R.J. Talyor, CEO, Pattern89
Marketers are increasingly spending more money on digital marketing, year over year, and 2018 stuck with that trend. On average, marketers spend 43.62% of their advertising spend budget on digital marketing alone, and research shows that percentage is increasing, according to AppNexus.
With the wealth of consumer data that e-retailers and brands have access to, and the platforms that allow the opportunity for personalized advertising experiences, paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram is essential to today’s digital marketing strategy. Consumers have begun to expect personalized content, and ecommerce marketers are faced with the challenges of connecting with them through highly relevant ads on their social media feeds.
Paid social advertising is a big part of a digital marketer’s strategy, and it’s getting bigger as time goes on. Here’s a quick look at paid social advertising’s increasing relevance, based on data from venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report:
- 55% of consumers say they’ve purchased a product after discovering it through social advertising.
- 6% of all referral traffic to ecommerce sites came from paid social ads in 2018, and that number is steadily increasing.
- Advertising on Facebook is driving the largest amount of product discovery… but advertising on Instagram is growing more quickly, and it might surpass it.
When it comes to running ads on Facebook and Instagram, ecommerce marketers can no longer “set it and forget it” in today’s fast-paced world, rely on gut feelings to make creative decisions, and focus solely on creating and maintaining conversion ads. Given the growing importance and impact of paid social advertising, the time is right for e-retailers and brands to spring clean their social ads and incorporate more effective strategies for success.
What should some of those strategies be?
1. Identify and cut old and underperforming ad sets. As soon as you discover an ad isn’t performing well, cut it. Examine your CPC and CTR and take action daily.
2. Use data to determine creative and strategic decisions. Advertiser data is being collected and combed constantly. Use it to your advantage by analyzing headline length, imagery, and creative that works best for you.
3. Create a balanced, full-funnel approach to advertising, and run awareness, consideration and conversion campaigns. People need to know about your product before they decide they want to buy it. You need to show customers attention at all stages of your sales process.
Once you’ve incorporated the above strategies, there are top-performing characteristics of successful social ads to consider as well. Using data science and machine learning to analyze millions of data points and billions of ad impressions, AI is able to indicate what creative elements are top performers across industries.
After examining metrics in a cross-industry ad analysis, it’s been determined that these image tags and emojis have given advertisers the highest return on ad spend (ROAS) in Q1 of 2019:
Q1 2019’s Top-Performing Image Tags
- #soda
- #texting
- #sink faucet
- #egg
- #desk
- #restaurant
- #electric guitar
- #burrito
- #yogurt
- #motorcycle
Q1 2019’s Top-Performing Emojis
If any of these types of imagery or emojis are relevant to your brand, you should consider incorporating them.
These insights and tips offer a road map for ecommerce marketers to positively impact their social ads’ ROAS. Take into consideration the points above to help spring clean your social ads and drive success for your digital marketing efforts in 2019—and beyond.
Pattern89 provides an artificial intelligence platform designed to improve advertising results on Facebook and Instagram.
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