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This post was updated in August 2024 to provide you with the latest information.

Improve your Targeting with Facebook Audience Insights

Designed to help marketers learn more about the audience they want to reach, the Audience Insights tool provides relevant data for Facebook advertisers, such as page likes, location, what your target audience’s household looks like, and buyer behavior.

Audience Insights differs from Facebook’s Page Insights because it looks at trends about your current or potential customers across Facebook, whereas Page Insights looks at interactions with your page (e.g., likes, comments, and shares).

As with many Facebook tools, Audience Insights is free and user-friendly. Follow the steps below to improve your Facebook strategy and hone tactics for creating winning social media advertising campaigns time and time again.

How to Use Facebook Audience Insights

Step 1: Access Audience Insights

• Go to the Facebook Business Manager page.
• From the left-hand menu, select Insights to open the full overview.
• To view your Audience Insights data, click on Audience.
• On the Audience Insights screen, you will find three key tabs:

Trends: View metrics like follower count (based on the selected timeframe), post views, and follower engagement.

Demographics: Analyze the age, gender, and location breakdown of your followers.

Potential Audience: Based on your follower and engagement data, Facebook suggests an audience size and demographic, helping you refine your content and advertising strategy.

Step 2: Create an audience

To fully utilize the Audience Insights you have gathered from this tool, start by creating a custom audience.

• Hover your mouse over the left-side menu and click on All tools. 
• Search for “audience”, then click on Audience under Advertise.

• A new window will open, leading you to the Audiences section in Meta Ads Manager.

• Click on Create audience, then select Custom audience. 
• Select your source to begin customizing your audience list.

Once your audience is labeled as Ready, you can start using it for Facebook advertising, targeting based on the data from Facebook Audience Insights.

• When setting up your Facebook ad campaign, go to the Ad Set level.
• First, go to Audience controls and select your target location.
  
  To change the location, hover the mouse over the current location settings and click on the “X” that will appear on the right side of the box. Depending on your suggested potential audience from the Facebook Audience Insights tool, you can target by country or city.

• Scroll to Advantage+ audience. From here, you can segment your audience by age, gender, interests, people connected to your page, and more advanced data such as behavior, language, education, work, etc.
  
  Quick tip: Add your custom audience created in the previous step and create a Lookalike audience to target similar audience profiles from your target country.

After setting up your audience, continue with the rest of your Facebook ad campaign setup.

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Further Reading

Discover Advantage+ Audiences Insights from a Strike Expert

In our annual training, our Meta specialist from Strike Social provided an overview of Meta Advantage. The Meta Advantage+ Audience feature complements Strike Social’s AI capabilities by helping broaden the audience while remaining within the brand’s target demographics.

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Step 3: Play with the data

For example, we’ve created an audience in Chicago with both men and women between the ages of 25 and 54. Our audience likes the winning combination of entertainment and TV shows. Let’s follow this audience, as suggested by the Facebook Audience Insights tool.

Quick tip: To refine your target audience, continue adding segments by updating the Detailed targeting section. Notice how the audience size changes as you add or remove parameters.

Step 4: Get granular

It’s time to explore the new Facebook Audience Insights tool by examining the three main tabs that reveal what our audience looks like. Unlike the old Facebook Audience Insights tool with six tabs, the updated tool has streamlined its insights into:

• Trends,
• Demographics, and
• Potential audience.

Tab 1: Trends

The “Trends” tab provides a snapshot of your audience’s behavior on Facebook. It shows the average number of followers and returning viewers, along with engagement metrics like comments, likes, shares, and ad clicks within the last 30 days (or your selected timeframe).

For instance, if you’re tracking follower count as a secondary Facebook metric in addition to your primary goal (e.g., Awareness), this is an excellent way to monitor your progress at a glance.

This tab also highlights the most active times for your Facebook page’s audience. By analyzing the frequency of activity graphs, you can see when your audience is most engaged. For instance, our Facebook Audience Insights suggest that our followers are most active between 12 AM to 3 AM and 3 PM to 9 PM.

Tab 2: Demographics

The “Demographics” tab breaks down your audience by age, gender, and key locations.

For example, our current Facebook audience, primarily based in Chicago, consists of 58.4% men and 41.6% women. Interestingly, the age demographic skews towards 45-54 years old, with a decline in older age segments.

At the top left of this screen, you can view your total lifetime followers and switch between your Facebook or Instagram pages (if applicable) on the right-hand side.

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Further Reading

Can Non-sports Brands Succeed in Targeting Sports Audiences?

Exploring how brands and advertisers use sports-focused content can reveal new ways to boost campaign engagement, build emotional connections with audiences, and foster brand loyalty.

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Tab 3: Potential audience

The “Potential Audience” tab reveals how to expand your reach based on your audience’s current behavior. For instance, the data might suggest targeting more women, as they represent a significant portion of your most engaged audience. Additionally, you might discover that your content has a strong reach among the 55+ age group.

Use this data to fine-tune your audience segmentation, boost engagement, and achieve better results for your Facebook advertising campaigns by targeting the right audience.

Step 5: Put your Audience Insights to work

Are you satisfied with your audience? Can you use it to improve messaging and engage with Facebook users? If yes, remember to name and save your audience so you can use it to refine your targeting when advertising on Facebook.

If you plan to create many audience segments, you can do so by returning to the Audience tab in Facebook Ads Manager. There, you can select which audiences to use depending on the ad campaign you are looking to launch.

