Social media ads for lead generation€¦ · •Paid search –Google and Bing text ads ... Facebook Y Instagram Y Messenger Y Twitter Y LinkedIn Y Reddit Y Taboola Y Quora Y Technical

March 2020

Social media ads

for lead generation

Ann Stanley

(Founder & Managing Director)

A bit about me!

@AnnStanley @AniccaDigital

Choosing ad objectives

and platforms


Choosing the correct ad formats for B2B marketingand lead generation

• What do you want to achieve?• Communicate with existing fans or community• Awareness and visibility to new users• Generate leads or sales

• How does this relate to the sales funnel – i.e. choice of ad objectives?

• Awareness• Acquisition• Conversions• Retention• Advocacy

• Target audience (B2B)• Location • Demographics• Job title and employment details• Interests and behaviours• Custom audiences including site visitors uploaded

lists and Lookalikes


How to classify paid advertising

By Channel• Paid search – Google and Bing text ads

• Paid display – Google Display Network and programmatic display in other ad serving networks

• Paid social & native (often in-feed as it looks similar to organic content) –Facebook/Instagram/Messenger, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Outbrain, Taboola, Quora, Reddit

• Paid shopping ads – Google, Bing, Pinterest, Amazon, eBay and comparison shoppingengines

• Technical and hybrid – programmatic TV, digital radio, chatbots, voice assistants

By Business Objective• Awareness

• Acquisition

• Consideration

• Conversions

• Lead generation

• Sales

• Offline (calls, in-store, sales team)

• Retention

• Advocacy

Paid advertising tend to be divided into these main types:


Advertising platforms by type & objective

Channel Type Platforms Awareness Acquisition ConsiderationConversion

(Leads)Conversion

(Sales)Retention & Retargeting

SearchGoogle Search Y Y Y Y Y

Bing search Y Y Y Y Y

Shopping

Google Shopping Y Y Y Y

Bing Shopping Y Y Y Y

Pinterest Y Y Y Y

Amazon Ads Y Y

eBay Y Y

Shopzilla Y Y Y

NexTag Y Y Y

Price Grabber Y Y Y

Bizrate Y Y Y

DisplayGoogle Display Y Y Y Y Y

AdRoll Y Y Y Y Y

Perfect Audience Y Y Y Y Y

Display, Social & Native YouTube Y Y Y Y Y Y

Social & Native

Facebook Y Y Y Y Y Y

Instagram Y Y Y Y Y Y

Messenger Y Y Y Y Y Y

Twitter Y Y Y Y Y Y

LinkedIn Y Y Y Y Y

Reddit Y Y Y Y Y

Taboola Y Y Y Y Y

Quora Y Y Y Y Y

Technical & HybridSky AdSmart Y Y Y

Spotify Y Y Y

Chatbots Y Y Y Y Y Y


See AdLead Form

Like/Follow

Thank You Page

Advertising Platform (Ad Manager)

Platform specific pixel and conversion tracking on advertiser’s website

Advertiser’s Website

eBook or White Paper

Content Page

Awareness Ads

Lead Generation Ads

Traffic or Clicks Ads

Conversions Ads

ProductPage

Payment &Thank You

Engagement Ads


How B2B companies are using social ads

Awareness of brand and/or to increase followers

Trial or demo of cloud based software (SAS) & platforms

Download white paper or eBook

To get leads or calls for a service


LinkedIn Twitter Twitter LinkedIn

Awareness ads


Facebook ads for encouraging downloads


Other platforms used for encouraging downloads

Quora

Twitter

LinkedIn


LinkedIn

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Encouraging demos and free trials


FacebookQuora

LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook

Service or product ads

Twitter


Anicca’s Integrated (Multi-phased) Approach

Awareness Consideration Conversion

Digital TV would drive searches which

could direct to either product landing

pages or content pages depending on

search via paid ads or organic search

results.

Other awareness channels such as

display, YouTube and paid social can

direct users into product category or

product landing pages.

PR, organic social and email can

all be traffic drivers for new blog content and articles to drive readership and engagement with brand content.

Content Pages

Product Pages

We can use the traffic from these pages

to create audience pools that we can

retarget with more direct response

focused ads designed to encourage

sample requests, lead generation, sales,

redemption of offers and promotions.


