Part 1: Targeted Social Ads and determining their effectiveness

Reflection Regarding Social Media Ads

Most of the ads that target my personal social media fall into the same category:  Custom Audiences.

I feel this is based on my online interaction with websites and apps that are linked to my email and/or phone number, and thus my social media accounts. 

An example of this practice would be after I use the Kohl’s app to browse coffee pots.  The next time I am on Facebook, a Kohl’s ad with coffee pots will be displayed.

I believe that the ads targeting specific retailers can be effective if it is something the customer was genuinely interested in purchasing.

The flip-side is the complaint of privacy.  I often hear from friends and family, who believe such targeted ads are an invasion of privacy and many are reluctant to give out their emails and phone numbers as a result.

I also see ads targeting my specific location demographics, such as fairs, upcoming events as well as city-specific information.

These ads are very effective, particularly when combined with known interests.  I find these ads very useful to keep me informed of upcoming events that I may have not otherwise known about.

Tracking the Success of Social Ads

There are metrics used to track the success of social ads.   Analytics is used to track the return of investment via direct revenue or captured leads.

To compute the success of a sales campaign, you simply do the math.

For sales revenue, you divide the sales volume by the cost of the campaign to determine if it yields a gain or a loss.

In order to determine the success of a lead campaign,  you need to know the conversion rate.

This is determined by evaluating the percentage of leads generated per 100.  For example, if 10 out of every 100 leads makes a purchase, your conversion rate is 10%.

You must then establish the lead value by calculating the average sale per customer and multiplying by the conversion rate.  If the average sale is $100 and your conversion rate is 10%, the lead value is $10.

You then compare the cost you paid per lead with the lead value.  If your cost per lead is $5 and your lead value is $10, it is a successful campaign.

Key areas to focus on include reach and engagement.  Although some of these metrics do not lead directly to profits, the cost per lead must be given a value as defined to determine the success of the campaign.

It is important to track all campaigns via analytics.  This will help to focus on where the ad dollars should be spent.  If you notice that the majority of sales are to single women age 18-25, you can use more advertising dollars to target this demographic.

Likewise, if your leads have generated followers that can now become paying customers, you would want to analyze the demographic that you have gained for targeted revenue campaigns.

Part 2: Mockup Campaign for Client

Facebook

For my client, I would recommend a campaign to promote his page.  This will be achieved by targeting the audience by interests as well as demographics.

For his purposes, I will target men and women age 18-24, as this is the largest demographic of both fans and followers of his content.  I am also excluding specific genres of music that do not fall into his category.

To achieve these goals, we will be paying for a CPM Campaign.    This will be a part of an overall larger campaign which includes “Educational Monday”, “Inspirational Wednesday”, “Live Thursday” and “Funny Friday”.

As part of our Educational Monday campaigns, I have advised my client to post educational links targeting music and how to incorporate it into family activities, as well as the health benefits of these features.

As a result of this campaign, I included parenting in the demographics to target.  Below is an ad designed for Educational Monday.  Although it was created for Facebook, in this instance, it could be easily carried to all other platforms.

By offering this educational link to a musical activity for parents and children, I am hoping to increase the engagement on his page as well as his posts.

This particular advertisement can be followed up with a “Live Thursday” event, where the client demonstrates how to play the Ukulele.  I have created an ad reminder to be posted on all platforms below.The cost for a 3-day promotion would be $45 and is estimated to yield 12-76 likes per day.  Even on the low end, this campaign would cost $.80 per follower.

Twitter

A Tweet engagement campaign would be the objective for Twitter.   I suggest this campaign be implemented with “Funny Friday”, to gain more followers.   The ad is listed below and could be used across multiple platforms.

Again, I have targeted the audience by specific demographics as listed below.
I would advise the client to run the campaign for 5 days in total to encompass the educational and promotional information that will be displayed after the client has gained followers.

At a cost of $50 per day, the potential audience is greater than 9 million!   I would closely monitor activity and further refine these criteria after day one.

LinkedIn

Since my client recently established a LinkedIn account, the campaign strategy I would recommend is to connect with adult professionals with children that would benefit from his educational posts.

Using the infographic I created below, the client could connect with this target market.

At a cost of $25 per day for 2 days, the client could increase his following on his other social media sites as well.

 

Summary:

I feel the client could implement the above social ads and spend a mere $345 and drastically increase his engagement, followers and brand awareness.