Conclusion

The Facebook Audience Insights tool can help you improve your ad campaigns and messaging. It ensures that your Facebook ad campaigns reach the right people and get the right engagement and clicks. Experiment with different parameters to truly understand the power of this valuable tool.

The post Improve your Targeting with Facebook Audience Insights appeared first on Strike Social.

This post was updated in November 2024 to provide you with the latest information.

Let’s examine the YouTube advertising targeting options available. When preparing your video ad campaigns on YouTube, you can segment your audience by:

Device

This YouTube targeting option includes the choice between desktop, tablet or mobile, plus the Android and iOS operating systems.

Location

Targeting by location on YouTube allows you to filter countries, cities or territories within a country or even a radius around a specific location. Many brands market nationally, while some exist within a singular city, state or region. Location targeting allows you to choose the area where your customers reside and your operations exist.

Demographics

The demographic targeting option refers to more than gender and age. It also includes YouTube audience segments such as language, parental status and household income level.

Interests

This YouTube ad targeting option reaches people interested in topics related to your product, business or service. You can choose from topics such as fashion, sports, makeup, and gaming. Google then finds people known to be interested in the subjects you identified in the targeting and shows them your video ad as they peruse or view content across the Google Display Network, YouTube and YouTube search.

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Further Reading

Defining YouTube Ad Groups for Your Campaign

YouTube ad targeting strategies vary by brand, business, and even season. Here’s how to identify the right ad groups to effectively reach your desired audience for a successful campaign.

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Contained within interest targeting is the ability to add different audiences to your ad groups. You can choose from:

Affinity Audiences

• Groups of people who have shown a strong and consistent interest in specific topics or activities
• Potential customers who are already engaged with content that aligns with your brand or product

Custom Affinity Audiences

• You can craft specific audience segments on YouTube instead of relying on pre-defined categories. You can do this by hyper-targeting, focusing on specific interests or niches.
• For instance, you can select to target “amateur astrophotographers” instead of just “photography enthusiasts.”
• Examples:
  • Brand: Tech startup
    • Target Audience on YouTube: People who watch specific YouTube channels about coding, tech review platforms, and developer forums.
  • Brand: Pastries and desserts
    • Target Audience on YouTube: People who subscribe to food bloggers, and visit cooking channels.

In-Market Audiences

• People who are actively considering making a purchase related to your product or service
• Unlike affinity audiences, which target based on general interests and passions, in-market audiences focus on purchase intent based on recent online behavior

Video Remarketing

• Video remarketing focuses on re-engaging viewers who have already watched your videos on YouTube or other platforms
• This could involve showing them different versions of the same video, related videos, or other promotional content
• The goal is to keep them engaged with your brand and potentially convert them into customers

Placements

Selecting your placement option on YouTube allows you to place your video ad on specific channels, videos or sites, such as YouTube channels, YouTube videos, apps and websites on the Google Display Network.

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Further Reading

Maximize Your Views With Video Views Campaign (VVC)

With the power of Google’s AI, YouTube’s Video View Campaign technology ensures your ads are placed in the most engaging formats, whether through traditional in-stream videos, dynamic in-feed ads, or short, impactful YouTube Shorts.

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Keywords

Targeting your YouTube ad based on keywords lets you show your video ad based on words or phrases related to other channels, videos or sites. For example, the keyword “fly fishing” might place your video ad in front of someone watching the video “learn how to fly fish.”

Topics

Topic targeting on YouTube matches your video ad with YouTube videos related to the topics identified in targeting. For example, you target to the fashion topic, and your video ad shows on YouTube to a person watching a fashion trends video.

As you can see, YouTube offers numerous possibilities for targeting. Reaching people who are interested in your product offering is the key to closing the deal. Carefully study all your YouTube advertising options, and review your customer insights to create a well-defined TrueView campaign.

The post YouTube ad targeting: Hit the target the first time appeared first on Strike Social.

Here’s the breakdown, in case you missed the announcement:

How Google’s Mobile-First Strategy Impacts Your Digital Presence

Next generation insights and reporting

The first part of these changes will take the form of a new, cloud-based measurement solution. According to Google’s announcement, its purpose is to generate better insights to advertisers about their YouTube campaigns, and to improve security and privacy across Google and YouTube. These changes allow for greater collaboration between agencies and advertisers and grants them the opportunity to verify the performance of their campaigns.

Improved ways to reach your audience

As part of these changes, Google has made strides in improving the ways advertisers can reach their audiences. There are going to be better methods for delivering more relevant, useful ads across both mobile and desktop screens. More concretely, though, Google has created new ways for advertisers to use the customer data they accumulate to reach their highest-value customers on YouTube using a new service called Customer Match.

User controls built for the mobile world

Google has also worked on a handful of controls that give users a greater ability to shape their online experience with cross-viewing in mind. This includes the ability to mute ads across devices moving forward, via the user’s Google account. Google is also stressing that they maintain strict policies against sharing personally identifiable information with advertisers.

Paving the path for the future

Stepping into the future, Google emphasized that it wants to continue to support the most-watched platforms. With this look towards what’s next, Google perhaps best summarized its intention with these mobile-first initiatives by saying that they were not going to continue investing in technologies of the desktop web like cookies and pixels. Since audiences are increasingly consuming their media in alternative ways, Google felt that their means of measuring needed to be similarly aligned to deliver the highest quality data measurements. The changes outlined in this release point to Google’s dedication to innovation and changing business and consumer trends.

The post Moving forward with Google’s mobile first appeared first on Strike Social.

