Are your Facebook Ads strategy ready for Black Friday? 

This is THE time of the year when shopaholics are hunting for the best offers, so you need to make sure your Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads campaigns are ready to attract hungry buyers. 

So, do you have your Black Friday Facebook Ads strategies all planned out? No? Well, you’d better get on that, because the big day is just around the corner! 

With so many changes to how we advertise on Facebook and Instagram in a post-iOS world, the Meta algorithm is going through some growing pains of its own. So, how can you be sure you’re setting your ads for success? Well, we talked to ACTUAL engineers at Meta and created a checklist with everything you need to have your target audience open their wallets for you!

7 Meta Tips & Updates You Need to Know BEFORE Creating Black Friday

#1. 20 is the New 50

Everyone has heard that an ad set needs at least 50 conversions in a 7-day period. And yes, that was true a while ago, but now things have changed. 

In the past, the Facebook Ads Learning Phase ended when, in a 7-day period, an ad set reached 50 events (whether it is conversions, lead gen, landing page views, etc). However, the Meta Ads Manager has evolved and improved. Now to exit the learning phase for optimization, your campaigns need 20 completed events in a 7-day period.

What does that mean? 

Now, a campaign can leave the Learning Phase after it reaches 20 events, again, depending on the objectives you select. The algorithm will gather data until that time to help you make better decisions in a simplified, quicker way, and make it easier for you to be successful on the platform. 

But what happens if my campaign doesn’t achieve that goal? Then, after the 7-day period *and not a minute before*, you can edit your campaign to optimize it! The algorithm will still learn based on successful events, but to hit true Meta Ad success velocity, you’ll want to consider increasing your budget so that you can achieve the 20 events Meta needs your campaign to hit for optimization in a 7-day period.

#2. Keep Your Cold & Warm Audiences Separated

Let’s think of our cold and warm audiences like a dating process. 

Cold traffic is like when you’re interested in someone you don’t know and want them to swipe right back at you. Your profile pic and information is all they have on you to make a snap judgment decision on whether they’ll engage in a convo and maybe give you their number.  

This is the same for an IG ad. They have 1-3 seconds MAX to decide whether or not your ad is worth ‘swiping right’ via engaging with your content by stopping their scroll. 

Meanwhile, our warm traffic is geared to those that have already engaged with your profile and is either mid-convo or mid-first date. Like a Facebook ad, you’ve already captured their attention, and now you’re ‘courting’ them. Asking them to get to know you more and ideally make some sort of commitment. With dating, you’ll want to ‘make it official’ and with ads you want that lead or purchase! 

They’re totally different, right? 

• Cold Traffic’s primary goal is to get them to swipe right or engage with your content (and maybe purchase!)
• Warm Traffic’s primary goal is to get them converted into being Facebook officials by subscribing to your list and actually purchasing a product

When you blend warm and cold audiences in your campaigns, you’re giving the algorithm the chance to favor warm audiences as they’re more likely to convert to a more cost-effective bidding strategy. This means, using our last example, that it’s more likely for someone that already had a first date with you to say “yes” to a second date because they already know you. Thus slimming down the chance of new swipes showing up on your feed.

Taking this into account, at the top level of your campaign, for cold audiences, you’re teaching the Meta Ads algorithm which cold audiences are yielding conversions. A successful conversion sends a signal to the platform to find more humans like the user who just converted. 

When you’re using cold audiences in a campaign, and excluding warm ones, you’re forcing the platform to find new people *aka people that don’t know anything about your product/service* that will make the desired conversion event.

Should you blend the audiences and include warm audiences in the campaign, Meta will favor the warmer audience time and time again because an abandoned cart purchaser is more likely to convert than someone who doesn’t yet know, like, or trust your offer. 

And Meta is always optimizing for the easier (more cost-effective) win in their algorithm.

That’s why at Mongoose Media we recommend not mixing these audiences in the same campaign. When you throw cold and warm audiences together you’re not teaching the algorithm to specifically find new prospects, you’re asking your algorithm to find the best buyers possible, allowing it to cheat and deliver the ads to people that already know who you are. So, instead, build a campaign for prospecting and another for retargeting warm traffic. 

