Social media advertising can be exciting! If you come up with a terrific ad or post that goes viral, you can benefit enormously—with ROI well beyond your actual spend. Conversely, should something fall flat, the results can be disappointing. So, how do you give yourself the best chance of success? Here are some tips to help you get great results with social media advertising.
- Know who you’re speaking to
That means gaining clarity about your target market and understanding your “ideal customer,” then creating an ad that speaks directly to them. Research suggests that 76 percent of U.S. consumers have purchased a product they’ve seen in a brand’s social media content, so it’s worth spending time getting this right.
The kinds of things you want to know are age, gender, socio-economic group, aspirations, what else they’re interested in, buying habits, and preferred social media platforms. If your target market congregates on LinkedIn, there’s little to be gained by spending time, money and efforts advertising on Instagram.
- Stop them in their tracks!
Get creative — social media is the new storefront, so you want a visual that’s enticing. Make it colorful, so it pops.
Think about what people buy – not the products or services, but what they represent. Are you selling a fun experience, style and elegance, a solution to a problem, or prestige and bragging rights?
People love pictures and videos. Aim to put them in the moment. If you’re selling a fashion line, show the products on models like your target audience. If your product is a luxury yacht service, show people just like them enjoying the experience.
Tell them what’s special about this offer – free shipping, a price discount, a free gift – and make sure the call to action is clear.
Finally, make it easy to share. People love to share things they like, and that, of course, increases your reach.
- Design your landing page to match the ad
It’s not enough to send people who click on a social media ad to your home page. Once there, they have to start again, looking for the information they’re after. Will they have the patience to keep on searching? Maybe, but why take the risk when you can send them directly to a page that relates to the ad?
Bespoke landing pages that echo the look and feel of your social media advertising are a great idea. Put the relevant information front and center. Make it as easy as possible for people to do what they want to do – and ideally, that’s to click BUY! If they aren’t yet ready to convert, offer them more information, either on other pages on your website or by signing up for a regular e-newsletter.
This is worth putting time and effort into as well, as this is the place you hope to convert the curious into the customer.
- Make sure to measure the impact of your social media activity
However and wherever you advertise, you need to know what has the most impact and what your return on investment is. The same is true of social media advertising. The good news is that there are some great tools that will help you gather the data you need.
First up is Google Analytics, which should be set up to track each page on your website. Next, get familiar with tracking pixels – small pieces of HTML code that track user behavior. Some social media sites have their own ad tracking tools – so make the most of those too.
Think about the metrics you’re interested in and keep an eye on how things are working for you. For example, you might want to know:
- How many people saw your ad.
- How many people clicked on it.
- How many visited the landing page.
- How long they spent on your site.
- What the exit point was.
- How many converted.
You can experiment with different visuals and/or text and see what works best. Other tools for tracking social media ROI include Facebook Ads Manager (free to use through the platform), Hubspot and Simply Measured.
Conclusion
Way back in the nineteenth century, marketing pioneer John Wanamaker famously said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” If you take a strategic approach to your social media advertising, based on these guidelines – and make sure you track the results – you’ll know exactly how much bang you’re getting for your buck.
To get the best social media marketing services and content marketing services, choose a reliable pr firm. You can also give us a call to connect with one of our social media strategists for social media marketing services for business.