Can advertisers rely entirely on paid social media platforms’ performance to deliver maximum ad in every ad dollar spent? Media buyers should understand the factors affecting advertising effectiveness even when set on automatic pacing. 

Allowing social ad managers to run and optimize campaigns seems to be the best route to achieving the best results. The Strike team found a better path to surpassing the platform’s outcomes.

When agencies and brands approach Strike Social, they typically ask these questions in one form or another:

• Can we have the flexibility in our social media strategy to get the best results for our campaign goals? 
• What can we do to drive more advertising mileage with less cost?

A new report by Statista explores the current state of social media advertising spending of US companies. A three-year high is expected by 2022, just under $63 billion. With social media being a prominent tool, it is clear that marketers will pick up their spending.

For social networks to keep up with the pace of ad spend growth, they continuously develop ad units to make campaigns more efficient. Because of this, the social media advertising game is getting more challenging for buyers.

New tactical innovations are shaping plans: Google started showing ads on YouTube Shorts, and Instagram reels consume 20% of IG viewers’ time on the app. These new ad units and inventories trigger advertisers’ curiosity about their effectiveness. But can marketers trust the platform to optimize for the best ad results?

Related article: Google Offers Full Advertising Solution with YouTube Shorts Ads

Striking Factors: What The Team Believes Will Affect Advertising Effectiveness

To hit the ground running, media buyers want to ensure that social networks will spend the ad budget effectively throughout the campaign flight dates. When it comes to achieving ad objectives, there are quite a few factors to consider: 

1. Budget/Cost: The amount brands are willing to spend on a campaign based on their daily budget.
2. Days of the Week: Scheduled days for ads to run. Ad results vary based on the target audience’s behavior, even with equal daily pacing.
3. Ad set: Identifying the appropriate audiences with high intent to engage delivers excellent CPA. 
4. Ad: The creative format of brands’ ads determines ad placement availability. Campaign reach may also depend on the creatives.
5. Device: Remember, screen size matters in scaling campaign objectives. Each device captures different eyeballs, behavior to ads, and time usage.
6. Age: Different age groups have different income levels and reasons for consuming content. Advertisers should follow where consumers spend most of their time with substantial intention purchase.
7. Ad Placements: These are ad spaces for advertisers to showcase their campaigns. Each ad placement has specs that marketers should consider to position media appropriately. 

Related Article: The Effect of Co-Viewing: Marketers’ Convincing Power on Kids and Parents

Striking Figures: How CampaignLab Identifies The Right Factor

Strike’s proprietary tool predicts and understands the statistics surrounding the campaign. Categorizing the weight of each factor opens options for media buyers to further enhance ad performance. 

Using the above charts, Campaign 1 highlights the cost or ad budget influencing the campaign’s success. After optimizing the daily budget, the team looks into a consolidated day-of-the-week performance followed by adsets. While Campaign 2 weighs more on setting the proper daily budget based on machine learning recommendations and considering the running ad balance. 

Below are examples of optimizations based on various factors that affect advertising outcomes.

Day of the week – For campaigns that weigh more success on optimizing on days of the week, timing budget allocation daily based on campaign output generates more campaign efficiency. Ideally, moving more budget on days when ad costs are low, and actions are high. 

This data shows lower CPM results on Tuesday and Friday based on four-week flight duration. In this project, re-allocate more budget allocation during these days to optimize accordingly.

Budget –  Platforms will recommend daily budgets, but minimum spending on requirements does not guarantee results. Your ad costs will fluctuate depending on how competitive the auction is. In other words, recommended daily budget allocations do not guarantee optimal results.

Q4 is always more expensive than other periods, but the last few days of the quarter are also the busiest days for ad auctions. Major holidays like Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Five begin in November, following the most extensive consumer events–Black Friday and Cyber Monday. CPMs remain high through December Holiday and New Year run-up. 

Related Article:  The Effect of Co-Viewing: Marketers’ Convincing Power on Kids and Parents

Ad – Targeting a broad audience of potential customers without clearly defining the difference between adsets doesn’t give room for buyers to learn what’s working from not. With a fluid budget and fleshed audience segmentation, advertisers will better know which group to focus on when optimizing.

Strike Social’s optimization score can lead to a more cost-efficient campaign. Equipped with historical data, our proprietary tool computes outcomes based on daily inputs and ad results.

While factors defined during planning may or may not impact the campaign’s success, with the team optimizing based on relevant data, our buyers have the opportunity to steer the project to attain better CPA.