Platforms such as Facebook and Google have embraced digital mobile’s global growth by offering increased mobile-only ad formats and mobile-first education. Other platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram, plus the popular messaging apps, Whatsapp and WeChat, live through their popular mobile apps and steady user growth.

Social media marketers need to ensure that all of their content, including video, images and CTA’s are legible on mobile. Here are three tips, with accompanying resources, to ensure your brand’s message remains grounded in the digital, mobile world.

Related | How to use social media ads to generate sales

Make your message responsive

Have you ever had to pinch or zoom in on content to make it legible on your mobile device? If you have (and really, who hasn’t?) you are the victim of a non-responsive website. As a marketer, non-responsive designs leave users frustrated and your bounce rate escalating.

Whether engaged in social media advertising or simply hoping to build your content consumption organically, websites need to be primed for mobile viewers. Common objectives for ad campaigns often include website conversions and clicks to website, meaning that even if you use your site for nothing more than a landing page, your content still needs to perform well across all devices.

Google offers some of the most helpful tools and detailed guidelines for developers. Start with testing your URL to see if your website is mobile-friendly. A full explanation of the mobile-friendly test tool is available through Google webmaster.

Check your speed

How many times have you closed a search box because the website either failed to load or it was taking so long that you gave up and moved on to another search result? Or, you want to view a video, but it takes too long to buffer?

73% of digital mobile users encountered a website that was too slow to load in the past 12 months, while 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.

Google developers come through again with a tool to analyze download speed for your website’s pages. PageSpeed Insights reviews your content twice, once with a mobile user agent and once with a desktop user agent. Suggestions are then made and prioritized for you, according to its importance.

Google’s goal for content delivery is to render a page in under one second to preserve user engagement and deliver optimal experience. Learn more about mobile analysis through Google’s page insights.

Test, test and test again

You’ve learned about some of Google’s website testing tools above but don’t forget to test all content developed through your marketing and sales platforms. Most offer the ability to view content across devices, a habit you will want to adopt to ensure your email, landing page or blog works regardless of device.

It is up to you to test and view to ensure the content is renderable, not the software platform. They provide the analytics tool but it’s up to you to test and test again.

Testing for social media advertising also means testing your ad copy and content. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter offer mobile-only ad formats plus the ability to target by device.

Get familiar with the differences between mobile and desktop design to ensure your creative’s visual elements mesh with the ad format and device placement.

Consider A/B testing different versions of your creative. Also, separate out your ad groups by device to ensure you know what type of design and CTA works best on mobile.

Putting it all together

By thinking mobile-first and investing time and money into responsive design, you can reach people where they connect the most: their mobile device. With smartphone penetration approaching 80% and a 79% share of social media time spent via a mobile app or mobile web, it is up to you to ensure your content is mobile-friendly. So, do yourself and your fans a favor, start testing and optimizing for mobile today.

The post How to create a mobile-first ad strategy appeared first on Strike Social.

Consider, for instance, that within the next year or so, the internet will have reached its 5 billionth user. Meanwhile, people will be performing about 1.2 trillion Google searches a year to access the internet’s 1 billion+ websites.

With each Google search (and other such internet activity), a data footprint is created, replete with information about the user’s interests, behaviors and demographics. That means the world is swimming in data. Therefore, many martech firms, Strike Social included, must rely on the brainpower of data scientists to sort out what information is useful and what should be discarded.

Rethinking the impossible with data science

Data scientists are often the ones to ask the big questions that may seem impossible to answer. Their inquisitiveness also enables them to develop new models at the forefront of technology. They achieve this through structured experimentation, such as restructuring parameters or combining diverse data sets.

It’s not surprising then that many data scientists come from academic backgrounds, with advanced degrees in fields like biology or physics.

^{Strike’s data scientists Bing Bu, Dmitry Bandurin and Jeongku Lim work at the company’s headquarters in Chicago.}

The latter is precisely the case for Strike Social’s trio of data scientists — Dmitry Bandurin, Bing Bu and Jeongku Lim — who all hold Ph.D.s in either experimental or elementary physics (that is, the study of the basic building blocks of matter and their interactions). Before joining Strike, Bandurin, Bu and Lim were research scientists who focused on smashing elementary particles inside big colliders to make sense of the universe.

Now, they are taking on the world of paid social.

As Strike’s Senior Data Scientist, Bandurin credits his research background with the ability to rethink what is possible with big data. And he’s accustomed to working with real, experimental data to produce new results.

“It is never the same, and it is always changing,” he says.

Bandurin, Bu and Lim all agree that data scientists need strong mathematical and analytical skills as well as programming chops to be successful in harnessing the power of AI for paid social.

So what exactly does an average day look like for them? Bandurin estimates that meetings take up about 25–30% of his time, with another 10% spent working with developers or discussing new findings with the data science team. The rest of the time, these data scientists are focused on testing and developing models, then implementing them in prototype codes.

Bu says he also likes to summarize each day’s work and plan his schedule for the next day, week or even a month in case a long-term project comes his way.

How data scientists can improve paid social

The clusters created through complex modeling help data scientists test their results in managed advertising campaigns. Strike’s data scientists and media teams work together to develop micro-campaigns that enable discrete testing of data combinations. When a combination performs or meets key performance indicators, ad spend is re-allocated from under-performing ad sets to those more on target.

Campaign results are then fed back into the data mix, where Strike’s scientists continue to refine statistical models for improved performance over and over again.

The continuous process of inquiry, modeling and testing never stops in the world of data analytics — nor can it stop, for the data is ever-changing. When people grow up, they gain interests and drop old habits. Culture also evolves, as evidenced by improved communications methods.