#3. Know What CPA You’re Willing to Pay for Your Cold & Warm Audiences

The algorithm is listening to you, so you have to tell it exactly what you want. And this applies to anything you set up in Facebook Ads, but it is especially important for the CPA.

Let’s suppose that you are willing to pay $85 per CPA (cost per acquisition) for a skincare customer, but you capped the bid budget at $75. In this case, the algorithm doesn’t have the means to know that you have more money than what you put, so you’ll be forcing it to optimize your ads for a $75 budget. Which can mean you’re limiting your audience reach to forced CPAs that fit within your lower budget. Meaning, you’re missing out on potential customers that you’d be willing to pay for but your bidding strategies say otherwise.

Why is this so crucial? Because there may be better people with potentially higher order value or propensity to purchase available to you, but because you told the algorithm that $75 is your spend limit, your ad may not reach those people. 

Bear this in mind: if your CPA is too high, it will eat into your profits. Conversely, if your CPA is too low, you could be missing out on potential customers. 

Additionally, every day we get closer to Black Friday is a day that the auction experiences additional new competitors to the marketplace and more auction pressure that you’re competing against. So, start thinking about your CPA before the big day approaches. 

{important dates graphic: September 20th, the soft pressure increase in a ‘pre-Black Friday auction’. October 15th – the unofficial kickoff for Black Friday and the D-Day for heavy auction bids. November 15th – consider using different Meta objectives cause everyone and their grandmothers are doing ads.}

And, if you’re not sure what your CPA should be, working with a qualified Meta Ads consultant can help you to set a realistic CPA for your business!

NOTE: Your WARM CPA and COLD CPA should be different.

#4. Your Ads are a Marathon, Not a Place to Bet on Horses

I know that it is very tempting to look at your ad campaigns and ads like they are competing in a horse race. But you’re not betting on a pony, you’re marketing your products or services, so there’s no rush. 

What I mean is that even though you may want to perform a gazillion changes every time you check your ads statics and something seems off, you need to let it rest! As I said above, the Facebook Ads Learning Phase covers a 7-day period; however, if you edit your ad every other day, what will happen is that the time period will restart with every change and your campaign will be stuck in the Learning Phase *sounds like time traveling, right?*. 

Plus, you won’t be giving the algorithm enough time to optimize your campaign! Simply put, let’s suppose you launched your ad on a Monday, but by Wednesday you don’t get any of the results you wanted, so you turn it off. But, what you don’t realize is that, in a 7-day period, the algorithm is working to understand your campaign, so it may take time to reach your target audience and generate conversions. 

And don’t worry! 

Everyone is tempted to edit or stop a campaign when it is not achieving what we want! In fact, at Mongoose Media we used to make that decision after a 4-day period. However, we realized that, by doing this, we were potentially wasting the effort the algorithm is making to optimize a campaign, so now we wait a full 7 days before touching anything. 

So, walk away and go back in a week… But wait, there are a few things you need to be mindful of before you sit back and relax. Here’s a quick ads checklist

• Tracking: 

For Facebook Ads to be effective, it is essential that you have your tracking set up correctly. Without tracking, you will have no way of knowing whether your ads are succeeding or failing during the Holiday season. 

• Creatives: 

During Black Friday, brands compete for consumers’ attention with ads that are often loud, colorful, and eye-catching. As a result, it’s important to make sure that your ads are designed to be thumb-stopping.

Become A Certified E-Commerce Marketing Master

The Industry’s Most Comprehensive E-Commerce Marketing Certification For The Modern Marketer. Turn Products Into Profit, Browsers Into Buyers, & Past Purchasers Into Life-Long Customers. 

Click here

One way to do this is to start working on your ad creatives well in advance of Black Friday. This will give you time to experiment with different designs and ensure that your advertising campaigns are truly eye-catching. 

• Winning offer

Have you already put some thoughts into your Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals? It is important to craft a must-click offer that your specific audience is going to love. 

Remember that Facebook, unlike Amazon, is like walking into the mall during the holiday season. There are a lot of options you can pick and different offers that sound appealing, so, with many competitors out there, it is important to create deals that really persuade your audience!

• Work within a comfortable budget

Have a budget that you’re comfortable spending daily with a long-term goal of success. If you’re coming to Meta ads for a silver bullet, a single solution in your company’s bottom line, you better have a budget to back up the investment for data and the algorithm to find your target audience.

