Advertisers spent 47 percent more year over year on social ads in the second quarter of 2016, as per a research study by Kenshoo. The study was carried out for campaigns with 550 billion impressions, 11 billion clicks across 20 categories for an estimated advertising spend of USD 6 billion spent during the last five quarters. Smartphones and tablets that are at 64 percent of the total spend make for 92 percent of all advertising spend. Smartphone advertising grew by 63 percent and product ads grew by 71 percent, leading to a total increase in search advertising spend of 10 percent year-over-year. Kenshoo’s study reinforces previous research showing that Facebook advertising makes search campaigns work harder. Adding Facebook Ads to search campaigns boosts campaign performance. Facebook ads are known to increase conversion rates and lower the cost of acquisition.
Key Insights
There was a 19 percent average increase in total conversions among the people who saw Facebook advertising compared with those who saw just paid search advertising. Advertisers looking at increasing campaign reach with Mobile first audiences should build social media advertising in their campaigns.
Among people who saw the Facebook ads in addition to the paid search ads, there was a 10 percent average decrease in cost per acquisition due to the increase in conversions.
Conversions increased as spending on Facebook ads rose, but there was a “sweet spot,” or minimum and maximum spend level on Facebook, to get the strongest performance at the least cost. Finding the Sweet Spot for your social ad campaigns can help advertisers maximize ROI from search and advertising campaigns.
Social Media sites are the popular go-to source for all conversations surrounding Key Sports highlights as seen for other major sporting events. The brand conversation surrounding Olympics, as tracked by Origami Logic has brought in 7.75 Million social media actions across the four major social networks. The initial tracking reports indicate that the top five brands leading in engagement are Nike with 3 million likes, shares and other interactions. Under Amour followed at No. 2 with 2 million; Adidas with 2 million; Dick’s Sporting Goods with 164,000; and Ralph Lauren with 157,000.
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 9, 2016
Among the advertising campaigns the top scorers are Always #LikeAGirl—Keep Playing, from the creative agency Leo Burnett, Minute Maid #doingood I See What U.S. Olympian Missy Franklin Has To Say from the creative Agency Doner and P&G Thank You, Mom from the creative agency Wieden+Kennedy. Samsung Official TVC created by Leo Burnett and Visa, The Carpool to Rio from BBDO make it to the ads leaderboard for Olympics, from April- June 2016.
Five Ways For Brands To Score At Olympics
Celebrate Friendship Through Sports
Conversation on Social Networks for Sporting events are for sharing or viewing moments of thrill, excitement and connecting with other sports enthusiasts. Use of characters and brand menmonics such as Vinicus, the official mascot for Rio Olympics 2016, who is known to combine the agility of cats, the sway of monkeys and the grace of birds, can help audiences connect emotionally. Characterizing your brand campaign for sports lend another dimension to a popular sports theme. Brand identity that leverages the affinity for a sport with characterization brings in increased engagement among sports enthusiasts.
Brands can extend product features with the help of influencers and famous athletes to make the campaign memorable leveraging the influence and fandom of famous athletes.
Visual Engagement Freebies
Visual posts are the lead engagement tactic on Social Media and creating freebies such as the stickers pack and freebies with a sports theme are a hit with users. Google’s research points out that 90 percent of the users are using Emojis to express their feelings. Users turn to social media for moments of celebrations for leading sports events providing brands an opportunity to engage fans with visuals for moments of victory on social networks.
Search Advertising
Live Video highlights for the Rio Olympics will appear in the search results and YouTube WatchCards, with Google’s exclusive tie-up with broadcast companies including America Movil, BBC and Japan’s NHK in more than 60 countries. Using Search keywords that are likely to make your campaign discovered with the newer features from Google, that are exclusive to the Olympics, according to the Official Google blog:
Discover the event schedule, medal counts, and athlete information in Search Get results and view TV schedules in 30+ countries Watch official broadcasters’ event highlights on YouTube in 60+ countries Explore Rio and venues in Google Maps Keep up to date with the latest search Trends from around the world
Live Video
Live Video Highlights offer Brands opportunities to showcase winning moments that bring out the campaign message or brand attributes that foster the bond with your audiences. Visa’s campaign for Olympics “The Carpool to Rio”, features Athletes as they strike, jump, cycle and swim their way to Olympics. Facebook’s Live Video is key to Visa’s marketing by enlivening the athletes’ stories to bring forth the similarities with the brand attributes. The campaign’s video posts are used for brand activation with featured partners.
Brand Messaging and Brand Contests
Brands can associate with the games as non-sponsors with inspirational video and messaging. The brand conversation surrounding the message can be integrated with your existing campaign to engage viewers with your Olympics marketing efforts.
Hershey’s contest on Twitter invites users to share the message for Team USA with a Hashtag #HelloFromHome that could be your voice at the Rio Olympics.