With technology, techniques perfected over years are now eclipsed in a matter of months, such as the accelerated pace of learning available with AI.

“Given the exponential rise of usage of the smartphone, smart TV and other advanced electronics, collecting individualized information is achievable, which will enable dedicated delivery of individualized ads,” Bu says. “Going forward, the network will be cheaper, and coverage of usage will get broader, so the audience for video ads will grow quickly.“

Without the inquisitive minds of Strike’s data scientists — and their fearless commitment to data experimentation — AI’s technological advancementswould not be possible.

Here’s how their work is changing social media advertising.

^{Strike’s data scientists Jeongku Lim, Dmitry Bandurin and Bing Bu all hold Ph.D.s in either experimental or elementary physics.}

Data science for better audience management

With the massive amounts of data being created every second, marketers must control against faulty results from inherent biases, incomplete data sets or too small of samples.

A data scientist understands that audiences aren’t built solely on demographics but are composed of people with different behaviors, pain points and interests.

Quality data analysis incorporates behavioral clues from cookies, web analytics, user-generated content and other big data sources. To build out detailed and useful audiences, data scientists fuse large data sets to allow big data to form segments that offer real insight into the behaviors of their customers.

Quality audiences are verified by testing in advertising campaigns and are dependent on the recency, frequency and depth of data.

Remember, audience creation starts with a hypothesis based on known variables and goals. For example, an insurance carrier’s initial assumption might be: individuals seeking online auto insurance, between ages 18–50, who own at least one car. A well-formulated hypothesis sufficiently narrows your analysis while yielding enough results to discover behavioral and motivational insights.

Data science for proper attribution modeling

Proper marketing attribution, or the science of determining what message drove a purchase, relies on data from both converters and non-converters alike. As this data can be very big, advanced modeling is needed to correctly identify and credit the event that led to user conversion.

Thanks to improved technology, such as AI, brands now better understand the consumer’s pathway to purchase. With enough data, scientists can look across marketing channels and devices to improve touch points and enhance messaging.

Data science for better real-time bidding

Advancements in audience segmentation and a deeper understanding of conversion events have led to the practice of RTB, a method to buy and sell ads. RTB allows an individual ad impression to be purchased simultaneously with a user’s visit to a website.

If you’ve ever looked at a product on a website, then transitioned over to check out your social media feed, only to see an ad for the same product, you’ve probably experienced RTB through a targeted ad.

Or, say you bought your first home, and you’re tired of eating off plastic plates. You decide to visit Macy’s online to look for new flatware. Not ready to buy yet, you decide to visit Facebook to see what’s happening with your family and friends. While scrolling through your feed, you spot an ad with the exact image of the dinner plate you had just been viewing.

RTB scales up the buying process and enables direct targeting of individual users. To participate in the process, data scientists must have access to vast amounts of data and possess the right expertise to sort through and retrieve useful information for actionable insights.

Where data science is headed

At times, the field of data science appears to be expanding as quickly as the universe that Bandurin, Bu and Lim spent so many years exploring.

“Data science will continue helping different businesses solve problems, making things more automatized,” Bandurin says. “Development of self-driving cars is one example — but also automation of other vehicles, including aircraft, playing chess, helping people with disabilities and true androids in all spheres of human life.”

The result will be an entirely new world as we know it.

The post How data scientists can improve social media advertising appeared first on Strike Social.

View through rate in YouTube ads

With skippable ads (ads that you have the option to skip over after five seconds), you are billed when the first frame renders even if users decide to skip over the ad. What you’re left with is an impression statistic that is not entirely representative of your ad’s performance.

VTR is measured as “the number of completed views of a skippable ad over the number of initial impressions.” Basically, VTR takes your impressions statistics and puts them into greater context, next to the raw number of people that have completed views of your skippable ad. This is important to note because it is not that impressions are an unimportant figure, but they are potentially misleading if left without a framework by which to compare them.

How to calculate VTR

VTR formula: VTR = Complete views (users didn’t skip the ad) / Impressions (ad rendered)

Related: How to calculate YouTube ROI and ROAS

Why is it important?

At the most basic level, the importance of calculating the VTR is that it gives advertisers a quantifiable way to know how their ad efforts engage consumers. From there, you can optimize your campaign to be more effective by assessing which sites convert the best for your advertisements and to gain new insights into your ad view data. This is the type of information that you, as an advertiser, can use to improve your ad campaigns proactively.

Perhaps most importantly, though, is that view-through conversions are a better representation of upper and middle funnel performance than other measures like click-through. It’s not exactly a secret that display ads have some tragically low click-through conversion rates. Instead of writing the medium off entirely, use view-through conversion to accurately assess how effective your ads spread your company’s influence.

Sometimes advertising seems like a losing game — consumers don’t want to be bothered by ads, and if they have a choice to skip or not, chances are they’ll do it. But, not everyone skips, if they did, we would not be deeply engaged in social media advertising. By paying attention to VTR, you are provided with a more refined scope with which to assess the value of your ad efforts and to afford yourself the opportunity to improve ad performance.

The post Understanding your YouTube campaign’s view through rate appeared first on Strike Social.

Brands are capitalizing on the world’s personal affinity for mobility, viewing the smartphone as the perfect platform for to engage in their favorite pastime—advertising. Defined as the “communication of products or services to mobile device and smartphone consumers,” mobile advertising works by targeting users through a phone networks’ database of specified demographics. Using practices similar to social media advertising, mobile networks identify consumer profiles based on things like preferences and usage, which they can then use to serve relevant ads to those users.

