If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already using Facebook as a paid social channel for your business. It’s also likely that you want to improve upon your current performance. We work closely with Facebook Ads Manager and have experienced the highs (and lows) of running ads for eCommerce companies. We’ve identified some deal breakers when it comes to what sort of activity a business must run to ensure their campaigns run smoothly – some you may not have already thought of. In this article we’ll share our knowledge, taking a look at six ways to maximise the impact of your Facebook campaigns.
Optimise your site speed
Picture the scene. You’ve created an incredible advert, an absolute thumb-stopper. The design’s slick, the copy’s compelling, your targeting’s bang on. Your click through rates are through the roof. But your website’s letting the side down. If your site takes too long to load, people won’t stick around. Drop out rate is an important KPI to measure, and can be a killer when it comes to your ad performance. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to test your site’s speed on mobile and desktop, then work with your developer to fix the problems if your site is taking four or more seconds to load. To sum up, you want to be directing users to a fast, engaging and user-friendly website that is optimised for maximum conversions.
Perform influencer activity, backlink activity and PR-focused activity regularly
In 2019, social media marketing is a key part of every company’s marketing strategy, however it’s essential that you’re looking wider than just social in order to be successful. The more marketing channels you make use of, the more chance you have of success (if you’re utilising them correctly). SEO, influencer activity and PR activity can all help your brand grow, and the great thing with paid social is that it can enhance the power of all the above channel by remarketing any users that have been directed to your site. Influencer activity is especially integral to the marketing plan of companies in industries such as fashion, as consumers are incredibly likely to trust the recommendations that their favourite influencers post. As social media users no longer look solely to celebs, it’s more influencers – and microinfluencers – who have a big say in what we buy.
Run PPC alongside your Facebook Ads
Google is a tool that’s used by everyone, so it’s crucial that your brand can easily be found on the search engine giant. PPC activity can put your brand in front of users searching for your product. Furthermore, to reiterate the previous point, in order to improve your paid social performance, you should also be running using the likes of Google AdWords to hit users at a different part of the buyer journey. Marketing is a funnel, with the end goal of coaxing your customers down that funnel from awareness and consideration through to conversion and retention. The more people you can get into that funnel, the more people you will be able to retarget using your Facebook advertising – assuming you have set up intelligent audiences to ensure your ads are hitting people who have been on your site. Which leads us nicely to the next point…
Ensure your Facebook Pixel’s installed and working correctly
The Facebook Pixel is an advertiser’s best friend. If you’re running activity on Facebook, you need to have this guy installed on your website. Without it, you won’t be tracking conversions, and ultimately your ads won’t be running to their best performance. The Pixel is a piece of code you place on your site to help you collect user data. It has many different uses, but it in a nutshell it helps you to create better ads with more defined targeting, as well as giving you the ability to remarket to people who have already taken some sort of action on your site. It’ll also allow you to use a wider range of Facebook ad tools including dynamic ads, which can be highly valuable to your advertising strategy.
Focus on your organic strategy
If you want to get the most out of your social media strategy, it’s crucial to combine paid and organic. It’s massively short-sighted to focus purely on Facebook ads alone. If a user clicks from your ad to your business page, it’s crucial that your page looks active, and contains relevant, engaging content. What’s more, the page needs to be manned so that any customer queries that come through via comment or message and handled in a swift manner. You can also use your organic social to help build audiences – by retargeting users who have previously engaged with your content you will be hitting a warm audience who has heard of your brand. It’s a great way to use the two sides of social together, and a cost-effective way of targeting loyal customers with bespoke ads that usually convert very profitably. Read more on the importance of organic social here.
Refresh your creative regularly
It’s no good to run an ad for a long period of time, even if it’s successful. Ads that run for longer than a week tend to decline in performance, even if they were a hit at first. Changing the image, video or ad copy will help to re-engage your audience. We recommend refreshing ad creative every two weeks to keep your quality score as high as possible, to keep users engaged and to ensure you can achieve the cheapest CPMs possible. Cheaper CPMS means that you’ll get more impressions for the same cost, getting the most bang for your buck!
If you’d like an expert to take a look at your current social media advertising set up to see how it could be improved, get in touch! We offer free audits to help you fine-tune your activity and improve your results.
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