How to Run a Successful Social Media Ad Campaign
So, you have finally decided to create a social media campaign?
Sounds fun? Maybe, but when it comes to execution, social media ad campaigns can be challenging.
A well-designed social media campaign can quickly skyrocket your digital marketing efforts and help in boosting your branding.
It’s no secret that having a social media presence is more than a necessity today because it helps connect with customers and get the word about your business. The beauty of social media is that you don’t have to hire a top-tier ad agency to run a great social media campaign.
Also, you don’t have to be a Scrooge McDuck to compete or run an ad campaign.
You need a solid plan and understanding of how to run a successful social media campaign.
There is no hard and fast rule to building a social media campaign, and no single formula works.
So, to make your life easier, we are discussing some proven tips to help you create a campaign that delivers results.
How to Run a Successful Social Media Ad Campaign
Use these steps to run a successful social media ad campaign:
1. Understand the goal of your digital ad campaign
The first step is to work with your team on what you want to achieve from the campaign. Are you promoting an event? Are you offering a new e-book? What action do you want users or followers to take when they see your post? Are you planning to lead them to your landing page, where they can shop your products directly?
Ensure you create well-articulated and achievable goals while ensuring that your ads are compelling and exciting for your viewer to take the desired action.
After determining the goal of your social media ad campaign, your next step is determining the audience you would be targeting with your social media ad campaign.
When you create video ads for social media, focus on narrowing down the scope of your ad based on the demographic features to increase the chances of converting prospects to loyal customers.
While targeting a large group audience might seem a profitable and tactical move, it generally does not yield the desired results.
2. Choose the right advertising format
Chances are that you have seen many ads on your own on Facebook or Instagram, but you might be unaware of the various social media ad formats. Companies might prefer using the following types of ads:
- Static ads: Static ads show a product or service using a single photo. These ads require a creative professional to design photos that customers remember for a long time.
- Video ads: Video ads are the most popular and receive maximum engagement on social media platforms. These ads can naturally capture the audience’s attention while scrolling through their feed. Because short videos deliver desired results, such ads are not going to cost too much. You can use video ads to create bite-size commercials and real-life product videos.
- Carousel ads: These are tap-friendly ads that a brand can use to show off its product collection. Brands can use a carousel ad to show multiple products or angles of the same product.
With 49% of internet users likely to purchase from a brand, they see advertised on social media, using the proper advertisement for the right campaign can be the difference between success and failure.
3. Know how ad targeting works on social media
Apart from thorough planning, even the smallest possible detail can impact the performance of your campaigns and increase your brand awareness through an intriguing and thoughtful ad.
Knowing the way ad targeting and bidding work can help you run a campaign that performs beyond expectations.
For instance, Facebook and Instagram help target customers based on their interests, demographics, and age. These platforms give you the power to target a lookalike audience based on your campaigns and email list based on people who visit your website.
Another critical aspect of social ads is an in-depth understanding of the bidding. Based on your bid and budget, Facebook is likely to display your ad to your most relevant customers.
4. Create compelling and thought-provoking content
The images, videos, and content you use in your ads often decide how effective your advertisement is.
As human brains can process and identify images they have seen for 13 milliseconds, having eye-catchy visuals and a flashy video can help attract your target audience’s attention.
Dull ads with monotonous content are likely to get buried in the overpopulated news feed of your social media users.
But, it does not mean you spend all the time designing a video or image. Providing a content backup and using words that seamlessly convey your thoughts is essential for running a successful campaign.
Your images should complement the content you’re writing for your audience to understand its purpose.
5. Set your budget and schedule
Most marketing teams commit the mistake of not setting the right budget and schedule. Try to stick to your budget because overshooting it can cause issues with other finances. Ensure you know your budget before bidding on various social media platforms.
Ignoring budgeting and scheduling and blindly focusing on ad targeting and bidding is an excellent way to raise your bills without seeing the desirable result.
Also, when deciding your budget, it is essential to know the best time of the day to run your ad campaign. It might provide you with the desired result. Though it might take some time to set the best time, you can see results using the right strategies.
Also, by automating your campaign, you can focus on more important aspects of conducting a business.
6. Track your results
One leading aspect of using social media ads is that they offer a plethora of accessible metrics that many social media platforms give you to understand and know how your ads perform.
Before running your campaign, focus on conducting A/B testing on different versions to know which copy or ads work better for your brand. Once you get the report, it becomes easy to fine-tune your campaign to yield the best and most desirable result.
When using ads for the first time, you might not see the desired result, and your ROI might not be high. Your ROI is likely to increase with time because you might see a positive trend. It will help you harness the true power of social media ads.
With social media ads, never just set and forget because you must actively manage your marketing campaign.
How can you optimize your social media ad campaign?
Making the most of your social ads means experimenting because your first campaign is not likely to work. Never expect your first campaign to knock it out of the park.
To optimize your social media ad campaigns, focus on fine-tuning your budget and work on the ad creatives to deliver ads that resonate with your target audience.
Using techniques such as creative testing, focus on understanding the call-to-action images or phrases that work best for your social ads.
To further optimize your ad campaign, dig deep into the social media analytics to understand
how your paid performance works and compares it with results a few days or weeks ago.
Knowing your data is critical to understanding what ads are working and which ads are yielding the desired results.
Key takeaways
Whether you agree or disagree, social media ad campaigns are more of a necessity, and their success primarily depends upon ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ for the brands.
As organic search is becoming harder because of growing competition, paid ads are often the leading way to ensure you reach your target audience.
Also, a social media ad campaign takes a lot of work. You must plan, create, analyze, test, and manage social media advertisements.
While the seemingly obvious goal of an ad campaign is to make money, the social media ad campaign isn’t about dollars and cents. These ad campaigns increase brand awareness by introducing someone to your business or re-targeting people familiar with your brand.
Today, social media ads are an excellent way to get in front of relevant customers. Another benefit of using social media ads is that it helps in driving traffic to your website. This can encourage direct sales and help your business grow.
Hopefully, you have some idea of running a successful social media ad campaign. Use these tactics to reach your target audience.
Brands that focus on social media ads are the ones that have successful campaigns running and are never short of customers.
Author’s bio:
Priya Jain has been copywriting professionally for over eight years. She has attained an engineering degree and an MBA. She teaches math, spends her time running behind her toddler, and tries new recipes while she isn’t writing. You can find her on LinkedIn.
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