18 Feb Is Facebook Still the Most Effective for Social Advertising?
In the lush landscape of social networking sites, advertisers are left asking themselves which platform will reach their target audience while generating desired business results. It is no secret that Facebook has seen its fair share of scrutiny related to data and security breaches, leading to Mark Zuckerberg answering questions from the Senate commerce and judiciary committees on privacy, data mining, regulations and Cambridge Analytica. Despite recent issues, Facebook advertising usage remains steady among digital buyers.
According to a Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Social Media Examiner, small and medium sized businesses continue to focus their social media marketing on Facebook, which is being used by 94% of those surveyed. Along with businesses, Facebook continues to be a leading social media site for U.S adults, according to Pew Research Center. While Facebook is used by around half of America’s teens, the platform ranks fourth in popularity with this demographic. YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat take the top spots for those ages 13-17.
Facebook continues to dominate the social space as a market leader. It’s the first social network to surpass 1 billion registered accounts and currently sits at 2.27 billion monthly active users according to Statista (chart below).
Facebook is focused on a few key initiatives to maximize 2019 ad performance. These include utilizing the budget optimization tool, running multiple placements to increase reach and campaign goals, creating “mobile first” video, which is focused on the user experience while on their mobile device.
Budget Optimization:
Campaign budget optimization gives businesses an easier way to manage their ad budgets and ensure optimal results. Using campaign budget optimization, advertisers can set one central campaign budget to optimize across ad sets by distributing budget to the top performing ad sets in real time. Campaign budget optimization is available for any campaign objective and is best suited for campaigns with multiple ad sets.
4 Placement Efficiency:
Facebook has found that opting into 4+ placements drives the greatest CPM efficiency and continues to signal a competitive bid within the auction. This means Facebook will reach people at a cheaper cost and show ads in ways that better speak to the audience and the brand customers. Facebook offers multiple placements within the platform including newsfeed, instant articles, marketplace, stories, and many more. You can also select Instagram, audience network and messenger to reach your desired audience.
Facebook has communicated that advertisers who select 4+ placements are seeing:
- 7% higher reach
- 3.5x incremental conversions
- 71% lower cost per incremental conversion
- 1.2x incremental ROAs
Mobile First Video:
As people spend more time on mobile, it’s important for advertisers to understand how viewing habits are changing. Video has become one of the most effective ways to connect with customers on mobile, but in order to capture attention, it’s critical to adopt a mobile-first strategy to create video ads that fit seamlessly into the mobile content consumption experience. Matching consumer’s behavior on mobile can positively impact campaign results. Facebook recommends creating video content that is 15 seconds or less, with the brand message/logo communicated within the first 3 seconds and built for sound off. Facebook has developed video creation tools to enable advertisers to convert existing images and text assets into mobile-first video ads with ease.
Outrage over how Facebook handled consumer data might have served as a road block, but didn’t stop many users from updating their status – nor did it stop brands and advertisers from placing ad spend. Facebook continues to reach a vast audience and is one of the most cost-efficient platforms. With improvements to ads manager, optimization, video content and expanded opportunities to reach target audiences, Facebook will continue to see advertising investments.
Let the team here at Ignite Social Media design your advertising strategy and maximize your media budget.
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