Advertising

Five Steps For Paid Social Media Advertising

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As you set out to create your Social Media and Digital marketing plans for 2017, here are some steps to help you plan your social media advertising for 2017. Based on the success of your organic content or previous advertising efforts you can choose social media network that delivers the best results.

Step One : Define Your Objectives

Start with defining your objectives. If increasing awareness is your objective your goal will need to be more specific.After defining the objectives pen down the goals i.e. Increase awareness by 20 percent.

Step Two : Know your Target Audience

Who is your Target Audience?

What are their interests, lifestyles, frustrations?

What does this group of customers want/need?

What will motivate them to click on the ad?

Develop personas of your Target Audience. Here is an example of personas for foreign Language learning Software company.

personas

Step Three : Develop Compelling Creative

Generate interest with the creative that will make the customers click on the link or take action with you ad. It is essential to use Bold and striking imagery that will compel people to click on the ad creative.

adexample

Create Intent by using phrases in your ad that users are most likely to be looking out for in your brand’s context.

intent

Include Call-to-Action in your ad copy. Promotions and Incentives help drive the intent to purchase, while CTA is important for increasing Click-through or allowing the audience to know how to engage with your content.

Specific Landing Pages

Design Specific landing pages tailored to different products and promotional offers. Well designed Landing Pages are essential for providing a quality experience for consumers and driving conversions with a personalized targeted message.  Fresh creative, iteration and constant testing  keeps  your brand current and top of mind, while avoiding saturation within your audience.

Step Four : Test New Layouts and Styles

Define the goal for your creative testing. Advertisers test ad creative to understand how to improve the performance or which ad concept resonates with the target audience. Set aside a budget for testing. Test different themes to arrive at the best performing themes. Test thematically to top performing audience segments, and use iterations of winning themes concepts. Narrow down on best performing content prior to roll out.

CTRs increase and CPA decreased with a change in creative.

ctrscpa

Step 5 : Target and Optimize

Optimize your campaign by targeting the top performing audience groups. Targeting your audience is based on Age, Gender and location. Narrow down your targeting options to include audiences that are most likely to respond based on your buyer personas. Specify the behaviors, interests and demographics in detailed targeting. For an Organics brand, here is an example of Detailed Targeting and Interests that can be used to narrow down and targeting specifically.

detailed-targeting

Source : The Secret To Facebook Advertising Success, Image sourced from Social Media Examiner

Five Ways To Optimize Campaigns For The Last-Minute Shopper

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According to Cardlytics, the largest holiday shopping segment is the Last-Minute Shoppers, a group of consumers who make up 36 percent of total holiday shoppers and do their gift buying between December 11 and December 31. The Last-Minute shoppers spend more than their counterparts and visit stores more frequently, as the holiday deadline looms. Last-Minute Shoppers contribute to 34 percent of overall holiday spending, with an average transaction of USD 64.34.

Targeting Last-Minute Holiday Shoppers

Use Social media posts to engage last-minute shoppers. Make your posts relevant with imagery and offers that resonate within the context.

Search Advertising

Optimize your search campaigns for the last-minute shopper. Google has introduced the possibility of announcing business hours for last-minute shoppers. The Structured Snippet allows you to target users with an automated messaging that can be customized.

Structsnippet

Structured Snippets are different from Call-outs. Use Call-outs for highlighting special announcements such as free shipping or extended business hours, while structured snippets are used for what you have on offer. You can also look at adding business hours for days where the store traffic is likely to be higher.

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TrueView Shopping Campaign and Video Content Optimization

TrueView for Shopping ads allow merchants to show Shopping ads for their own products in their own videos. Related products are shown dynamically, pulled from advertisers’ Google Merchant Center product feeds, and are now available for advertisers.

TVS

Unboxing videos have become a growing phenomenon, as people turn to YouTube to inform their purchase decisions. In 2015 alone, people in the U.S. watched 60M hours of unboxing videos on YouTube, totalling 1.1B views.

Optimizing your Brand Campaign and Video content for discovery requires marketers to look at the factors that impact the discovery of video including Title, Description, Channel experience and Meta Tags.

Retargeting

Retarget audiences who have visited your site for offers and deals earlier in the holiday season. Google offers Search advertising with RLSA and Bing’s Remarketing campaigns.