Meta Ads are great to-scale offers that work and as a discovery tool for new audiences. When Meta Ads stand on their own without a cohesive marketing plan for omnichannel remarketing, subscriber engagement, and more, expect to pay high acquisition costs to cover your marketing gaps. 

{Meta Ads on a CVJ image? Meta ads drive awareness, meta ads help subscriber acquisition, Meta Ads can drive excitement and loyalty, but Meta Ads aren’t Atlas, holding the weight of the company alone – that’s my graphic recommendation…. People think Meta Ads are the Atlas holding the world, but instead, it’s the offer that’s atlas and Meta is the muscle on the one bicep only}

#5. The Algorithm Assumes the Data is True

This may sound like a no-brainer, but it is important to understand that the algorithm can’t read your mind, so it learns from the data you give it. 

That’s why it is so important to be mindful about what you tell it. From your target audience to your ad spend, that algorithm will take everything you put as a fact and, if you’re not careful, it can affect your campaign negatively.

#6. Advantage+ Placements & Advantage Campaign Budget & Why They Matter

Placements are also known as the different platforms on which Meta can show your ad. An example of this is running your ads on Instagram, Facebook, or Messenger.

In this case, choosing multiple placements is a great idea if you want your ads to reach your target audience across different platforms. Meta’s platform is going to try and serve your ads on the placement your targeted audience is most likely going to engage and convert.

Taking this into account, by using Advantage+ placements, you’ll be allowing Meta to find the best conversion opportunities for your ad in all the placements.

This not only will help you to get the optimization events at a low cost (because Meta’s delivery system will analyze the data from all available placements and choose placements that are both cost-effective and high-performing) but also will help you make the most out of your campaign budget!

Another way of automating your campaign is by using the Advantage Campaign Budget. This is a feature that allows Meta to distribute your budget depending on the placements where each ad set will get the most optimization events at a low cost. 

With both features, you can make sure that your budget is effectively invested, Advantage+ placements and Advantage Campaign Budget are godsend help during the Black Friday season

#7. Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns

If you were looking for a way to increase your campaign’s performance without having to stick to your computer 24/7, the new Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, launched on August 15, 2022, is quickly becoming my favorite new roll out from Meta. This new Meta product can automate an entire ad campaign with machine learning, so you can focus more on the general aspects of your online store and less on managing campaigns.

Just imagine being able to automate EVERYTHING from creatives and placements to audiences. With Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns you can maximize your ads’ performance throughout the Black Friday weekend (and beyond) without all the manual work it used to require. 

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns allow business owners and paid media buyers to use AI to automate a campaign from end to end and make the best out of their ad budget by finding the best placements in which your ad will get the most conversion events at a lower cost.

And, if that wasn’t enough, this new feature can also automate creatives to analyze which ones are more effective in a specific audience! 

Finally, if you have a Facebook or Instagram Shop, Meta is using AI to drive traffic to the most converting destination for your eCommerce store. Either your in-platform store (FB or IG shop) or your website, depending on which one will generate the most optimization events in a certain audience! 

There’s nothing you can’t achieve with this tool and, even though it’s still in its Beta version, acting on it now will give your campaigns a lift as most other brands and advertisers aren’t taking advantage of this new campaign!

What’s the Best Time to Run Facebook Ads for Black Friday?

As soon as possible! Taking into account that you have to wait for the Learning Phase 7-day window, help the algorithm understand and optimize your campaign, and make edits if necessary, at Mongoose Media we recommend our clients to start their Black Friday Facebook Ads campaigns between July and September. 

However, this doesn’t mean that you should have launched your sale months ago! What you should have done is launch campaigns to find your audience and build a warm list.

The idea is to build a list of buyers that want your product/service and are eager to get a good deal, so you can offer them early access or another offer if they signup or register ahead of the big day. 

Why is this so important? Because even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday may seem like a weekend events, more and more people start craving good deals and offers even before November starts, so it is crucial *and cheaper* to start warming up your traffic early

But wait! If you’re reading this in October/November, that doesn’t mean everything is lost. You just need to be mindful that, when you launch your Facebook ad campaign, there’s going to be a lot more auction pressure. 

Ready to Start Preparing for a Successful Black Friday?