Globally, mobile ad spending surpassed $100 billion in 2016, with $40 billion spent on the digital ad market in the US alone. With such an upward momentum, what’s next for mobile advertising? Here are our top predictions based on the growing trends within the mobile space.

Top 4 Technology Trends Driving Mobile Advertising Forward

In-app mobile ads

As advertisers become more adept with mobile advertising, they have realized that a better way to reach their targets is to advertise in-app. Why? Because according to a survey of smartphone users, consumers spend some 84% of their time in app usage. Advertising via mobile app works effectively because of the availability of enhanced location data, plus the rich layers of information (weather, events, demographics) that can be utilized by advertisers. This enhanced information allows marketers to serve dynamic content that will hopefully resonate more strongly than other available content.

Dynamic ad units

Dynamic ads encourage customer engagement by serving real-time needs. For example, consider you’re outside on a very hot summer day. Next thing you know, an ad comes up suggesting a place close by where you can get some water. What’s at work here is advertisers creating ads that are capable of changing based on real-time information about temperature, time of day, the day of the week, etc. Dynamic ads allow you to easily swap out elements of your ad, such as call-to-action (CTA) text, exit

Hyperlocal exclusivity

Industry experts expect ads to become more targeted in 2017 as advertisers continuously refine their methods to reach consumers. Things like hyperlocal exclusivity will become more normalized, and you can expect organizations to form partnerships with key retailers. It’s the natural progression in mobile advertising growth: highly refined targeting to reach the best possible consumer.

Best Buy decides to hold a sale on big screen tvs over the weekend. To prepare for the sale they can reserve inventory on an ad network, such as Google, and target iOS devices within a 30-meter radius. When an i0S device is within the targeted store zone the cell phone holder receives a text ad with an exclusive, time sensitive offer. By using hyperlocal exclusivity, Best Buy drives in-store traffic to increase sales over the weekend.

Personalized engagement

Perhaps the most exciting development gaining traction in mobile advertising is increased user engagement. Advertisers are sharing some of the ad power with consumers through the rise of click-to-camera/click-to-video ads.

Say you’re walking by the Eiffel Tower when suddenly your phone rings, letting you know of a photo contest. All you have to do is take a picture, submit and you could win a prize! Sounds neat, right? What a fun and memorable way to remember a visit to one of the world’s most famous landmarks.

With dynamic advertising, such a level of engagement is now possible. By allowing consumers to dictate their ad experience, you increase the likelihood that it will be a good one.

Conclusion

Eight years ago, mobile advertising was hardly even a concept worth considering, but now it has taken the advertising world by storm. We may not be able to know exactly what changes are coming, but we can make some pretty good educated guesses. We hope you consider these trends as you create future campaign strategies.

The post 4 tech trends that enhance mobile advertising appeared first on Strike Social.

This post was updated in February 2025 to provide you with the latest information.

Optimizing your YouTube ads means tailoring content to align with viewer preferences—whether they’re watching on desktop or mobile. Understanding the right YouTube ad specs, sizes, and dimensions ensures your creatives are displayed correctly and viewed exactly as intended.

Successful YouTube advertising isn’t just about performance metrics; it’s about how your audience perceives and interacts with your video ads on the platform.

We’ve outlined the YouTube ad specifications below to help you with your 2025 YouTube advertising.

Types of YouTube Ads, Sizes, and Specifications

Overlay ads

As of April 6, 2023, Overlay ads have been discontinued in YouTube. Active overlay ads will only appear on desktop view as YouTube Creators shift to newer ad formats for YouTube advertising.

Overlay image: required

• Unit: 480 pixels by 70 pixels
• File type: static GIF, PNG, JPG
• File size: 150KB

Companion banner: optional

• Unit: 300 pixels by 250 pixels
• File type: GIF, PNG, JPG
• File size: 150KB

Think of discovery ads as an online billboards of sorts. These are generally static images or have very minimal movement and animation to them. According to the YouTube ad specifications, they appear either to the side of the video or as an overlay on the bottom of the video. They’re good to include in your YouTube advertising mix because they’re less expensive than other ad forms like those that appear before or during videos.

Since they don’t directly interfere with user activity on the site, users might also respond better to their presence. A potential drawback could be that some users have a tendency to tune out these kinds of ads, but a truly great ad can break through the clutter. Whatever size or format you choose is up to you, just make sure that the content is optimized for the ad format and that there is a clear call-to-action for your YouTube audiences to respond to.

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Further Reading

Understanding YouTube Advertising Costs for Maximum Efficiency

For YouTube advertisers, balancing cost management with expanding reach is critical to success. As video consumption trends evolve, media buyers face challenges in identifying the most efficient ways to maximize ad visibility without exceeding budgets.

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Sponsored cards

YouTube Sponsored cards have also been discontinued, as part of an ongoing effort to streamline the viewing experience and shift towards different video advertising formats.

Sponsored card worked as a brief “teaser”, which will be replaced by a card icon after a few seconds. Appearing in the upper right-hand corner of the video they are currently watching, the icon gives users the choice of clicking through to access further information about the sponsored content.

• Platform: Desktop and mobile devices
• Media: image
• Format: JPG, PNG, GIF
• Aspect Ratio: 1:1
• Length: 15 or 20 seconds
• File Size: 2MB max

In that sense, a sponsored card ad is similar to display ads except where it’s located and how it functions differs slightly. The commonality among them is the ever critical call-to-action.

