Tag: Social Media
-
Snapchat Mobile App Install Ads: Swiping Over Tapping
In an effort to expand its slice of the social media marketing pie, Snapchat is expanding into mobile app install ads. The theory behind lots of Snapchat advertising is that the user is more engaged on Snapchat as opposed to passively scrolling through their Facebook newsfeed thus more likely to remember and respond to an ad.
Something that Snapchat has done that is a fresh new take on the app install ads is eliminating the need to *sigh* actually click the screen. With a simple swipe up, you’re already on the app download screen, which sounds small but in early tests is showing a huge return for advertisers. According to this Ad Age article, the micro investing app Acorns started running these Snapchat mobile app install ads and is seeing a 40% higher install rate than Facebook.
Say what you will, but Snapchat has lowered the barrier of entry with these ad types. As small as it may appear, requiring a swipe vs a click, it is faster and requires no new screen to load. This is something that Facebook itself already knows, evidenced by ad types like Lead Ads and Canvas Ads that remove the need to click out of Facebook. Or even Instant Articles which are pre-cached to remove any unwanted load times.
What may have started as a self-serving agenda by Facebook and others of keeping users on the social channels rather than clicking out to a website, is also seemingly having a huge positive impact on advertisers as it makes it even easier for users to respond and engage.
-
Facebook One Step Closer to Seamlessly Integrating Mobile Payments
Facebook Messenger recently added PayPal integration and it was just announced that MasterCard account management is coming soon. So it seems Facebook is getting closer by the day to adding the feature digital marketers everywhere should be absolutely giddy about; the ability to seamlessly make purchases within Facebook.
Courtesy of TechCrunch The more we as marketers can reduce friction and lower the barrier of entry, the easier it is to sell products and services. It may not seem like much asking customers to visit your website, add an item to a cart and then enter in all their Credit Card info to make a purchase. But, People. Are. Lazy. The easier you make things for them, the more likely they are to purchase. Just take Amazon for example. They’ve made huge leaps over competitors by simplifying the checkout process. You can see a product on Amazon and within two taps its already confirmed and on its way to your house. Now that is a frictionless experience.
It will start with MasterCard, but when more Credit Card providers get involved and as users get more comfortable sharing their CC info, as well as their Bank Account info for Debit Cards, the easier it will be to sell on Facebook.
This gets back to not being romantic about what works and what doesn’t. Say what you want about websites and website design, but Facebook is slowly making them less and less important. Do you think its a coincidence that more and more of the Facebook products keep you on their platform rather than direct users to your website? Take Instant Articles, Canvas Ads, Lead Ads as just a few quick examples of that. If you make money by selling ad space based on impressions to your website this is an issue, but for everyone else who cares? Don’t be romantic. Take advantage of what works. And what usually works is what captures the customer’s attention and makes it easy for them to buy. Don’t get in the way of a sale because there is nothing more frustrating than shopping cart abandonment.
-
Split Testing is Now Available on Facebook
Facebook is now starting to roll out Split Testing in Ads Manager, which is essentially an easier way to test different variables in ad campaigns to see which ones perform the best. In the past you would have to run separate ad sets to perform tests like this, but wasn’t necessarily a pure A/B test. This is something that Google AdWords has offered for some time, allowing campaigns to experiment and split test. It’s a much welcomed addition to the Ads Manager as one strategy, targeting method, or ad objective that works great for one campaign doesn’t necessarily work the same for others.
So if you’re still having internal debates over whether this ad campaign should optimize for Website Clicks or Conversions, now you can run a split test and see which actually does the best. Learn what works the best for different campaigns and maybe you’ll unearth something totally unexpected.
Have you ever wanted to easily test the same ad on two different audiences to see which performed better? Or maybe you’d like to figure out which optimization type yields the best results, optimizing for Conversions or Link Clicks? Advertisers run tests to identify the best ad performance on Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network and to understand how changes in different aspects of their ad can impact ad performance. Tests like this need to be set up fairly so that advertisers can understand the true impact of their ad strategies on the performance of their ads.
-
Store Visits Tracking from Facebook Hits the Shelves
Unless you’re a big brand or agency, you probably haven’t gotten direct access yet to Store Visits tracking on Google or Facebook. It looks like Facebook is now rolling out their version of the metric with a new ad objective.
“With over 90% of all transactions still taking place offline, driving customers into a store, restaurant, auto dealership or other place of business remains a primary marketing objective for any advertiser with brick-and-mortar locations.”
Essentially the feature allows you to determine how many users visited your business location after clicking on a Facebook ad. While this is exciting news to anyone that advertises on Facebook, there are minimum thresholds that need to be met before FB will grant eligibility.
This has been something marketers have been craving for as long as digital has been driving sales. Everyone has micro-moments, everyone does research online and many people make purchases online, but what about the people that just go into a store to make the final purchase? If not attributed directly or proper expectations are not set, marketers can oftentimes be left out to dry by the gap in data. So while it remains to be seen how well this new ad type will work, it is quite exciting for any brick and mortar locations.
“This objective has been specifically created for brick and mortar businesses who want to reach customers in the right location, with localized ad content and the ultimate goal of driving customers in-store. Additionally, over the next couple weeks, we are rolling out enhancements to the Store Visits objective which will allow you to not only report on store visits, but optimize your ads towards those most likely to visit.”
Facebook is describing this as the “Evolution of Local Awareness on Facebook and Instagram.” They might be right.
-
Snapchat Just Made it Even Easier to Create Custom Geofilters
Snapchat has just made it even easier for businesses to create their own custom Geofilters. Snapchat Geofilters are one of the best ways to quickly and easily get brand awareness. Of course just even making them for fun (or as a product to sell) works too. I recently made a Geofilter for a wedding, geofenced it to the block that the hotel was on and Bam, all my snaps had that extra flair. Plus these are super inexpensive if you are only targeting small areas, but they can get a bit pricey when targeting large parts of a city. So choose wisely as these may be better for specific events rather than an ongoing campaign based on your budget. The big update is that Snapchat now offers tools on the platform itself to create your own Geofilter without any design knowledge needed. So no more Photoshop skills necessary!
- Go to Snapchat.com and click on the Snapchat Geofilter link at the top of the screen.
- Click On Demand to create and schedule a Geofilter for a specific time and location.
- Once you’re on the On-Demand Geofilter page click Create Now.
- Review the guidelines Snapchat has laid out for best practices
- Click Create Online (previously you would have had to build on one your own or use a generic template).
- Welcome to the Snapchat tools section, now experiment and create something!
Red Zmudzien 