Planning your Black Friday campaigns with time is the key to not only crafting profitable ads that catch the attention of your target audience and persuade them to click the “Buy now” button, but it also helps the algorithm understand your brand and put your deal in front of the right people. And now you have a checklist with everything that has changed in Facebook Ads and you need to keep it in mind to set your campaigns up for success. 

Do you feel already overwhelmed with all the preparations pre-Black Friday? Fear not, you’ve come to the right place! At Mongoose Media we have a team of Facebook experts, copywriters, designers, and strategists that will help you with the planning while you worry about running your business!

So, meet with us and start your journey to a successful Black Friday Facebook Ads strategy!

The post 7 Things You Need to Do AHEAD of Your Black Friday Facebook Ads According to Meta appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Welcome to the fun world of digital advertising, where everyone starts off asking the same question:

What even is digital advertising?

If you’re not Steve Jobs and didn’t realize how important digital advertising was going to be in building a company in 1984 (the year Apple’s iconic commercial launched), this is your OFFICIAL invite into the club.

Let’s be honest, none of us got the memo as quickly as Jobs did. Yet, we can all learn a valuable lesson from him.

Digital advertising can catapult a business, like Apple, into success and create raving fans from your customers (this is advice from a company that reached a $1 trillion valuation in 2018).

What is Digital Advertising?

Digital advertising is a strategy that promotes a product online. This promotion happens on social media platforms, search engines, websites, or even in your inbox. Essentially, digital advertising is promoting your product or services to people on the Internet.

And (just to drive home the point) it’s a huge part of the marketing industry right now.

In 2018, Facebook made $55 billion in advertising revenue. That means that marketers paid them a cumulated sum of $55 billion to advertise their products on the Facebook platforms.

Like we said, digital advertising is kind of a big deal.

It can also be referred to as “online advertising” or “paid media.” All of these terms just mean that you’re promoting a product online with the hope of starting conversions (i.e., users to sign up for your email list, people to buy your product, etc.).

Do You Want to Become A Master Media Buyer?

Become One Of The Most In-Demand Media Buyers On The Market. Get Certified »

How Does Digital Advertising Work?

When Apple ran their iconic ad in 1984, everything was pretty simple. While they had to wait until 2000 to be able to run a Google ad for their products, there wasn’t much competition trying to steal their customers online when they could finally launch online ads.

Which is the total opposite of what digital advertising is today. Customers in 2020 have a lot of options when it comes to who they want to buy their products from, and this rise in options has made online advertising a bit more complex than it used to be.

But, don’t worry. At DigitalMarketer we have blog posts and courses that will teach you the most up-to-date information about paid media as it stands today. While this may seem overwhelming, it all starts to make sense the more you learn about it.

For example, digital advertising requires you to have a traffic campaign and it all starts with your customer.

To create an online advertising strategy that works, you have to create the right ad for your audience. It needs to be something that makes them stop scrolling and think, “Wow, that’s exactly what I need.” That ad is going to make your prospects convert—remember, this is marketing lingo for getting users to sign up for your email list, people to buy your product, etc.

And if this were 2000 again, you could stop there. But…digital advertising requires a bit more effort now. 

Part of this strategy also involves building relationships with your audience by giving them free value and showing them that you’re the business they want to buy from. It also involves doing audits on your ads to find ways to improve them and increase your conversions.

You’ve most likely spent the majority of today looking at different forms of digital advertising (we’ll explain how in the next section). Let’s look at some examples!

(NOTE: Need a helping hand with your digital marketing efforts? Or maybe you just want proven, actionable marketing tools, tactics, and templates to implement in your business? Check out the latest deal from DigitalMarketer, and you will be on your way to helping your business grow.)

Examples of Digital Advertising

If you’ve spent anytime online today chances are that you’ve seen some form of advertising. That’s because it’s really…everywhere.

For example, Mazda is using Twitter to promote their new model, MazdaCX30 (as you can see by the “Promoted” text in the bottom left-hand corner):

Industrious HQ, a coworking space located in Los Angeles, is running paid media on Instagram (notice the Sponsored text under their name):

DigitalMarketer is running ads on Facebook (again, notice the Sponsored text under our name) Also, is anyone else hungry?