Getting ready to run a campaign


Preparation of your website and assets

Ads and collateral

• Create posting/ad plan

• Collate creative assets (images and videos etc)

• Marketing collateral e.g. write and design an eBook or whitepaper

Web pages/landing page

• Use of service or product page

• Landing page with form

• Link form to CRM or MAS system to create lists for follow-up emails

• Thank You page with download option

Tracking of ads and landing pages

• URL with UTM tracking code on all ads

• Addition of platform-specific tracking pixels to the site e.g. through Google Tag Manager


Preparation within each ad platform

• Select social platforms used by your target audience

• Create Ad Manager accounts or Business manager account (Facebook)

• Create tracking pixels within each ad manager account and add to your website• Once pixel is firing then create custom conversions

• Creation of new custom audiences based on interaction with specific pages

• Creation of Lookalike audiences based on interaction with Thank You page

• Decide on campaign structure and hierarchy (based on products/services and ad objective)

• Create campaigns for each combination


Main aspects of creating a campaign

1. Within Campaigns – select Ad Objective

2. Within Ad Sets - select• Audience Targeting

• Placement

• Budget and Scheduling

3. Within Ads – create ads byformat and placement

Typical campaign hierarchy


Choosing your ad objective

in each platform


Facebook (Instagram and Messenger)


LinkedIn ads


Twitter ads


Quora


Audience targeting


Audience targeting options by platform

Targeting method Facebook

Instagram

Messenger

Twitter LinkedIn Quora

Location Yes Yes Yes Yes

Gender Yes Yes Yes No

Age Yes Yes Yes No

Interests/topics Yes Yes Yes Yes

Job title Yes No Yes No

Employer Yes No Yes No

Employer details No No Yes No

Skills No No Yes No

Education Yes No Yes No

Behaviours Yes Yes No No

Others Followers of

influencers

Questions


Targeting on Facebook

Demographic

Facebook has a

variety of

demographic

information such

as age, location,

relationship status

and job title etc.

Behavioral

Facebook also

allows us to target

based on

people’s

behavioral traits

including things

like propensity for

online shopping.

Interest

We can also

target people

based on online

behavior and

what users have

engaged with or

expressed interest

in previously.


Targeting in Facebook


Targeting on LinkedIn

Job Experience

• Job function

• Job seniority

• Job title

• Skills

• Years of experience

Education

• Degrees

• Fields of study

• Member

schools

Demographics

• Age

• Gender

• Location

Company

• Company

connections

• Company

followers

• Company

industry

• Company

name

• Company size

Interests

• Member

interests

• Member groups


Targeting in Twitter


Targeting in Quora


Advertising to your own audience

• Depending on the platform you can create your own audiences – these are called:

• Custom audiences (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger)

• Tailored audiences (Twitter)

• Matched audiences (LinkedIn)

• Audience targeting (Quora)

• They are normally created using one of the following techniques:

• Uploaded contact details (using email address, other personal data or account details) via a CSV file

• Previous visitors to your website, tagged using a platform specific tag or pixel. This is part of a remarketing or retargeting strategy

• Activity on the platform – based on behaviour (often used for sequential advertising)

• Once an audience is created, the platforms offer the ability to create a Lookalike audience of similar users


Retargeting (or remarketing)

• Irrespective of how the user arrived on your site, they are tagged and a Cookie is added to their device. This is achieved using a platform-specific tracking code (or pixel), which was previously added to your site

• Advertisers then create “retargeting lists” of target users based on their behaviour on your site (typically combinations of pages visited and/or not visited)

• Campaigns are then set-up to specifically target these users when they go to the social media platform

• In some cases the ads shown can be dynamic and actually show the product(s) that they were viewing

• You can also create retargeting lists based on the users behaviour on Facebook

VisitorArrives on Website

Tagged & Exits

Sees Your Ad

Elsewhere

User Returns

& Converts


Ad formats


In-feed image ads for website clicks or conversion

• This is one of the most common formats and allows your social media audience to click on your ad and land on any page of your website

• Appearing as large clickable images in social feeds, website traffic ads can be used to reach highly relevant new (or existing) customers

• Benefits of this technique:

• Drive large volumes of relevant users to your site often with a lower cost per click (CPC) than paid search (Google Ads)

• Feeds your sales funnel by increasing traffic to specific content or products on your site

• Can be used with cross-channel remarketing

• Minimum £500 ad spend – depending on platform, CPC and amount of traffic wanted

https://anicca.co.uk/a10-marketing-framework/

https://anicca.co.uk/a10-marketing-framework/


Lead generation ads

• With Lead Generation adverts, potential customers can submit their information without having to leave the platform

• After completing the form, users can opt to click through to your site

• Advertisers can collect data about users (including customised fields)

• Advertisers pay for when their ads are seen (CPM) but conversion rates are usually high and cost per lead can be low (CPA of £15-50)


Video ads

• You can choose an ad objective of “video views” in Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, LinkedIn and Twitter

• You can also use videos as the ad type for other ad objectives e.g. traffic

• The video should ideally be shot with a vertical orientation (4:5), have subtitles, be short (15 secs) and be designed for mobile

• The cost per view can be very low (<50p), so you can create audiences based on who has viewed all or part of your video

• You can then target this smaller but more engaged audience with conversion ads


LinkedIn Message Ads (Previously InMail)


