Want To Succeed In Social Advertising? You’ll Need ......per conversion do have value, but it’s...
Transcript of Want To Succeed In Social Advertising? You’ll Need ......per conversion do have value, but it’s...
Want To Succeed In Social Advertising? You’ll Need Standard KPIs & Custom Metrics
B y now, it’s undeniable—social media’s value is unique compared to
other advertising opportunities within the media mix. It offers more
precise information about consumers than cookie data, and can help you
better analyze the habits, behaviors, and affinities of any audience you deem
valuable. And the best part? This intelligence can be applied to audiences on
other channels like search, TV, radio, or display.
Social media is a powerful tool for marketers not
only because of its audience analysis capabilities,
but also because of its pivotal role in measuring
success—especially considering the flexibility
of both social-specific and customizable key
performance indicators (KPIs).
By Sophia Huneycutt
The 411 On KPIs
If you’re a social media expert, you’re probably
already using social KPIs on some level to track the
effectiveness of your strategy. However, you may
be struggling to determine which ones should be
used to best measure progress toward your goals.
Not all brands, products, or even promotions within a
brand are made equal. Think of a national brand that
has thousands of locations across the country. Is the
market in California exactly the same as it is in Iowa?
Are the consumers? If these aren’t one-size-fits-all
situations, then it stands to reason that the KPIs used
to measure them shouldn’t necessarily be either.
Standard KPIs like reach, engagement, or cost
per conversion do have value, but it’s critical for
marketers to fully understand both their benefits
and limitations.
Ultimately, your objective should define your KPI.
For example, if you want to spread awareness
with a Facebook Video Ad, the cost per view (CPV)
metric works well because it’ll reveal how much
it costs you for each video view your ad received.
In contrast, tracking the cost per link click (CPLC)
in this scenario would be less effective, because
your campaign goal was to raise awareness, not
drive traffic to your website.
There are even more intricacies to consider that can
affect the value of a metric based on job role. The
CPV may be more valuable for a brand manager
who wants to track budget and make sure costs
remain low. However, a campaign manager may be
more interested in the number video views (VV)
the campaign received, because it is more about
awareness than cost. He or she may even prefer
to see the video view rate (VVR), which shows
the percentage of time users were served your
ad and viewed the video for 3-seconds or more,
depending on the platform.
Ultimately, your objective should define your KPI.
Standard KPIs
Reach
Reach doesn’t mean people actually
engaged or noticed the ad.
All posts
Engagements don’t necessarily
lead to a quantifiable action.
Facebook Page Post Ads (Video or Photo)
Promoted Tweet (Video or Photo)
Twitter Pre-Roll
TAP
Promoted Tweet Moments
Carousel Tweets
Twitter Polling Card
Twitter Conversational Card (Video or Photo)
Promoted Pins
Snap Ads With Attachments
BEST FOR
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LIMITATIONS
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Cost Per Engagement (CPE)
These are the most common metrics available and their corresponding challenges, benefits, and best practices.
The average cost of a click, like, share, or comment on our post.
The amount of people who saw your post.
Measuring CPLC ignores the amount of people who
saw the ad or engaged but did not click through to
the brand’s website.
Facebook/Instagram Video or Photo Link Ads w/CTA
Facebook/Instagram Dynamic Product Ads
Facebook/Instagram Carousel Ads
Facebook Dynamic Local Ads
Twitter Website Cards
Pinterest Promoted Pins/One-tap Pins
BEST FOR
LIMITATIONS
Cost Per Link Click (CPLC)The average cost of a click to your ad to your website.
While this measures a quantifiable action, it
ignores the amount of people who saw the ad or
engaged but did not click through.
Facebook/Instagram Video or Photo Link Ads w/CTA
Facebook Dynamic Product Ads (FB only)
Facebook/Instagram Dynamic Local Ads
Facebook/Instagram Carousel Ads
Twitter Website Cards
Twitter Promoted Tweet with Link
Pinterest Promoted Pins/One-tap Pins
Snap Ads
BEST FOR
LIMITATIONS
ConversionsThe number of desired actions taken as a direct result of your advertising efforts.
Views don’t always imply engagement, or that
users really noticed your ad.
All posts
BEST FOR
LIMITATIONS
Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
The average cost of one thousand views of your post.
Engagement rate doesn’t count the people who
may have seen the ad and not engaged.
All posts
BEST FOR
LIMITATIONS
Engagement Rate (ER)The amount of clicks, likes, shares, and comments that your post received.
Cost Per View (CPV)
Definition of “view rate” is often only 3 seconds, (or 1 second with Snapchat). This varies within platforms.
All video campaigns
BEST FOR
LIMITATIONS
The average cost of a view of your video post. NB: Definition of “view” varies based on platform.
KPI
KPI
CUSTOM METRIC
Now that you have a better understanding of how one
should approach standard metrics, you may be asking how
to approach custom KPIs and metrics. To illustrate this,
we’ve put together a simple scenario and a real life scenario.
Imagine for a moment that you are running a video ad of
a movie trailer. You know that this type of entertainment
content is much more likely than others to be watched to
completion. And you also know that as a result, the standard
metric of VV, which usually counts a video view as a three-
second view, won’t give you a true sense of success. In
contrast, you wouldn’t be concerned about the users who
saw the trailer for three seconds and clicked off, because
they probably weren’t very interested in the movie. You’d want
a way to identify users that are most likely to make the trip
to the theater and spend some cash. Therefore, a custom
metric that tracks how many users watched 95% of the
video would work perfectly, because those users are your
premium audience.
Creating Custom KPIs & Metrics
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It’s crucial for marketers to find a platform that
can create and track these types of custom
metrics. This way, advertisers can report on
the key measurements that are unavailable
within the native platform without the hassle
and potential inaccuracies of manual or excel-
based calculations.
Take this real life example: A Quick Service
Restaurant wanted to track a custom
engagement metric by recording social
shares, reactions, and comments on user
posts. This metric is not offered in the native
Advertisers can report on key measurements that are unavailable within the native platform
platform; the native metric measures only clicks and
other interactions specifically on the original ad. In
order to report on user post activity, marketers had
to create a metric called the virality rate.
Once they were able to track the virality rate metric,
marketers could measure the interest in their ads and
make any adjustments needed in real-time. Ultimately,
this approach helped the brand drive revenue at a low
cost and beat their campaign goal by 50%.
As proved by this example, marketers need the
flexibility to tailor how they track their marketing
initiatives in a way that’s more accurate and aligned
with their objectives so they can react in real-time. The
proper application of both standard and custom metrics
will ensure that brands can compete effectively within a
space that moves as fast as life itself.
Marketers need the flexibility to tailor how they track their marketing initiatives in a way that’s
more accurate and aligned with their objectives so they can react in real-time.
AboutUnified helps marketers make informed and impactful decisions with the industry’s only business intelligence
platform purposely designed for social advertising. With experience collecting and enriching over 1 billion dollars
of social investment data, Unified is passionate about providing Fortune 2000 brands and agencies greater
transparency into their many teams, tools and strategies. The Unified Platform and service teams are specifically
built to ensure data quality, optimize investments and answer critical business questions. Unified has offices in
New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
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