And even Office Depot is running ads on websites, like Forbes:

So, unless this article is the first piece of Internet content that you have touched since you woke up this morning, chances are you’ve spent a lot of time looking at digital advertisements—whether you realized it or not.

And that’s because business owners, agencies, and marketers are now on the train that Apple hopped on over 3 decades ago.

It’s is a huge market (obviously). Businesses around the world have figured out that with digital advertising’s ability to target specific audiences they can create more customers and double their business.

And that’s a really big deal.

(NOTE: Need a helping hand with your digital marketing efforts? Or maybe you just want proven, actionable marketing tools, tactics, and templates to implement in your business? Check out the latest deal from DigitalMarketer, and you will be on your way to helping your business grow.)

The post What is Digital Advertising? appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Facebook ads are changing. Realistically, who’s surprised?

Facebook ads and change are synonymous. It would take at least 3-digits to count all the updates Facebook has made to its advertising platform since its launch in 2007. As marketers, we’re just riding the wave (including the biggest wave of their recent parent name change to Meta).

With each advertising change, it’s not our job to dramatically ask, “WHY?!”. Instead, we have to ask, “How?”.

• How are ads changing?
• How does this impact my business specifically (based on products and niche)?
• How will I adapt?

Here’s what you need to know about the latest changes launching on January 19th, 2022.

*Some* Detailed Targeting Options Will be Removed

For those relying heavily on Facebook advertising for profits, take note that Facebook said *some*—not all.

This isn’t necessarily Facebook’s opinion on how to make advertising better. The social media platform confidently says, “We strongly believe that the best advertising experiences are personalized.” But, their consultants in the civil rights and policy sectors (and their stakeholders) are requesting the update.

Facebook is agreeing to make some parts of their advertising platform less personalized to “better match people’s evolving expectations of how advertisers may reach them on our platform…”.

The detailed targeting options that will be removed involve topics that Facebook has categorized as sensitive like:

• Health
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Sexual orientation
• Religion
• Political beliefs

As of January 19th, 2022, advertisers will no longer be able to target users based interests like:

• Lung cancer awareness
• LGBT culture
• Jewish holidays
• Social issues

And as usual, Facebook will also use this update to remove targeting options on interests advertisers haven’t been opting for.

Here’s a rundown from the Meta for Business blog on how advertisers can adapt to these new changes.

What Does This Mean for the Marketing API?

The Marketing API will change on January 19th, 2022, but most campaigns can continue targeting the above options until March 17th, 2022.

That doesn’t mean you should wait until March to make changes, though. Facebook’s recommendation is to “the list of ad set IDs targeted at affected objects via the Deprecated targeting terms API. Thereafter, partners can evaluate the ad sets’ targeting specifications against Targeting Status API to identify the object IDs that may cause a pause in delivery.”

Before March 17th, you can make edits at the campaign level but Facebook warns some edits at the ad set level, like changes to placements and targeting options) could update your target audience. They’re advising you to avoid editing your campaigns or ad sets if possible, after January 19th.

How to Know If You Chose a Removed Targeting Option

After March 17th, 2022, advertisers choosing a remove targeting option will see this message from Facebook:

“Error code 100, sub code 18157520: Cannot Use Invalid Detailed Targeting Options: Some of Your Detailed Targeting Options Have Been Removed: This ad set includes detailed targeting options that are either no longer available or unavailable when excluding people from an audience. You may need to remove items from your ad set or confirm the changes to turn it back on.”

If you see this message, you’ll need to update your targeting option outside of the mentioned interests above.

Facebook advertising is changing, but we’re not surprised. We’re here to ride Facebook’s wave—which looks like it’ll be taking us into the metaverse pretty soon. Using their suggestions to help reach these audiences, we can update our ad sets and campaigns to adapt.

Because as marketers, that’s really our main job. 

Master the marketing fundamentals—and adapt to the latest and greatest platform available to reach our audience.

The post How Facebook Ads Are Changing In 2022 appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Four percent of iOS14 users are opting in to let apps track them.

Compared to a few months ago (in a pre-iOS14 world), these numbers can feel staggering. As marketers, we feel these numbers as we look at our paid marketing strategies and wonder…is it all over?

It’s a valid question in a world of uncertainty.

Our first question to ask: where is this data coming from?

