Mackenzie | July 06, 2021 | PPC & Advertising
For many industries, social media advertising can feel a bit like the wild west. Sure, your marketing manager understands and is constantly touting the importance of a solid social media presence, and posting a few times a week is manageable — but when it comes to building and launching Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn ads?
It's a lot.
And it's something that many companies struggle with.
But, your marketing manager is right; social media ad campaigns serve a significant purpose, and they're an important part of your paid media strategy.
When used properly, social media advertising can do a lot to boost your brand awareness, meet your audience where they live, and deliver more of the targeted leads you want right to your website.
If you've been running social media ad campaigns, but just aren't seeing the results you'd hoped for, this is the blog for you. Let's look at 6 ways you can optimize your social media ad campaigns today.
For more tips social media ad campaign optimization tips from our experts, listen to this podcast episode with Evenbound's Paid Media Manager, Kaelyn!
Social media ads work a little differently than PPC and search ads. They require a bit more effort in the creative and targeting, but they can also seriously pay off once you have your strategy dialed in.
Each of these social media ad optimization tactics will work to help you create cleaner, tighter social media ad campaigns that work to deliver better, more targeted leads in a way that maximizes your budget.
Not to sound like a broken record, but if you don't know what your goals are, it's pretty hard to achieve them.
If your social media ad campaigns have been running for a while, and you're just feeling a little "meh" about the results, it's worth it to think back to what your goals were for setting up the campaign.
Have those goals changed? Have your company goals changed?
Maybe you started your ad campaigns a while ago before your brand had much credibility in your industry. So, you ran some brand awareness ads. While these ads did an amazing job of getting your name out there, they're probably not doing much for you in terms of lead generation.
If you're feeling confident with your brand's awareness level on your social media platforms, then maybe it's time to switch up your goals to deliver more of the results you're actually looking for.
Not sure where to start?
For many companies, it's easy to set and forget your social media audiences. You launch your campaigns, you get busy, and they just keep running. If you're looking to optimize your social media ad campaigns for better results, though, your audience is a great place to start.
If your ads have been running for a while, you probably have a lot of great data on how your existing audience is performing. Are there age groups that are performing well? A certain lookalike audience?
If your ads don't seem to be performing well with your existing audiences, maybe it's time for some updates. Pull up your buyer personas and take a closer look.
What does your ideal audience look like? How old are they? What are their interests or hobbies? How much education do they have? What social media platforms do they use most often?
As you analyze your personas, be sure to verify the inferences you're making with data you have from past social media campaigns.
For example, if one of your buyer personas is a young professional woman in her mid to late 20s, and you're assuming she's interested in wine subscriptions, books, and is most likely found on Instagram, check your previous social media ad campaigns.
If you advertised to her, using those interests, age ranges, and education level or job title, how did those ads perform with her on Instagram? If they didn't do particularly well, maybe there's something you're missing. If they did really well, it might be worth expanding and optimizing that social media campaign for even greater results.
If you're optimizing your social media ad campaigns, one of the first places to start is your creative. Creative — videos, images, and even copy — is the crux of successful social media advertising.
Think about all the ads you see on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more, every day. Which ones made you stop and think? Which ones did you click on?
My bet is you clicked on the ones that were eye-catching, well designed, and looked most relevant to you. Strive to achieve that when optimizing your social media ad campaigns.
A few best practices to test out if you're not sure where to start:
Still stuck? These three posts have some great examples of Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin Ad types done right:
You didn't think you were going to get out of this without some lecture on content, did you?
As a writer, I couldn't let that happen. It's also pretty important for your budget — you're running social media ads to drive some sort of revenue, aren't you?
Alrighty then, copy is important.
Revamping your ad messaging is also one of the easiest ways to optimize our social media ad campaigns.
Take a look at the copy you have.
Does it:
If you said no to any of those questions, your copy could use a little work.
Remember, ad copy should be short and to the point. You only have a few seconds to grab your audience's attention, so don't overload your social media ads with a ton of copy.
Use bright, bold copy that invites action and speaks directly to what you're trying to achieve. Here are a few examples we love:
There are so many ways to budget social media ad campaigns, it's enough to make your head spin. But, it's a good idea to do your research, and really take the time to understand where your money is going, and when, so you know you're making the most of it.
There are tons of amazing social media ad budgeting guides out there, so I'll let them explain the nitty-gritty:
WordStream's 9 Ways to Lower Your Facebook Ad Costs
Hootsuite's Social Media Advertising 101: How to Get the Most Out of Your Ad Budget
Not ready to get into it right now? No worries, here's the CliffsNotes version:
The best way to optimize your social media ad campaigns? Never stop improving them.
It sounds cheesy, but it's true. As your ads continue to run, you'll gather more and more data that you can use to optimize them. You'll learn more about when those campaigns perform best. You'll learn who responds best to those ads.
And you can continue to refine those social media ad campaigns over and over until you have tight, well-performing social media ad campaigns across platforms.
Set yourself a monthly or bi-weekly schedule to:
When you know why your ads are doing what they're doing, you'll have the information you need to tighten them up for optimized social media ad campaigns that deliver the results you want.
Social media ad campaigns are a useful tool for a huge range of industries, but they can be pretty overwhelming to get started on. With so many options for budgeting, audience targeting, copy, and creative, there's a lot to consider. If you're just not sure where to start, or you'd like a bit of expert guidance, the Evenbound team is here to help.
At Evenbound, we're all about helping our clients grow. We use inbound and outbound marketing strategies to deliver you the qualified traffic and leads you need for serious growth. And we have a lot of fun doing it.
hello@evenbound.com
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Grand Haven, MI 49417
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