In just a few years, social networks have acquired considerable importance in people’s lives. And because of all the personal information provided by members (profession, age, hobbies, favourite brands, etc.), they have become a veritable goldmine for advertisers who can now target their campaigns extremely accurately.
Social media advertising therefore provides many opportunities. But how exactly does it work and what are its specific features? Universem takes a look at three popular networks which all have real advertising potential: Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Facebook Ads
With a 51% share of the market and 693 million active users (source: Global Web Index), Facebook is without a shadow of a doubt the most popular of these social networks. So what is its greatest asset in terms of advertising? You can personalise your adverts for each client category. For example, you can have a particular advert appear in a particular region, or you can tailor your advert based on people’s ages.
Just like Google AdWords, Facebook Ads is based on a bidding principle. In other words, the more you pay, the greater the likelihood of your ad appearing on your target’s screen. You can decide to pay on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis or on a cost-per-thousand (CPT) basis (for every 1000 views). Obviously, a CPC-based campaign is better for drawing traffic to your site. CPT is useful for branding exercises, i.e., for raising your brand’s profile, or if your target is very wide.
Unlike AdWords, which positions your advert based on searches, Facebook displays your advert based on sociodemographic profiles. As you define your criteria, Facebook Ads tells you what the approximate reach of your ad will be – i.e., the number of people likely to see it. Campaigns which are aimed at a well-targeted audience are very often the most profitable!
The visual format of Facebook’s ads is more effective for attracting your target’s attention. So make sure you choose it carefully!
Once you have defined your target and created your advert, you have a number of options (see image below). You can decide to position your advert on the right-hand side of the page (in the area reserved for adverts). You can also use the sponsored publication system. If you do this, your page will appear in the newsfeeds of those friends who have liked your page or your status. And the most recently developed option allows you to insert your ad into Facebook’s search bar.
Once you have distributed your campaign, Facebook Ads gives you access to a very sophisticated statistics tool. You can use it very easily to gauge the performance of your campaigns and optimise their profitability.
Tip: Take care when designing your landing page – i.e., the page at which users arrive when they click on your advert. This page plays a key role in winning your visitors over, and therefore in converting them into customers.
Universem’s team can help you design your Facebook Ads advertising campaign, together with an effective landing page. Please feel free to contact us.
What are the scenarios in which Facebook Ads is the most appropriate?
- If you post information on your fan page on a regular basis (community management)
- If your clients are physical persons (B2C)
- If your business is leisure- or culture-related or has anything to do with entertainment in general
- If you want to target a specific sociodemographic profile
- If you want to increase the number of fans on your fan page or draw traffic to your website
This list is only intended to provide a few examples and is not exhaustive. When you decide on an advertising campaign, you also need to think strategically about your requirements, aims, target and budget.
LinkedIn Ads
You can also create targeted adverts with the LinkedIn professional network. LinkedIn has more than 200 million users across more than 200 countries and grew faster than any other network in Belgium in 2012.
It uses the same principle as Facebook Ads: you can determine your daily budget for each campaign and decide to pay on a cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand basis. Based on members’ activities, the prices of adverts can fluctuate throughout the day. You should therefore think strategically about how to distribute your budget. For example, 50% of your budget could be spent in the morning, 30% in the afternoon and then 20% in the evening. Once you have used up your budget, LinkedIn will stop displaying your adverts.
Your advert can be positioned in two places: either on the right-hand side of the page or at the top of the page (see image below).
To maximise your campaign’s effectiveness, remember to adapt each of your adverts to your audience. You can do this on the basis of geographical region, business sector and post category (for example: Brussels / Finance / bankers, investors, insurance brokers, etc.).
To make sure you don’t use up your budget in record time, track the performance of your campaigns on a daily basis. This way, you can quickly identify any weaknesses and then reallocate your budget accordingly. According to LinkedIn, a good advert can reach click-through rates of more than 0.025%.
We also want to make sure that your campaigns are profitable! Using high-performance analysis tools, Universem’s specialists can help you optimise your return on investment. Please feel free to contact us.
Tip: Remember to create variants of a given advert for each campaign. This way, you can find out which one gets the highest click-through rate! Unless otherwise instructed by you, LinkedIn will automatically show the best-performing advert to your target.
What are the scenarios in which LinkedIn Ads is the most appropriate?
- If your business is education- or training-related, or has anything to do with human resources in general
- If you want to distribute targeted job adverts
- If you want to raise your profile, promote your products and services or draw traffic to your site
YouTube Ads
You can display your advert on the most famous video platform! YouTube was bought by Google in 2006 and allows users to upload, view and share videos. Around 4 billion videos are watched every day.
The bidding system for video ads is determined on a cost-per-view (CPV) basis. This means that you only pay when somebody views your video. The maximum CPV can be defined on a per-campaign basis, as well as on the basis of the advert’s format. Text adverts and banners are traditionally paid for on a CPC and CPT basis.
A wide selection of advert formats is available on YouTube. They include:
Sponsored videos
Sponsored videos include a title, a description and a thumbnail. They work in the same way as AdWords: they appear in the list of results when you perform a search on YouTube. The promoted video can also appear in the suggestions column on the right-hand side of the page.
InStream video ads
With this format, your advert is inserted at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a video. Such adverts may not be any longer than 15 seconds.
Advertising banners
This format appears at the bottom of the video player. The advert can be an image or some text, and will send users to a website or to other videos when clicked on.
Click here to view a complete list of available formats
Once you have determined your budget and the format you want for your advert, you have to define a target and a category (education, science and technology, etc.).
You can also create your own channel for free on YouTube. When you create a personalised channel, you can bring together all video content that relates to your brand. This way, you can easily entertain your audience and encourage them to get involved (using tools for sharing, subscribing to and creating content).
You can use your YouTube account’s analytics tool to get essential information about your target (do they watch videos until the end? where are they based? how old are they?, etc.), as well as about your campaign’s performance (number of views, popularity, etc.).
Tip: To make your campaign more effective, use the exclusion function. This way, you can exclude certain specific channel or video content pages which provide relatively low conversion rates.
What are the scenarios in which YouTube Ads is the most appropriate?
- If you want to broadcast an advert in video format
- If you want to boost the virality of your advert
- If you want to raise your brand’s profile
- If you have original and dynamic content
- If you want to develop your presence on YouTube
Universem is here to help you! Feel free to contact us if you would like more information or if you want to discuss any project you may have.