“Flurry is an analytics tool that the company says is installed in 1 million apps. Since iOS 14.5’s public launch, it has been tracking the opt-in rate every day using data from 2.5 million devices,” says Mashable.

To be clear, this isn’t data released by Apple based on information from all devices. It’s a “smaller” sample size, but we consider these numbers a valid look at what to expect from Apple’s data.

Does this mean Facebook advertising is going to die?

From billion-dollar lawsuits to government-mandated oversight to politically-driven censorship, there’s a lot to be concerned about. We won’t act like we can predict the future, but we can give you our take.

We’re here to say that Facebook advertising isn’t going to die.

It just might become different.

Facebook’s Current Battles

There’s no secret Facebook is working through a privacy struggle. Governments and states are questioning what Facebook is doing behind the scenes, and part of that involves Facebook paying up for damages.

TechCrunch recently covered the platform’s battle with Illinois, “Facebook will pay over half a billion dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged systematic violation of an Illinois consumer privacy law.” If Facebook faces half a billion payout to one U.S. state, we have to question what that could look like on a global level.

Time reported on Facebook’s attempt at self-regulating itself with the hope of avoiding government regulation in the future, “Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is telling everyone who will listen that it is time to regulate the internet…

Zuckerberg’s efforts began with a 2019 op-ed in the Washington Post, ‘The Internet needs new rules.’ The article proposed four specific actions including things that Facebook was already doing. A few months later Facebook released a white paper reiterating the ideas.”

And then came Apple and their bid to win back consumer trust through the app tracking notifications of iOS14. The Business of Apps explains, “Apple has historically offered people the chance to opt-out before, with their Limited Ad Tracking feature. In iOS14, [the Identifier for Advertisers] will become opt-out by default.”

Facebook’s legal team is hard at work as they try to protect their advertising platform that made $84.2 billion in 2020. We certainly see a platform that needs to abide by the modern consumer’s values when it comes to data privacy‚ but we don’t see this as the end for Facebook.

We just see it as a catalyst for change.

Proof That It’s Not The End of Facebook Advertising

Reason #1: Bet on the Network

A press release from Facebook gave us an inside look into their current numbers. The app 

had an 8% increase year-over-year in daily active users, with an average of 1.88 billion users on the app daily in March 2021. Facebook reported 2.85 billion monthly active users for that same month.

And that’s just Facebook. We still have all of the Instagram users who can spend thirty minutes cruising through their Explore page (we’re talking from experience here). We know Facebook has changes coming its way, but with this many users, it’s impossible to say that this advertising platform will disappear.

Reason #2: There’s Still Data Being Collected

While consumer behavior across platforms creates a dream world for marketers, it doesn’t mean that a world without it equals fewer conversions. What it really means is that we have to learn to market a different way: platforms changes = marketing changes.

The iOS14 update and the privacy updates Facebook is making due to the huge checks it’s cutting to governments and states don’t remove the entirety of data collected on consumers. It just reduces it. Anything a user does on Facebook can still be tracked and used to identify ads users would be interested in.

Reason #3: Marketers are masters at pivoting

Our final reason for our belief in the continued dominance of Facebook isn’t even related to the app. It’s related to you. As a marketer, you’re always changing things. You’re A/B testing your subject lines, seeing how well your offers are converting, and updating your strategies based on the latest trends. We know you’re not going to let privacy changes stop you from advertising.

You’re going to pivot. If users ask not to be tracked across platforms, then we shouldn’t be tracking them. 

This doesn’t mean marketing is dead. It means it’s time for a change. How can you and your team create strategies that get the attention of your customer avatar? Get creative; that’s the foundation of marketing.

We know that a statistic telling you only 4% of Facebook users are letting the app track them across platforms is scary. But it’s only scary at face value. 

When you dive deeper into what’s really happening here, we see a company ready to do what it takes to maintain control (ahem, Zuckerberg’s quest for self-regulation). We also hear consumers asking for options (another ahem, user’s confusion as to how online ads track them).

As marketers, this tells us Facebook will do what it can to make the advertising experience as good as possible for its advertisers—the people who made them over $80 billion last year. It also tells us people are looking for brands they can trust, which means creating loyalty can become a huge part of your marketing strategy. 
That sure sounds like Stages 7 and 8 of the Customer Value Journey…

The post Is Facebook Advertising Going to Die? appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Facebook advertising is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing out there, but it’s not easy. Between massive amounts of competition and the ability (and responsibility) to constantly refine your ads by reviewing loads of metrics, it’s tempting to simply “set it and forget it” after you establish your initial strategy. Don’t do that!

