitter about a brand] and engage with them and take any of their tweets and promote them,” said Michael Lazerow, chief marketing officer of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
The API could further solidify Twitter’s position as the second-screen ad platform of choice. Currently, if advertisers want to take advantage of a topic that’s trending on Twitter, they have to check Twitter just like any other user to see what’s trending, and then add that hashtag or keyword to their Promoted Tweet campaign. But TBG Digital CEO Simon Mansell said API partners could add a feed next to the ad creation workflow to pull in real-time trending topics that can immediately be appended to the ad.
Another option would be for an advertiser to specify some evergreen keywords to run ads against if they ever start trending. These trend-targeted campaigns would only appear on Twitter search pages for those topics, but in the case of Super Bowl #blackout, that could be just fine. TBG Digital has five clients live or nearly live using the Twitter ad API, Mansell said. One of those clients saw a 61 percent reduction in the cost per engagement since using the API, while another spent $40,000 during the Super Bowl as a “stress test” for the tool.
Adobe also shared some results of its first Twitter campaigns using the new ad API. Adobe Marketing Cloud saw its follower base swell by 63 percent while reducing the cost of each follower by nearly 60 percent to roughly $2.
Shift tested the API with its client Radio Shack and saw a 40 percent increase in engagement rates, said CEO James Borow. He didn’t want to give away too much of the secret sauce, but attributed the performance boost to Twitter’s new ability to handle more targeting at scale. “We were able to go ahead and try out a large quantity of different targeting groups and reach different people interested in different things on Twitter,” he said.
Would your store use Twitter for advertising? Tell us your opinion in the comments section.
Tiger Bookstore Offers Free Rental Textbooks through Facebook
Jun 11th
Students simply had to 'like' the page and enter their information into this tab to participate.
To get students more interested in their store, Tiger Bookstore directed them to their Facebook page with an exclusive offer. In exchange for ‘liking’ their page, students could enter for a chance to win free rental textbooks for the summer semester.
“Facebook is the best way for us to interact with our students, because it’s where they spend the most time,” explained Kristy Jeffords, store owner. “This promotion was a way for us to increase our fanbase while showing students that we do care about saving them money.”
The store, in collaboration with a web company that runs their social media promotions, used a third-party application to create a Facebook contest that adheres to the platform’s rules. Then, they began advertising the initiative to their customers.
“We started a little bit later than we would have liked, so we didn’t begin advertising until two weeks before summer semester,” admitted Jeffords, “For fall semester, we plan to extend that period of time by a few weeks.”
Using a multi-channel marketing approach, they created Facebook ads, distributed handouts around campus, sent emails, and relied on word of mouth from their current Fans and Followers, asking them to ‘like’ the store’s page to participate.
After becoming a fan, students simply had to provide their name and email address in the designated Facebook Tab to be entered to win. Current fans were allowed to enter using the same process. In the interest of making the contest viral, however, the store allowed participants to gain extra entries by spreading the word to friends.
“They could receive an additional entry for every ten friends they shared the contest with on Facebook,” she described. “It was a very effective option and helped our promotion achieve a wider reach.”
On the deadline, the store used an online application to select one winner at random. The lucky individual was awarded free rental textbooks for the semester.
“We ask them to bring in their schedule, we verify it, and then provide them with any rentable titles from their course list for free,” she said. “In the future, we plan to expand the number of winners to increase the excitement even further.”
During the week and a half promotion, the store was able to gain 200 new Facebook Fans, a number they hope to only increase with subsequent contests.
“We just want to keep growing,” Jeffords said. “We continually try new things and see what works best. Social media is where the students are, and if you want to reach them, then you have to be there and interact with them!”
What promotions have you used to direct students to your Facebook page? Share your tips and tricks in the comment section!
5 Tips for Better Facebook Ads
Jan 6th
The following article, Gain 20,000 Facebook Fans In 3 Months, was written and published by Jared Reed for SocialFresh.com.
Last summer, I had the pleasure of working on a social media campaign for Shasta Soda with a sister agency, MIO, that used Facebook Ads to help grow brand fans by 20,000 in just three months.
While this was far from easy, a major part of our success involved following these five tips for Facebook Ad Campaigns.
Photo Credit: SocialFresh.com
1. Give Them a Reason to “Like” You.
If you’re just starting out, Facebook ads are great for building a following, but you’ll need to give people something in order to get their “like”.
For example, Shasta ran a sweepstakes last summer where you could win prizes to make your backyard into the ultimate party destination, which included a backyard theatre system, Xbox game console, and a year’s supply of Shasta.
The catch is that you had to like Shasta on Facebook to participate. This is how we grew our community by giving people a reason to click “like”.
2. Demographics
Base your ads on your demographics. Maybe there is a local personality or landmark that can be used, or language that would appeal more to a specific age group or gender.
For example, if you lived in St. Louis, Missouri, an ad for a barbecue restaurant that uses and image of the St. Louis Arch would catch your eye, especially if you had indicated in your profile that you love barbecue.
3. Budget
Start with the recommended budget that Facebook suggests, but it will take you at least 30 days to find out what your real budget should be. My experience has been that Facebook often over suggests budget when it comes to geo-targeted campaigns, but national campaign are usually pretty close.
Worried about running out of budget? Keep your Facebook ads live during the entire time of your promo by using an excel spreadsheet to divide your budget up by week over the entire period of your ad buy. Check how your ads are spending each week to revise your bid prices or budget.
If you’re running campaigns in several areas at once, move budget from underperforming locations to areas where it will spend!
4. A/B Test
In order to A/B test, you’ll want to have similar ads created and test them against each other. If you use the “select existing creative” feature in Facebook’s ad wizard, you can quickly duplicate your ad in order to test small changes to it.
