If you’re a Facebook user you’ve probably come across sponsored content in your news feed. Because people willingly give Facebook so much personal information, the social media giant is good at serving up highly relevant paid content for their consumption. This content comes up alongside user-generated posts, so as people quickly scan their newsfeeds they see these ads. However, it is not always easy to distinguish between user-generated content and paid advertising content.
This paid content is often aimed at helping companies increase brand awareness, generate new leads or drive sales. Nonprofit organizations, like advocacy group Moveon.org, are also leveraging sponsored content to educate people about upcoming events and issues.
Facebook claims it has a business tool for every business goal, and with 1.8 billion people using the social media platform each month, advertising via sponsored posts is well worth considering. Recently, I wanted to learn more about how companies can leverage sponsored content in conjunction with other marcom activities. It is proven that taking an integrated approach to marketing by combining different disciplines – such as content creation, PR and advertising – can be highly effective.
White papers, case studies and other original work can and should be used in myriad ways. Marketers can share content with journalists with the goal of securing earned media. They can publish original content on company blogs. They can put it on their website behind a paywall, or they can leverage it on social media with either unpaid or paid posts.
But, if you know nothing about advertising on Facebook, where should you begin? Daniel Lawless, a principal software engineer with Evocalize, a company enabling automation of contextual marketing in paid social media, has some good suggestions.
Where to Begin
“There are some critical first steps to take when planning a sponsored content campaign,” explains Lawless. “First, you need to be clear on your objectives and KPIs. If you’re looking to increase brand awareness and stay top-of-mind with customers, your campaign is going to be much different than if your goal is to generate new top-of-the-funnel sales leads.”
A marketer looking to generate new sales leads, for instance, might use a sponsored post to promote downloads of a white paper. When people click “download” on the ad, they are directed to a landing page with a form asking for their name, company name and email address. Only when they have completed the form can they obtain the white paper. This is how ad sponsors capture potential customers’ contact details.
You can see this post could be an effective way to drive downloads of its white paper. However, if your goal is simply brand awareness, you don’t need a “download” button. Instead you might use “learn more” and link back to your website. The point is that your overarching business goals are going to inform the design of your ad and your call to action.
When it comes to design, Lawless suggests marketers use high quality, compelling content and photos. “You want creative that’ll immediately draw that attention of users,” he says. “It needs to break through the clutter of other ads and posts.”
Another best practice is to frequently refresh your posts because Facebook rewards sponsors for having new content.
Below is an example of this type of campaign by Marin Software.
Segmenting and Targeting
Reaching the right audiences is also essential for success. Marketers need to know which people to target. They will want to think about their ideal customers’ demographics, interests and behaviors, and decide whether they should take a broad or specific targeting approach.
According to Facebook, broad targeting essentially means that marketers are primarily relying on its software to find the best people to display content to. Whereas specific targeting means marketers are providing Facebook a strict set of parameters with which to work. The strict parameters might include the target audiences’ location, age, gender, language preferences or other customer demographics such as relationship status, workplace, job titles or education. Facebook also enables targeting based on interests such as hobbies or favorite entertainment.
Marketers can create “core audiences” (people you select manually based on characteristics), “custom audiences” (people who have demonstrated an interest in your business) or “lookalike audiences” (new people who are similar to audiences you already care about). Finally, commonly used targeting options can be saved for repeat use. (For more on this topic, visit Facebook Business.)
Finally, it is a good idea to test your creative with target groups to see which versions will be most effective. Simple A/B testing can help you optimize your ads. The key is to come up with a measurable hypothesis based on KPIs.
Measuring ROI
If you’ve taken the time to define your goals, you probably have a good understanding of what will be valuable to you. You should also understand the economic value you’ll derive from your activity. If you’re selling a product, you’ll want to look at how many units were sold and how much profit you generated. If your goal is to generate top-of-the-funnel leads, you should look at how many quality targets were secured through your campaign. Assign a value to each of the prospective new leads and see how many of them eventually convert to sales.
“It is an exciting time for marketers,” explains Lawless. “In some industries, we’re seeing a doubling or tripling of return on ad spend through these techniques. Facebook can perform as well or better than traditional search advertising, depending on how you’re utilizing your data and targeting.”