Case studyDriving leads to download the

A10 Marketing Frameworkhttps://anicca.co.uk/a10-

marketing-framework/


Anicca’s A10 Marketing Frameworkhttps://anicca.co.uk/a10-marketing-framework/


LinkedIn Message and Spotlight ads


Overview of ad platforms and ad objectives in the test

Ad Objective &

Campaign

Facebook Instagram Messenger Twitter LinkedIn Quora

Landing Page views Job Titles,

Interests

Job Titles,

Interests

Not targeted

Clicks Job Titles,

Interests

Not targeted Job Titles,

Interests

Interests Topics

Conversions Paused Job Titles,

Interests

Males

Paused Job title and

skills

Lookalike (based on converters)

Automatic Placement

Lead generation Job Titles, Interests

Automatic Placement

N/A Job title and

skills

N/A

Lookalike (based on converters)

Automatic Placement

Message ads N/A Job title and

skills

N/A

Spotlight ads Job title and

skills


Initial results by platform and ad objectives(Conversions x Cost per conversion)

Landing Page views Facebook Instagram Messenger Twitter LinkedIn Quora

Landing Page views 0 x £19.36 0 x £4.65

Clicks 4 x £6.49 0 x £0 2 x £11.04 1 x £12.24

Conversions

Job title

& interests 3 x £10.18 92 x £2.83 0 x £0.27 1 x £50.50

Lookalike 11 x £2.92 16 x £3.25 0 x £0.06

Lead generation

Job title & interests 12 x £3.92 4 x £3.66 2 x £41.16

Lookalike 9 x £3.24 1 x £7.21

Message ads 4 x £17.50

Spotlight ads 1 x £41.10


Ad Expresso –Insights (Facebook conversion ads)


Gender and age across campaign


Top Tips


Top tips – General

• Testing different approaches:• Test a range of platforms, ad objectives, placements and optimisation methods;

using the same ad creative and the same audiences (based on similar job titles and interests)

• Review the results and narrow down the options to get the best CPA and volume of conversions.

• Pause the poorer performing options in order to focus your budget on the best campaigns and ad sets

• Do not make too many assumptions, let the data drive the strategy – e.g. males on Instagram got some of our best results

• Your ads may get likes, shares and comments – preview your ads, in case you need to respond to any queries

• Lead generation ads - the form is as important as the ad –make sure you emphasis the benefits of them leaving their details


Facebook Conversion ads

• You will need to target as big an audience as you can (as long as it is still relevant) – this allows Facebook algorithm to show the ads to users that are more likely to convert

• You need to allow the conversion campaign to learn – i.e. by running it until you have around 50 conversion. Do not make any changes, otherwise the learning period resets

• You may see a rapid improvement in results, as the campaign learns, but you may also see big variations on a day to day basis

• When two ad sets compete (with similar or overlapping audiences), you will find that one will probably get more traffic than the other (based on the size of the audience)

• Check attribution window as Facebook will claim conversions for view through

• Check UTM is added to main URL when setting up your ads, as it does not always come through to Analytics, if it is just added to tracking section


Top tips for LinkedIn

• Lead generation ads and Message ads appear to provide the best options, but the CPC’s are still expensive compared to Facebook (but often cheaper than Google Ads)

• Some targeting options are better in LinkedIn than Facebook especially using skills for the more niche B2B audiences

• Later work has shown that video views can be very cheap, and could be use to filter out interested audiences before remarketing (or retargeting) them with conversion ads (even if the remarketing happens in Facebook or Google!)


Top tips for other platforms

• Quora and Twitter may be worth considering as the CPC’s are relatively low

• Targeting options for B2B are limited as compared with Facebook and LinkedIn


Supporting technology and platforms

• You may also want to set up Facebook ads in third-party software, such as Ad Expresso. This allows you to create more complex ad sets and provide additional insights

• Create on-page forms on your website using marketing Automation software (MAS); so you can track these leads, identify individuals, and nurture these leads (e.g. with email campaigns)

• MAS also allows you to track leads, to see if they convert later (e.g. import any sales data back into Analytics or Data Studio, to determine which campaigns produced the leads that generated the most sales

• Standardise your UTM codes and check different conversion points in Analytics

• If you invest in producing great content, then make sure you promote is off line at events by providing printed copies for peopleto keep


Thank You

Ann Stanley

[email protected]

0116 254 7224

07930 384443


Examples of the

brands we work with


Examples of the

brands we work with

First Tuesday of the month at 6pm at our offices in

Leicester - free beer and pizza

Speakers wanted for future events

Documents

Social media ads for lead generation€¦ · •Paid search –Google and Bing text ads ... Facebook Y Instagram Y Messenger Y Twitter Y LinkedIn Y Reddit Y Taboola Y Quora Y Technical