Bumper ads

Assets overview

• Where they appear: YouTube videos and video partner sites and apps on the display network
• Companion: 300 pixels by 60 pixels .jpg, static .gif or .png; 300 pixels by 250 pixels video wall will show on YouTube if no companion ad is provided
  • Maximum file size: 150KB

Video ad settings

• File format: AVI, ASF, Quicktime, Windows Media, MP4 or MPEG
  • Preferred video codec: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4
  • Preferred audio codec: MP3 or AAC
• Resolution: 640 pixels by 360 pixels or 480 pixels by 360 pixels recommended
• Frame rate: 30 FPS
• Aspect ratio: native aspect ratio without letter-boxing (examples: 4:3, 16:9)
• Maximum file size: 1GB
• Length: ≤6 seconds

A bumper ad is a non-skippable video ad format created to extend the reach of a campaign. It appears before the video the user has chosen to view. Sold on a CPM basis, Bumper ads perform well on both Connected TV and mobile devices. In alignment with the 2025 YouTube ad specs, the maximum video length for bumper ads is 6 seconds.

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Further Reading

Expand Your Audience with YouTube Video Reach Campaigns

By leveraging multiple advertising formats, YouTube advertisers can effectively broaden their reach, engage a wider audience, and maximize the impact of their campaigns beyond the YouTube app and YouTube TV.

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Standard display ads

Technical YouTube ad specifications

• Dimensions:
  • 300 pixels by 250 pixels
  • 300 pixels by 60 pixels (YouTube Reserve companions)
  • 300 pixels by 600 pixels (Zagat only)
• Formats: GIF, JPG, PNG
• Maximum file size: 150KB
• Maximum animation time: 30 seconds (all animations, including loops, must stop at 30 seconds)
• Audio: no sound
• Border: creatives with partially black or white backgrounds must have a visible border of a contrasting color

Demand Gen (formerly Video Action Campaigns)

YouTube advertising goes beyond awareness, helping brands move audiences down the funnel to drive engagement and conversions through video ads and product shopping ads. Video Action Campaigns (VAC) have been pivotal in achieving these goals.

This 2025, VAC will transition to Demand Gen, enhancing its capabilities to expand its reach while maintaining the performance and results that brands rely on. This evolution offers advertisers an opportunity to tap into broader audience segments without compromising on the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Assets overview

• Video URL: must be uploaded to YouTube
• Image: Choose from 4 autogenerated thumbnails
• Headline: (1) ≤30 characters – in-stream inventory; (1) ≤90 characters – in-feed inventory
• Description: ≤90 characters
• CTA: ≤10 characters

Video ad settings

• Platform: Desktop and mobile
• File format: .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4)
  • .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm & HEVC (h265)
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080px (horizontal); 1080 x 1920px (vertical); 1080 x 1080px (square)
  • Minimum px for Standard HD: 1280 x 720px (horizontal); 720 x 1280px (vertical); 480 x 480px (square)
• Frame rate: 30 FPS
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 for horizontal; 9:16 for vertical; 1:1 for square
• Maximum file size: ≤ 256GB

In-stream non-skippable ads

These YouTube ad types play while viewing the video content and last up to 15 seconds or shorter. Non-skippable video ads appear before the selected video and much be watched in its entirety before the video can be viewed.

Assets overview

• Where they appear: YouTube videos and video partner sites and apps on the Google display network (GDN)
• Companion: 300 pixels by 60 pixels .jpg, static .gif or .png; 300 pixels by 250 pixels video wall will show on YouTube if no companion ad is provided
  • Maximum file size: 150KB

Video ad settings

• File format: .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4)
  • .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm and HEVC (h265)
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080px (horizontal); 1080 x 1920px (vertical); 1080 x 1080px (square)
  • Minimum px for Standard HD: 1280 x 720px (horizontal); 720 x 1280px (vertical); 480 x 480px (square)
• Frame rate: 30 FPS
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 for horizontal; 9:16 for vertical; 1:1 for square
• Maximum file size: ≤ 256GB
• Length: 15 or 20 seconds for non-skippable; ≤ 20 seconds for long non-skippable

In-stream skippable ads

Skippable video ads allow viewers to skip ads after 5 seconds and move on to their viewing selection.

Assets overview

• Where they appear: YouTube videos and video partner sites and apps on the display network
• Companion: 300 pixels by 60 pixels .jpg, static .gif or .png; 300 pixels by 250 pixels video wall will show on YouTube if no companion ad is provided
  • Maximum file size: 150KB
• Video URL: must be uploaded to YouTube
• Headline/ Description: ≤15 characters
• CTA: ≤10 characters

Video ad settings

• File format: .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4)
  • .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm & HEVC (h265)
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080px (horizontal); 1080 x 1920px (vertical); 1080 x 1080px (square)
  • Minimum px for Standard HD: 1280 x 720px (horizontal); 720 x 1280px (vertical); 480 x 480px (square)
• Frame rate: 30 FPS
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 for horizontal; 9:16 for vertical; 1:1 for square
• Maximum file size: ≤256 GB
  • Best practices for Awareness and Action campaigns: 15 to 20 seconds; for Consideration campaigns: 60 seconds to 3 minutes
• Length: 15 seconds to 3 minutes

Video View Campaign Skippable in-stream

• Resolution:
  • 1080p (Full HD)
    • Recommended pixels (px) for HD: 1920 x 1080px (horizontal)
  • 720p (Standard HD)
    • Minimum px: 1280 x 720px (horizontal)
  • SD
    • 640 x 480px (horizontal)
    • For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD.
• Aspect Ratio:
  • HD: 16:9 for horizontal
  • SD: 4:3 (SD) for horizontal
    • For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD.
• Format:
  • .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4), .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm & HEVC (h265)
• File Size:
  • ≤256 GB
• Format composition for In-stream placement:
  • ≥:05 seconds horizontal

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Further Reading

YouTube Video View Campaign vs. Video Action Campaign

With the variety of YouTube advertising options, choosing the right one for your brand can be challenging. To guide your decision, we break down the differences between YouTube Video View Campaigns and Video Action Campaigns. Discover their unique objectives, benefits, and the ideal scenarios for leveraging each campaign type.