Facebook advertising is changing and so are your customers’ expectations. Here we’ll give you three new concepts to supercharge your current strategy.

Even with the big iOS 14 update, Facebook continues to be one of the most cost-effective advertising strategies. With that in mind, anytime there is a major change to a platform, it’s time for every business to do a little strategy refresh…

We’ve taken a lot of time to examine and explain our approach to Facebook ads, so for this one we’re simply going to give you a few of our favorite “ingredients” to refresh your strategy. Combine these with your existing marketing message and past advertising analytics to create a fresh strategy to improve your results.

If you have yet to set up your first Facebook Ad, we have you covered.

It’s More Divine to Combine

As more and more digital marketing methods have become available, the harder it has been for marketers to both learn and integrate them into a holistic marketing approach. Each one has a learning curve for proficiency and creativity and, worse yet, the methods themselves evolve quickly over time. Because of this, it’s now necessary to take a step back every few months and reexamine how all the pieces of your marketing plan fit together.

Needless to say, Facebook is one of those pieces. Within Facebook, you have your social media presence, advertising, and community management. While these elements are often parceled out individually, doing so actually weakens them all.

Related: A Holistic Approach to Marketing

Ideally, everything you say on Facebook should feature a similar theme and/or message (we call it your Brand Voice). There’s nothing worse than getting excited about an advertisement just to realize that the most interesting part of a brand was their ad (just imagine the last time you got hyped up for a movie only to find out it was garbage). 

You need to create a set of guidelines that each element of your Facebook presence follows. Here are a few questions to consider:

1. If you had to describe your brand as a person, what adjectives would you use?
2. What colors represent your brand, and what percentage of time should you use them?
3. How are you positioning your brand in the viewers’ minds? Are you one of them, an authority figure over them, a friendly buddy?

These questions really relate to your overall Brand Voice, so be sure to check that out for more details. Once you have that set, use these questions to create a more holistic approach to your Facebook efforts:

1. How can your most popular posts be integrated into your ads (and vice versa)?
2. Does your commenting voice match your posting/advertising voice?
3. If you lined up your last post, ad, and comment, would they look like they came from the same place?

Yes, Videos

Yup, videos are still a thing you need to worry about. The statistics for videos in both content marketing and advertising heavily warrant your attention (thank you 99Firms (https://99firms.com/blog/facebook-video-statistics)  for these stats):

• 500 million viewers watching 100 million hours of Facebook vids daily.
• Facebook earned 24.5% of all video ad spending in the USA in 2018.
• 47% of consumers watch more video ads on Facebook than any other channel.
• 71% of consumers find that Facebook video ads are relevant/highly relevant.

More intriguing than those numbers is this one:

Facebook video ads are 10% of the cost of carousel or single image ads.

You need to use video! No, it’s not easier to make a video than a single image, graphic, or carousel. No, you’re not going to be happy with the additional skills, development, and time necessary to create video versus other methods. Yes, you will appreciate the advice once your video ads start killing it.

Creating videos does more for your marketing than just improve advertising return. The process of creating video ads requires additional thought, effort, and residual content that can be utilized in other aspects of your marketing.

For example, the process of storyboarding requires the creation of a central message and purpose, forcing you into the mindset of your potential customer. The effort of setting up your shoot, designing your graphics and animations, writing your narration and/or prepping your actor/spokesperson will all generate content that can be repurposed into dozens of pieces of content for social media, your blog, or your marketing materials.

If you need some inspiration, we’ve created a short list of some of our favorite outside Facebook Video ads of 2020 (link to new article). If you want to see some of our best, check out our most effective ads from 2019. 

It’s Time to Get Real

Your potential customers are looking at A LOT OF ADS. If you’re a marketer, you might actually like seeing them because they give you ideas on how to improve your own. If you’re anyone else, you probably scroll past them quickly, and possibly get angry in the process.

What you and everyone else is looking for is either interesting content (content related to your favorite brands, hobbies, interests, and people) or content related to your personal community (pictures of friends and family, updates about people you love, etc.). The content you share is either supremely entertaining or supremely useful.

