Social Ads :Key Success Factors and How to Boost Results

 

Earlier this year, Forrester Consulting surveyed 105 large social advertisers — social media and advertising professionals whose companies spend more than $100,000 per year on social media ads — to uncover how both organic social media marketing and paid social media advertising are working to achieve their business goals.

FINDING #1 – ORGANIC POSTING IS THE MOST POPULAR SOCIAL TACTIC

As you can see below, 73% of the large social marketers surveyed “create branded pages and post messages on those pages” across social networks. But organic posting alone is not enough to meet most organizations’ goals from social media. As the chart shows, 56% of marketers also buy ads on social networks. And, later in the study we saw that those marketers who are most satisfied with their results from social media are deploying a combination of paid and organic tactics.

FINDING #2 – SOCIAL ADVERTISERS STILL AREN’T USING ADVANCED OPTIMIZATION TACTICS

It’s not surprising that the most popular tactic among social advertisers is “rotating through creative” because that is something that digital marketers have been found to be a best practice with most other forms of online advertising including search, display, etc. However, a majority of these large social marketers are not taking advantage of some of the more advanced optimization approaches, such as using automated bid management tools or simple A/B testing on creative.

FINDING #3 – SOCIAL ADVERTISERS SHOULD PAY FOR PROMOTED CONTENT TO DRIVE AWARENESS AND BUY ADS TO DRIVE SALES

Social advertisers who paid to promote their branded content were most satisfied with the awareness they created, while those who bought paid ads were happiest with their ability to drive purchases.

FOUR STEPS TO IMPROVE YOUR AD RESULTS

After years of experimenting with organic and paid advertising tactics on social media channels, it’s time for social advertisers to focus on the strategies and tactics that drive success. Forrester Consulting recommends four steps that can immediately improve marketers’ results:

Start with clear marketing objectives. Marketers must define their most important priorities and objectives before they choose social advertising tactics and then focus on the tactics that will help them reach their objectives.

Promote your brand and your content. Social marketing can be free — but if you want it to deliver results, try paid tactics.

Take advantage of robust targeting. Granular social targeting enables brands to increase the ROI of their advertising efforts on social networks.

Develop a holistic approach for greater success. Smart marketers will consider how all of their social opportunities fit into the customer journey and into their broader marketing initiatives — and then take a holistic approach to managing and measuring those programs.