Social Media Advertising and Its Importance
Of course, online advertising also includes social media advertising. If you’re not yet familiar with it, it’s just a small adjustment. However, it can be useful to be somewhat informed about what works and what doesn’t. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy, and you will likely need to run some tests to discover what is effective specifically for your organization. Organizations of various sizes and types, with diverse objectives, services, or products, can use the same platform with a strategy that aligns with their own goals. This article provides some tips to help you along the way.
Test Multiple Ads
To work data-driven, it’s best not to assume what the best-performing ads are. It’s much better to test the ads and let the results determine which ones perform best. Depending on the available budget, you can decide on a number of ads to display. For an organization with a larger budget, you could create up to 40 ads to see which performs best. Ads that are underperforming or too expensive should then be removed. The remaining ads that do perform well can then be used with their own assigned budget.
Which Meta Ads Perform Better?
One way to evaluate which ads are performing best is to review this after a certain period or after reaching a specific ad spend. However, it’s also possible to look at the results directly. For instance, you can examine the number of conversions and their costs. If you are well above the target CPA, then there is no profit to be gained from this ad, and you can remove it. If you’re close to your target CPA, you can see if you can get below it over time. If you have ads that are performing below your target CPA, keep them and assign them their own budget.
Targeting Your Meta Ads
You might be looking for new customers, wanting to target a specific location, or perhaps you want to increase your followers (for social proof), where it is currently less important if they actually become customers. Ultimately, your goals dictate the methods you use for targeting. A handy tip is to target slightly broader than the specific audience you have in mind. This gives Meta some leeway to better find your audiences. If you don’t know your audience well yet, it’s a good idea to test based on related interests. However, make sure to segment this so you can gather relevant data. Don’t choose multiple interests for the same ad, as this will make the overlapping data unreadable.
With custom audiences, you can retarget. For example, you can target people who have visited your website, use your app, are on your customer list, or have interacted with your profiles and content. If you already have a following and want to expand to more followers from a similar audience, you can also use a lookalike audience.
How Can I Advertise Cheaply with Meta?
While it’s not always advisable to take information from others at face value, studying other marketers can inspire you to try ideas for yourself. By testing, you can discover what works and what doesn’t for you, ultimately leading to more cost-effective ads.
Facebook offers self-study courses that can help you become skilled at advertising with Meta. By better understanding what you are doing, you can allocate your budgets more effectively.
An alternative option is to outsource social media targeting to an online marketing agency. Especially for advertising, it cannot always be claimed that “doing it yourself” is cheaper. You might be spending your budget ineffectively without achieving the desired results. Or perhaps you simply have less time to focus on your core activities, sacrificing your own hourly rate to learn new skills that an agency already masters. Thanks to an agency’s experience, you are also likely to incur less budget loss when conducting tests.
Conclusion
In an effective social media advertising strategy, just like with other online advertising methods, conducting tests and making data-driven decisions is crucial for achieving positive results. The ads need to be targeted and aligned with specific business goals, but it can also be useful to target slightly broader to let the algorithms do their work.
There are various ways to achieve the desired results. Consider what is most convenient regarding cost efficiency. Your current experience and expertise will likely determine how cost-effective it is to outsource this work or do it yourself. Regardless, a well-thought-out strategy, conducting tests, and basing decisions on data form the core of successful Meta advertising.
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