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Stop Overpaying with Facebook Advertising

As more advertisers run to Facebook for more prospective ad opportunities, the cost of ad space continues to increase at a rapid rate. It cannot be argued that many companies have gained wide audience reach and brand recognition through paid Facebook ad, but with the overwhelming amount of advertisers flocking to the social network, the market has become diluted. On a positive note, this has naturally resulted in the creation of good ad opportunities elsewhere.

In this article, we are going to discuss why it is beneficial to diversity your online advertising strategy. We will also explain how too much reliance on Facebook can diminish your return on investment by decreasing organic growth which ultimately minimizes the ability to reach target audiences.

A study conducted by Adobe Systems on Facebook’s 2014 Q4 results reported that the social network’s ad click-through-rate or CTR has increased by 365 percent and cost per thousand impressions has increased by 437 percent. Currently, strategies involving direct response and active lead generation are experiencing overwhelming success on Facebook. However, the crowded market competition to organically reach target audience members is forcing the ad price to increase dramatically.

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Due to the limitations set in place by Facebook’s pricing model and ad algorithm, advertisers are forced to pay higher premium rates for ad space compared to other online advertising networks. With the constraints of Facebook’s target metric tools, advertisers are limited in their ability to leverage any third-party applications or behavioral data software that allows for a more in depth analysis, and targeted consumer reach.

As a result of the mass advertiser migration to the social network, more advantageous advertising opportunities are now growing elsewhere, which has inspired clients to leverage more diversified marketing strategies to organically target audiences. Here are some of the ways advertisers can benefit from this recent development:

Easily Access Ad Space Through Real-Time Bidding on a Demand-Side Platform  

Oddly enough, Facebook’s failure to address the click fraud and fake-like issue has helped to balance out the digital ad landscape, allowing more advertisers unlimited access to top of the line inventory on the social network and other websites. Historically, the ad space once known for its high price and difficult evaluation process is now available to all advertisers. You can easily access it through real-time bidding on a demand-side platform. If you wish to determine the return on investment on all ad space purchases, you must rely on billions of data points that help to predict these factors. That is what the best in the business do to determine the estimated value of investment returns. Additionally, when utilizing DSP, you retain the ability to ensure all display strategies implemented are targeting a wide range of audience members from your Facebook ad placements.

Leverage Alternative Types of Ad Units 

As many already know, the implementation of Facebook’s ‘sponsored stories’ feature retained mass appeal to advertisers who wished to fit into the everyday user’s social feed just like they were one of their friends. However, this model is not solely designated to Facebook. Today, you are capable of taking a native ad strategy to a major publishing site that will feature your sponsored content. The various types of content include: infographics, creative imagery and videos, organic links and blog entries. Many advertisers have also found great success by using specifically tailored ad campaigns driven by data that will automatically change their native content based on the user’s personal data.

Integrate Creative In-Stream Ad Videos 

On Facebook, advertising videos are set to automatically play as the user scrolls through his or her feed. This feature has left many with mixed feelings about the invasive nature of this marketing approach. With in-stream video ads, only targeted people who expect to watch a video will be exposed to this ad content. This method of advertisement is commonly referred to as pre-roll video, and has witnessed widespread popularity in RTB due to its great reach and deep levels of user engagement. In comparison to Facebook video ads, the CTR reach for in-stream video ads that are engaging and strategically targeted results in a click-through rate that can reach 5 to 10 percent. This is a drastic improvement over the popular social networks ads.

Use Data Driven Software Products to Better Understand Consumers 

As many veteran online advertisers know, the social networkers greatest limitation rests in its targeting capabilities. In other words, it does not allow for marketing diversification. When clients take steps to diversify ad strategies they are capable of leveraging targeting software and user data, both online and offline, to gain a greater reach to consumers. Additionally, diversification and the utilization of offline user data, like direct mail, and general census data allows advertisers to precisely target an individual’s academic level, number of cars or boats, and properties owned etc. Data driven software products help to drive direct targeted ads to your target audience in a way Facebook cannot compete with. For example, if you sell boat parts, wouldn’t you strive to target a consumer who just invested in a brand new boat? This is a task Facebook cannot handle.

Get to Know Your Consumer’s Personality and Behaviors 

When assessing user mind’s and personal identities on Facebook, it is extremely difficult for the advertiser to understand his or her target consumer. They often find themselves asking questions like: did he log in to respond to a message or to check the status of a friend’s location? Or maybe he is simply wasting time on the site while at work? Is he simply using Facebook to instant message with his close friends and family members? These are all questions asked by advertisers, and the primary trouble rests in not knowing what type of content a user is willing or ready to consume. It doesn’t matter if you have already targeted the right user base, you will still find yourself asking these questions. By making the decision to utilize more uniquely designed and specified ad spaces, where a distinct kind of content takes precedence, you retain the ability to coordinate and guide your content in correlation with the consumer’s state of mind.

We cannot disagree that the ad opportunities Facebook still continue to be widely appealing. However, the reality is that all advertisers must refrain from becoming too reliant on its ad services to target consumers. You will limit your access to countless prospective users by designating all ad campaigns to the popular social network, and refraining to diversify your marketing strategy by utilizing alternative ad space platforms.

Facebook is a great platform to include in your ad campaign, but it would be highly beneficial to incorporate real-time bidding on demand-side platforms, third-party data driven products, and unique ad campaigns designed for alternative ad spaces. This will help to increase your organic reach, incrementally grow your audience, lower your marketing expenditures and give you more return on your investment.

Sponsored by Real Time Media Buying at engage:BDR

Pesach Lattin
Pesach Lattinhttp://www.adotat.com
Pesach "Pace" Lattin is one of the top experts in interactive advertising, affiliate marketing. Pesach Lattin is known for his dedication to ethics in marketing, and focus on compliance and fraud in the industry, and has written numerous articles for publications from MediaPost, ClickZ, ADOTAS and his own blogs.

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