Native videos on Facebook get shared 487% more than videos from other sources. While this stat sounds fantastic for your Facebook video ad ambitions, you need to remember that the majority of the content is user-generated and being shared among the user’s friends. 

The point is that you need to start making your Facebook ad strategy more “real” if you want it to gain more traction. Ads featuring user-created content, or that at least appear to be user-created, could be a key to unlocking more conversions.

Here are a few examples of big brands using user-generated content in their ads (you’ll notice that one of them also appears in our recent article featuring the best examples of evergreen copywriting):

Peloton

Dollar Shave Club

AD LINK

DoorDash

AD LINK

The post 3 Essential Ingredients to Supercharge Your Facebook Ad Strategy appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s the 21st century, people! And while that doesn’t (yet) mean that we are driving flying cars or having robot children, it does mean that we need to step up our Facebook ads game. The industry is quickly evolving, and it can be stressful trying to keep up. Good thing DigitalMarketer is here to help you stay up with the times by showing you our favorite Facebook video ads of 2020. 

Marketing is changing. Facebook is changing. Therefore, Facebook marketing is changing too. One notable trend is the move toward video ads and away from stills and carousels.  

Why Advertise with Videos? 

Obviously, there is the aesthetic and engagement factor. Videos are eye-catching. You’ve heard the phrase “bigger is better,” but we reckon that “moving is better” too! 

Aside from that, videos are more valuable pieces of content than simple graphics. Why is that? Well, for starters, Apple’s iOS 14 update is threatening to significantly decrease the effectiveness of Facebook ads. Probably not to the point where they become obsolete, but enough to make marketers look into advertising on emerging platforms like TikTok or Snapchat. 

By creating a video ad, you can take your Facebook ad and easily adapt it to fit on TikTok or Snapchat. Whereas a graphic might make an okay Facebook ad, but it won’t do you any good on other platforms. If you are putting in the time and effort to make a great ad, you might as well be able to get some extra mileage out of it! 

You can read more about how Facebook marketing is changing here or about the specifics of the iOS update here. 

Here are some 2020 Facebook video ads we love and a quick rundown of what makes them special. Maybe next year, one of your video ads will be on our Favorites List! 

Nike

This one-minute video ad is great because it tells the story of a teacher who is sacrificing her time to serve her community, and it connects her powerful narrative to Nike’s brand. The ad as a whole is also right on-brand for Nike, with bright, cohesive colors and their logo being prominent throughout the video. 

Progressive

We all know and love Flo, Progressive’s spokesperson/mascot. But we also love this ad. It is short and to the point while retaining Progressive’s casual and playful air. Another good thing about this ad is the obvious call to action (get a quote) and the button to do so right below the video. 

Target

Something we stress at DigitalMarketer is keeping your content on-brand. Target did a great job on that with this ad campaign. One glance at the ad, and you know who you’re dealing with. 

Besides that, this was a great campaign because they reused the content concept across several ads. We love that creative consistency! 

And we know these ads worked as well as they look because they are still active today!

Levi’s

This ad series featured a refreshing 15-second video showcasing Levi’s sustainability efforts. They coupled the sustainability information with daisies, dancing, and denim to create a memorable and cohesive ad. This ad is great because it is short and snappy but also long enough to make a lasting impact on the viewer. 

By aligning themselves with an altruistic effort, Levi’s is offering a “moral” incentive to click and shop. That strategy was well implemented in this campaign. 

DigitalMarketer

Hmm… is it really a shameless self-plug if it’s true? This really is one of our favorite video ads of 2020! 

Here’s why: we open with a great flattery hook. The reader says, “oh, they must be talking to me, because I am, in fact, great at marketing!” And then they keep reading. We seal the deal by offering a FREE trial for the DigitalMarketer Lab. The video itself is perfectly in tune with our brand; it’s engaging; and it gives an exciting rundown of what our lab has to offer. 

Did these ads spike your interest in Facebook video ads and marketing? We’ve got plenty more FREE content for you in this series. Check out the rest of our Facebook Marketing series on our blog, or click here to read the pillar article. 

The post Our Favorite Facebook Video Ads of 2020 (and Why We Love Them) appeared first on DigitalMarketer.