Google has extended remarketing capabilities to both shopping ads (PLAs) and local inventory ads (LIAs) with shopping remarketing lists. Now you can optimize your shopping bids to re-engage high-value customers the next time they shop. For example, when those who’ve abandoned their carts on your sites or your loyal customers shop again on Google on desktop or mobile, you can use remarketing lists to tailor your shopping bids and reconnect with them at a more cost-efficient ROI.

App Store Optimization

Include Keywords in your app’s title, for discovery during the holidays. Revise your description to include relevant text, or any special holiday features and promotions your app may offer. It’s important to list these “above the fold” or just before Apple and Google cut off the description with a link to “Read More.” Change your App’s screenshots to include visuals that bring Holiday Offers and Gift Shopping up-front. For example, make your callout “Holiday Savings” or the seasonal keywords and phrases you targeted. Any core features and special offers can be highlighted visually in text and as a screen capture.

To know more about optimizing your app, click here.

Five Steps For Paid Social Media Advertising

Standard

As you set out to create your Social Media and Digital marketing plans for 2017, here are some steps to help you plan your social media advertising for 2017. Based on the success of your organic content or previous advertising efforts you can choose social media network that delivers the best results.

Step One : Define Your Objectives

Start with defining your objectives.  If increasing awareness is your objective your goal will need to be more specific.After defining the objectives pen down the goals i.e. Increase awareness by 20 percent.

Step Two : Know your Target Audience

Who is your Target Audience?

What are their interests, lifestyles, frustrations?

What does this group of customers want/need?

What will motivate them to click on the ad?

Develop personas of your Target Audience. Here is an example of personas for foreign Language learning Software company.

personas

Step Three : Develop Compelling Creative

Generate interest with the creative that will make the customers click on the link or take action with you ad. It is essential to use Bold and striking imagery that will compel people to click on the ad creative.

adexample

Create Intent by using phrases in your ad that users are most likely to be looking out for in your brand’s context.

intent

Include Call-to-Action in your ad copy. Promotions and Incentives help drive the intent to purchase, while CTA is important for increasing Click-through or allowing the audience to know how to engage with your content.

Specific Landing Pages

Design Specific landing pages tailored to different products and promotional offers. Well designed Landing Pages are essential for providing a quality experience for consumers and driving conversions with a personalized targeted message.  Fresh creative, iteration and constant testing  keeps  your brand current and top of mind, while avoiding saturation within your audience.

Step Four : Test New Layouts and Styles

Define the goal for your creative testing. Advertisers test ad creative to understand how to improve the performance or which ad concept resonates with the target audience. Set aside a budget for testing. Test different themes to arrive at the best performing themes. Test thematically to top performing audience segments, and use iterations of winning themes concepts. Narrow down on best performing content prior to roll out.

CTRs increase and CPA decreased with a change in creative.

ctrscpa

Step 5 : Target and Optimize

Optimize your campaign by targeting the top performing audience groups. Targeting your audience is based on Age, Gender and location. Narrow down your targeting options to include audiences that are most likely to respond based on your buyer personas. Specify the behaviors, interests and demographics in detailed targeting. For an Organics brand, here is an example of Detailed Targeting and Interests that can be used to narrow down and targeting specifically.

detailed-targeting

Source : The Secret To Facebook Advertising Success, Image sourced from Social Media Examiner

Ten Ways To Promote Gift Cards

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Gift Cards are the number one gift that people wanted to receive and the Top Three Gift card categories are Department Stores at 33 percent, Restaurants at 35 percent and Coffee Shops at 21 percent. According to NRF consumer insights 78 percent shoppers plan to purchase a Gift Card this holiday season.

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Planning your Gift card strategy with  Social Media and Search Marketing focus can bring in results for your Gift cards and Holiday campaign.

giftcards

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Though search remains a key behavioral influencer for Shoppers, Brand and Retailer social are the emerging Stars for purchases as far as the Digital Tools Influence and Utility are concerned. Your Holiday Season’s Gift Card strategy can look at factoring in Digital tools that are likely to influence Shopper Behavior.

Combining the customer identities with Deep linking of apps on Social Networks can provide newer ways for Retailers to engage audiences with Loyalty Programs and Referral Marketing . 

According to Google Trends, Gift Cards start trending as early as the first week of November.The search queries for Gift cards according to Google trends start building in first week of November and are highest in the month of December in the week of Christmas.

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