LIFE AFTER LAUNCH How Top Marketers Take Social Campaign Optimization To The Next Level
LIFE AFTER LAUNCH How Top Marketers Take Social Campaign Optimization To The Next Level Here s the blatant, brazen truth. If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, then your advertising campaign is only as effective as your ability to optimize. Of course this is much more complex than it may seem, and involves many factors like technology, creative, targeting, budget and price. In this guide, we will outline the items you need to consider, and where you may want to add supplemental tools to attain the type of performance that puts a big smile on your boss s face. From Simply Maintaining To Achieving Amazing While the native tools provided by social media sites will give you a solid starting point to build an effective optimization plan, many focus on a subset of potential optimization components such as bids, standard metrics and ad groups. As we go through each of the five sections depicted on the right, you will learn what these tools can do and where you ll need smart technology to fill in the gaps.
1 ADVERTISING GROUPS Let s start at the beginning, shall we? Any smart marketer will test several combinations of creative and copy to determine what best resonates with their buyers. An ad group, simply put, is a collection of ads created from a variety of campaign assets. Native tools will help you determine which of your ad groups are helping you make significant strides towards your goal, and which groups are falling short. For instance, if you have more than one ad group trying to drive clicks, the native tools can help boost the ad groups that receive the best click through rate (and vice versa). This however, is merely the first piece of the larger optimization pie.
2 ADVERTISING SETS Going down another layer now, advertising sets are comprised of multiple ad groups. Since ad sets are comprised of many ad groups, and are what the budgets and bids are attached to, optimizing them is pivotal to drive maximum results. While native tools can help optimize ad set performance, they are limited in that they only focus on bids derived from standard metrics and solely for specific pricing models (think Facebook s ocpm option). There is also little transparency into exactly what bid optimizations are occurring, leaning instead on bidding price caps set by marketers who determine the maximum amount they want to spend. This is an example of an area where marketers can add a supplemental tool to help provide an added layer of optimization, and increase the quality of the actions taken.
3 BUDGET This probably goes without saying, but applying your budget in a way that attains (or exceeds) your goals is extraordinarily important and impactful to your bottom line. However more often than not, it s the bid that s optimized rather than how your budget is applied to high performing ad sets. And since native tools do not offer this option, here are some things to keep in mind when looking for additional tools: The Importance of Allocation You may be wondering why budget is as important (if not more so) than your bid. Plainly stated, would you rather save 10% on your $1 bid or 10% on your $100,000 budget? Optimizing how your budget is allocated to top performing ad sets will have the largest impact on campaign performance. Another key factor for any optimization tool is the flight for both your individual ad sets and your campaign as a whole. This allows you to maximize your results and avoid evaluating performance within a vacuum, which can be misleading. Superior Pacing Marketers often need the extra flexibility to control campaign pacing in addition to bid and budget optimization. For example, say you re releasing a new product and would like to overpace on the day of your launch event. You should be able to enable that spend pattern without a lot of manual adjustment. Ultimately, your tool should be able to include advanced pacing features that can adapt to whatever your needs are at that moment.
4 ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN GOALS Your goal is the whole reason you re advertising in the first place. It drives your targeting, creative and strategy, so the more customized you can make it, the better. Native tools offer standard metrics such as conversions, comments, retweets and video views as objectives by which you prioritize your campaigns. But what if you need another layer? Here are a two features to consider: Custom Metric Creation The ability to combine standard metrics can help add depth to your strategy. For example, instead of simply optimizing your video campaign by views, combine views and share to create a custom impact score. This will give you better insight into the quality of your ad sets, and more accurately drive the results you are are actually looking for. Rules & Triggers Including another goal that impacts budget allocation can also be useful. By this we mean not only optimizing ad sets by a primary goal such as conversions, but also adding a dynamic rule to pause budgets should your cost per lead exceed an undesired amount. Having this added layer on top of the native optimization tools drastically improves performance and limits waste.
5 TARGETING Finally we come to targeting. Because it s applied at the ad set level, when this layer is optimized, essentially so is your targeting. And since campaigns often apply different targeting mixes to lots of ad sets, the need to apply robust budget optimization is key in helping marketers determine which audience components work best. Identifying your most effective target and ad set is simply not enough. In order to really see ROI, you ll need supplemental technology that can adjust budgets across campaign components and glean the most results from your best audiences.
At the end of the day, optimization is never static. It s a fluid and ongoing process that should be in the forefront of every marketer s mind, and carefully considered when building social advertising strategy. If you forget everything you ve read so far, remember these 3 things: Native tools are your starting point, not your destination Top marketers also optimize budget allocation, not just bids Customizing pacing and campaign goals will elevate your insight and overall performance
ABOUT Unified is an award-winning cloud marketing technology company. Unified provides professional marketers with end-to-end solutions for data-driven insights, real-time news feed optimization, and programmatic advertising across all major social networks in one system of record. The cloud-based Social Operating Platform features patent-pending social ROI measurement and predictive engagement modeling. Unified serves over 600 customers, including Global 2000 enterprises and their advertising agencies, from its offices in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. Unified is a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer and a LinkedIn Ads API partner. For more information, visit www.unifiedsocial.com. CONTACT US sales@unifiedsocial.com SIGN UP FOR A LIVE DEMO www.unifiedsocial.com FIND US ON