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Video View Campaign In-feed

• Resolution:
  • 1080p (Full HD)
    • Recommended pixels (px) for HD: 1920 x 1080px (horizontal)
  • 720p (Standard HD)
    • Minimum px: 1280 x 720px (horizontal)
  • SD
    • 640 x 480px (horizontal)
    • For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD.
• Aspect Ratio:
  • HD: 16:9 for horizontal
  • SD: 4:3 (SD) for horizontal
    • For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD.
• Format:
  • .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4), .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm & HEVC (h265)
• File Size:
  • ≤256 GB
• Format composition for YouTube in-feed placement:
  • ≥:05 seconds horizontal

Video View Campaign in YouTube Shorts placement

As YouTube Shorts emerges as a standalone vertical video feed, Video View Campaigns capitalize on this placement to drive more engaged views. At Strike Social, YouTube Shorts has proven highly effective, with one of our standout campaigns attributing 43% of its total ad views to Shorts placements alone.

• Resolution:
  • 1080p (Full HD)
    • Recommended pixels (px) for HD: 1080 x 1920px (vertical)
  • 720p (Standard HD)
    • Minimum px: 720 x 1280px (vertical)
  • SD
    • 480 x 640px (vertical)
    • For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD.
• Aspect Ratio:
  • HD: 9:16 for vertical
  • SD: 2:3 (SD) for horizontal
    • For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD.
• Format:
  • .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4), .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm & HEVC (h265)
• File Size:
  • ≤256 GB
• Format composition for YouTube Shorts placement:
  • ≥:05 seconds vertical

Video Reach Campaign

To expand your reach across both YouTube and YouTube TV platforms, Video Reach Campaign (VRC) allows your video ads to appear on both small and large screens. Below are the recommended YouTube ad specifications for VRC:

• Resolution:
  • 1080p (Full HD)
    • Recommended pixels (px) for HD: 1080 x 1920px (vertical)
  • 720p (Standard HD)
    • Minimum px: 720 x 1280px (vertical)
  • SD
    • 480 x 640px (vertical)
    • For optimal quality, we don’t recommend using SD.
• Aspect Ratio:
  • HD: 16:9 for horizontal; 9:16 for vertical; 1:1 for square
• Format:
  • .MPG (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4), .WMV, .AVI, .MOV and .FLV .MPEG-1, .MP4, .MPEGPS, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm & HEVC (h265)
• File Size:
  • ≤256 GB
• Format composition: Any length; Recommended:
  • (1) horizontal :15 and (1) horizontal :06
  • (1) vertical :06-:60

Set Your YouTube Ad Creatives for Success

Your YouTube ad is the first point of contact with your audience, making it essential to ensure it’s both visually appealing and conveys your message effectively. To ensure your ad is displayed as intended and captures your audience’s attention, it’s crucial to follow the right specifications.

This YouTube ad specs guide will prepare you for success in 2025. Looking for more tailored insights? Sign up for our newsletter to receive regular updates on YouTube paid advertising and more.

The post The complete list of YouTube ad specifications (2025 Update) appeared first on Strike Social.

Are you ready for Snapchat advertising? We’ve laid out Snapchat’s specs for each ad type below to help you design ads that will work best for you and your company.

Choose your Snapchat ad type

• Snap ads
• Sponsored geofilters
• Sponsored lenses

Related: Check out all you need to know about Snapchat for business

Snap ads

Snap Ads are short, full-screen videos that can appear in discovery, after a user’s story or in live stories. Snapchat’s self-serve platform allows you to add an article, app install, long-form video or web view to this format.

Snap ads don’t offer as much engagement as other ad formats and users can click away from them pretty quickly, so don’t rely on them to support your entire Snapchat advertising campaign. JPMorgan Chase found success with this method so give it a try and see if it’s right for your ad needs.

Snap ads specs

• Width: 1080 pixels
• Height: 1920 pixels
• Aspect Ratio: 9:16
• Format: .MP4, .MOV, H.264 encoded
• Audio: 2 channels only, PCM or AAC codec, 192 minimum kbps, 16 or 24 bit only, 48 KHz sample rate
• Length: 3 to 10 seconds
• File Size: 32MB or less

Related: The best social media ad units to drive sales

Sponsored geofilters

Sponsored Snapchat geofilters give users the ability to interact with their favorite brands. The beauty is that they are relatively simple to make and do not require an extensive advertising budget. These custom Snapchat filters are great for building brand equity or for product advertising like movies, events, etc. Snapchat geofilters are one way for users to create an experience with a brand thus deepening the relationship.

Sponsored geofilter ad specs

• Width: 1080 pixels
• Height: 1920 pixels
• Format: .PNG asset with transparent background
• File Size: 250KB or less

Related: The ultimate guide to social media ad specs

Sponsored Lenses

Snapchat offers a detailed explanation of the format and a project timeline for lens creation. Sponsored lenses do not have traditional ad specifications.