Can’t wait for Rio? Start your own HERSHEY’S KISSES Countdown jar & watch the next 10 days fly by! pic.twitter.com/XZZVpG4LVr
Pepsi’s Emoji campaign #SayItWithPepsi makes Emojis the new way to express. To find the right way to express themselves, consumers will have over 200 Emojis to choose from. A contest targeted at younger audiences, gives a chance to go to the VMAs by snapping a pic with all three Pepsimoji bottles and hashtags #SayitWithPepsi and #Entry. A campaign targeted at the teens has Sweepstakes that is co-promoted with Little Caesars #SayItWithPepsi has a cash prize. The Facebook videos feature interactive content #ThrillofTheGame. With Interactive Content and Emoji contests Pepsi has lined up a Winning game.
KFC’s campaign on YouTube features KFC’s signature $5 and $20 Fill Ups, which are perfect for summer meals and gatherings, making the creative resonate within a context. KFC launched the campaign early in July with four spots, that consisted of two :30 and two :15 commercials, all of which will air nationally. The ads featured George Hamilton as the Colonel with an exaggerated suntan to emphasize his “extra crispy” character as he combs the beach to share his love of Extra Crispy Chicken with families. KFC has launched the campaign to highlight the products that are likely to be most popular for Picnics and Summer getaways. The campaign centers around Original Recipe and Extra Crispy. Extra Crispy chicken tenders are the ones with a signature crunch to give special crunchy flavor that makes it a hit with the audiences. With a creative that builds on the digital persona of Col. Sanders, KFC has other elements tied to the campaign such as the digital comic that can be downloaded from the brand site.
Emojis with Product led advertising build an emotional connect and at the same time present a moment of entertainment that can be further extended to Social media. With newer ways to express, audiences find the campaign more engaging. #SayItWithPepsi Campaign has earned 7 Million impressions in two days.
Characters often build your Brands’ Story in a more memorable manner and using characters can create a better resonance. Brand Storytelling differs from Branding which can be best described as “A distinctive set of characteristics and crafting stories across a variety of mediums that communicate and contextualize those characteristics in unique and immersive ways.” In KFC and Pepsi’s campaign The characters enliven the brand story in audiences lives. The characters in the campaigns are used by brands to give a unique consumer experience.
Humor works at building memorability as seen from research. “We observe a strong relationship between humor and impact because humor can drive involvement, which drives memorability.” Using Characters in a humorous situation with Digital engagement that younger audiences find entertaining is likely to be amplified.
Surprise your customers such as find a Pepsimoji bottle with a Pizza Emoji to win a free Pizza.
According to research from NRF and Deloitte, Back To School Shoppers plan to start shopping earlier and Apparel and Electronics are the key shopping categories. The NRF survey estimates total Back To School spending of USD 75.8 billion in 2016. The key shopping destinations are Discount Stores followed by Department stores, while online is the preferred Go-To source for shopping of electronic gadgets and shopping research, with a surge of 30 percent in Online Shopping over last year. Online retailers who offer Free Shipping are preferred by Online Shoppers, according to a survey conducted by Deloitte.
Social Media advertising serves as the primary source of information for users who use social media sites for Back To School shopping.
Shoppers for electronics and electronic gadgets are likely to begin the shopping earlier, while apparel shoppers are likely to complete their purchases later.
37 percent locate a store that carries a particular product
70 percent will make a purchase in-store
60 percent have used location information in ads
Adding Location to your advertising can increase the ROI for your campaigns. Targeting content and Ads with Location of presence or Area of interest, can help you place your ads in a context that increases the local searchers interest. Here are some of the ways you can target users based on location targeting.
Target Users on AdWords based on Geo-location
AdWords allows you to specify whether to show your ads to users by their physical Location of Presence (LOP) or by their Area of Interest (AOI). Location targeting in your campaign can also be done with Radius Targeting that allows you to define your target audience for a select radius. In one of the Case Studies shared by MOZ, the clicks from locally targeted campaigns increased by nearly 8X.
Target Shoppers With Local Awareness Ads on Facebook
Target Users Based On Geographic location With Custom Audiences
With targeting on Facebook, the additional fields on Facebook allow users to reach the target audience based on fields that allow advertisers to target Website Custom audiences based on Location. This can be used to create lookalike audiences in any region that you wish to target.
With Advanced Matching Pixel, advertisers can retarget audiences effectively. Adding an Advanced Pixel, has shown during a beta, an increase of over-10-percent in attributed conversions and a 20-percent increase in reach. To add Advanced Pixel, here is a useful guide for better match rates on the Facebook pixel.
Increase Click-through Rate with Location Extensions on Bing
Bing Ads insights shows that 60 percent of the mobile users are searching online prior to an In-store visit and adding Location Extensions increases click-through by 7 to 10 percent.