Comparing apples to apples is critical when testing. Facebook automatically puts more of your daily budget towards your better performing ads. This can quickly create a situation where your ads being tested are not displayed an equal number of times, which is useless data if you are trying to A/B test. Creating a separate campaign for each variation of your ad will solve this problem.
After several weeks, see which of your ads performed the best. Keep this ad in the rotation and pause the others. You can either write two completely new ads to test against your winner, or write variations of your ad to try and find your ad’s “sweet spot”.
Photo Credit: SocialFresh.com
5. Keep Testing to Avoid Ad Fatigue
After A/B testing, you’ll have found the ad that seems to work best. This success doesn’t last long though. People seeing the same ad over and over again until they stop noticing it altogether causes Ad Fatigue. Essentially, your successful ad will stop working because people have seen it way too much.
The only way to get back to winning the game is to start all over again at square one with new ads and new rounds of A/B testing.
The five simple tips sound like a lot in the end, but once you get into the swing of things running a successful Facebook Ad campaign becomes second nature.
Social Media Series: Facebook Offers Free Ads to Small Businesses
Oct 10th
The following excerpt from the article ‘Facebook Offers Free Ads to Small Businesses’ by Diana Ransom was published on Entrepreneur.com. View the full article.
Last week, Facebook announced a new program aimed at helping small businesses retain existing customers, build awareness of their brands and reach new customers among the social network’s 800 million users.
“Our goal is to give small businesses a boost by helping them find customers the best way possible — through recommendations from friends,” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said in the release announcing the initiative.
Facebook is teaming up with the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an education effort designed to provide local businesses with webinars, case studies and tips for boosting their marketing efforts. The social media giant also plans to give away $10 million in advertising to 200,000 businesses, starting in January 2012. That amounts to a freebie in the form of $50 worth of credits toward Facebook ads.
Businesses interested in receiving the $50 freebie will need to first take out an ad on Facebook. Like pay-per-click ads on search engines, when a consumer clicks on your Facebook ad, the advertiser (you) are asked to pay a set rate for that click — anywhere from 5 cents to 25 cents. Facebook, starting in January, will give you $50 worth of those clicks for free. Note that the freebie will be awarded to owners on a first-come, first-served basis up to 200,000 businesses.
That might not sound like a lot, but, according to users, a little can go a long way on Facebook. In one example, Jim Olenbush, the owner and broker of Cantera Real Estate, a real estate firm in Austin, Texas, was able to target a Facebook advertisement of his company’s listings to a specific set of potential customers whom he suspected would soon move to the area.
The idea came from reading the newspaper and learning that a large company in another state was planning to relocate to Austin. According to Jason Falls, a social media maven, blogger and author of No Bullshit Social Media (Pearson, 2011), that one campaign cost Olenbush just $200, but, in return, he sold about 10 homes. “We all know that the commission from selling 10 homes amounts to a lot more than $200,” he says.
Usage of online social networking sites like Facebook is growing. In July, more than 213 million Americans were active on the Internet, according to media research firm comScore. And the second most visited site for the month was Facebook.
Facebook’s own data suggest that more than half of its 800 million active users have made a connection to a small business. That amounts to about 700 million connections between existing and would-be customers and local businesses, adds Facebook.
Did you know MBS offers you advertising incentives, too?
To help you effectively get the word out about your buyback, we’ll pay for you to advertise on Facebook! Better yet, we do all the work for you; all you have to do is let your MBS Representative know you’d like to take advantage of our offer during your buyback setup! It’s just another way we help our partner stores stay competitive!
Social Media Series:
Bring Your Staff Search Up to Speed
May 11th
With summer fast approaching, many stores are now looking to hire student employees in place of those who leave for vacations or other commitments. But in order to reach the best candidates, your store may need to alter your message to better reach students.
In the past, the MBS Human Resource Department relied mostly on print materials, such as newspaper ads and posters in the career services department of specific college campuses, to market summer jobs. While this traditional medium still has some value, it’s relevancy in students’ lives has significantly decreased. Students engage in an online world, and your store needs to communicate with them accordingly.
That’s why MBS began promoting their summer employment openings through Facebook Ads three years ago. “We wanted to use a medium directed to the student population on our target campuses,” explained Jerome Rader, Vice President of Human Resources at MBS.
Advertising for employment on Facebook is both simple and cost-effective.
The ads were created to reach 7-8 specific campuses, both near MBS headquarters and in the surrounding areas, with the goal of reaching students who may be returning to the area for summer break. Although MBS only selects a target audience based on campus location, Facebook allows further customization to certain demographics by age and even interests, displaying your ad to only the most eligible candidates.
As another advantage, MBS has found advertising on Facebook to be significantly less expensive than the traditional print or television mediums they had run in the past. A variety of payment options offer the ability to easily control your budget by choosing to pay only when students click (CPC) or see your ad (CPM).
“We evaluate which payment option would work best for each specific campaign,” said Carrie Watkins, Marketing Manager at MBS. “For our summer employment ads, we used pay per impression (CPM), so that we not only reached the students who were looking for a job at that moment, but others who might be interested at a later time.”
This strategy has gained Human Resources more than an adequate number of candidates to fill the 290 summer warehouse operations positions, with click-through rates well above the .02% benchmark standard. In fact, after receiving so many applicants, HR decided to refine the messaging within their ad to be more specific.
“About half way through the ad campaign, we decided to tweak the keywords in our ad to better convey that we were looking to fill temporary positions,” Watkins added. “The flexibility is great. You can change the focus of your ad at any time to make your campaign more successful.”
Regardless of what position you store is hiring for, keep in mind that students seek information in a new format, nowadays. Make sure your store takes advantage of the many low-cost and flexible options available online to send your message. Ask your MBS Representative for more ideas on how to bring your staff search into the digital age.
