Okay, social advertisers—have you laid out your goals for 2019? To help you with strategic planning, we put together a New Year’s resolutions list especially for you.
I will fine-tune my attribution to better understand my biddable performance.
Most advertisers still rely on last-click attribution when evaluating their biddable channel performance. This attribution model has a number of flaws:
- It doesn’t account for social impressions, especially the impact of social video ads.
- It doesn’t consider the complex user journey to purchase, which often includes multiple touchpoints.
- It has a tendency to devalue your paid social activity, and paint an inaccurate picture of which channels are driving conversions and incrementality.
Instead of last-click, we suggest considering more accurate measuring solutions. For example, using Marin’s TruePath, cross-channel advertisers are able to view the full user journey and understand the value of Facebook post-impression conversions alongside search results.
I will include video in my paid social strategy.
Digital video consumption has been growing each year, with Cisco estimating that 80% of internet traffic will be video by 2019. It’s a great way for marketers to tell their stories and get users to connect with the brand.
Over the course of 2018, here at Marin we’ve seen video ads improving in their ability to drive conversions and revenue. Now, we suggest that each advertising campaign aimed at driving conversions include both image and video assets, optimized towards the best performance.
I will open my heart to placement optimization.
Social media algorithms are constantly improving and have gotten really good at matching our ads to consumers. According to a study by Promo, 71% of consumers find Facebook video ads relevant.
With this in mind, we should concentrate on reaching the right people, no matter what device or placement they’re on. Using placement optimization allows you to serve your ads on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and a selection of partner mobile sites, all optimized towards the objective you select.
I will keep testing and learning new things.
The social media landscape is constantly evolving—consumer habits are changing and we should evolve our paid social advertising strategy to match. If a campaign is working well today, this might not be the case in 2019 if we don’t adapt to the changes.
To keep pace, it’s important to be open to new developments and carefully test whether they work for your organization. I’d encourage you to test new placements to see if they can deliver better reach and cost per conversion. Try new ad formats, especially as they tend to be cheaper once they’re first rolled out. Finally, use the split testing feature, which allows you to carefully determine whether the new campaign additions are working well for you.
Here are a few ideas to test in 2019:
- Placements: Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, Messenger Stories, Marketplace
- Ad formats: Stories, Click-to-Messenger ads
- Optimization: Creative optimization for different placements, placement optimization
And there you have it—your social advertising resolutions for 2019. As you get ready for an exciting New Year, we’re here to answer your questions about any of the products or strategies mentioned above. Just get in touch with your Marin Social representative. Or, if you’re new to Marin, schedule a demo and we’ll show you how you can optimize your social ad campaigns.