Similar in certain respects to sponsored Snapchat geofilters, Sponsored lenses allow for even more user interactivity with a brand’s advertisement. The most significant difference is that Snapchat lenses use facial recognition software to activate the lens’s features. Those features could be anything from falling snow to fire breath — the content is up to you.

Sponsored Lenses ad specs

• High-resolution, transparent background: .PNG of logo
• High-resolution, layered: .PNG files for any static images that brand wishes to appear in the lens
• For 2D Lens: High-resolution .PSD file of any specific 2D models that will be appended to the face or frame in the lens
• For 3D Lens: 3D Max or Maya files of 3D models that will be appended to the face / head / frame in the Lens
• Audio: .MP3 or .WAV file

Related: How to combat ad blockers with social media ads

Snapping to the masses

Whatever combination of ad offerings you choose, Snapchat offers a wealth of opportunities for advertisers. In the past year alone, 18% of social media users in the United States reported using Snapchat . Use these ad specs to craft an ad that can engage audiences and improve your brand’s following.

The post The complete list of Snapchat ad specifications appeared first on Strike Social.

To make it easy to get started, we’ve laid out the Twitter ad specs for each of the different Twitter Cards below.

Choose a Twitter Card type

• Summary Card
• Summary Card with large photo
• Website Card
• App Card
• Video App Card
• Player Card
• Conversational Ad Card
• Direct Message Card

Related: Everything you need to know about Twitter Cards

Summary Card

The Summary Card has many different purposes. It can be used to promote blog posts, news articles, products and even restaurants. It gives viewers a sneak peak into your content before clicking to your website. It can be used with an icon, a single image, multiple images or a GIF.

• Title: 70 characters
• Tweet copy: 280 characters
• Description: 200 characters
• Image size: at least 120 pixels by 120 pixels; 1MB maximum
• Formats accepted: PNG, JPEG, GIF
• Aspect ratio: 2:1

Related: The best social media ad units to drive sales

Summary Card with Large Photo

Summary Cards with a Large Image are designed to give the reader a rich photo experience. This Twitter Card features a large, full-width image alongside a tweet. Clicking on the image takes the user to your website.

• Title: 70 characters
• Tweet copy: 280 characters
• Description: 200 characters
• Image size: 280 pixels by 150 pixels (minimum); 1MB maximum
• Formats accepted: PNG, JPEG, GIF
• Aspect ratio: 2:1

Related: How much does social media advertising cost?

Website Card

Website Cards are best used for website conversion campaigns. They are designed to drive users to a specific, off-site URL.

• Tweet copy: 280 characters
• Website Title Length: 70 characters
• Media: image
• Size: 800 pixels by 418 pixels for 1:91:1 aspect ratio and 800 pixels by 800 pixels for 1:1 (3MB maximum)
• Formats accepted: JPEG, PNG
• Aspect ratio: 1.91:1, 1:1 (1:1 not available for self-serve advertisers)

Related: How to use social media for brand loyalty

App Card

The App Card is ideal for promoting mobile apps on Twitter. They display your app’s name, description and logo.

• Tweet copy: 280 characters
• Size: 800 pixels by 418 pixels for 1:91:1 aspect ratio and 800 pixels by 800 pixels for 1:1 (3MB maximum)
• Title/price: pulled from link to the app store
• Formats accepted: JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF
• CTA options: install (default if app is not installed), open (default if app is installed), play, shop, book, connect and order

Related: How AI can improve your paid social by 25%

Video App Card

Video App Cards allow users to preview your app, which allows more educated and qualified downloads. The video plays automatically in timelines, giving you the chance to engage with your audience throughout their day.

• Title (under video): 70 characters
• Tweet copy: 280 characters
• Formats accepted: MP4 or .MOV
• File size: under 1GB for optimal performance
• Video: 2 minutes and 20 seconds maximum (select advertisers up to 10 minutes)

Related: How to manage global advertising campaigns

Player Card

Native to the Twitter platform, the Player Card offer users a one-click experience for a Promoted Video. It displays high-quality video content and is designed to be shown on a cost-per-view basis, meaning you pay only when someone clicks your video ad.

Think of the Player Card as you would a commercial. They essentially serve the same function on Twitter streams. You might use a video ad over an image ad if you have a product or service that might benefit from a demonstration — or if you are simply adapting a commercial for online consumption.

• Tweet copy: 280 characters
• Title (under video): 70 characters
• Description (under video): 200 characters
• Media: video
• Formats accepted: MP4 or .MOV
• File size: under 1GB for optimal performance
• Video: 2 minutes and 20 seconds maximum
• Aspect ratio: 16:9

Related: How to choose the social media advertising agency that’s right for you

Conversational Ad Card

Conversational Cards allow the user to interact with your tweet. They can respond to your tweet by hitting one of the call-to-action buttons which have a hashtag on them. By choosing one option, the user unlocks hidden content that then shares your message with their followers.

• Tweet copy: 280 characters
• Hashtag: 21 characters
• Pre-populated user tweet: 256 characters
• Headline: 23 characters
• Thank you text: 23 characters
• Thank you URL (optional): 23 characters
• Video (if used): same specifications mentioned in “Video App Card” or “Player Card” sections
• Image (if used): 800 pixels by 320 pixels
• File size: 3MB
• File formats: JPEG, PNG, non-animated GIFs

Related: Five ways machine learning can improve advertising

Direct Message Card

An engaging video or image prompts the user to click an automated reply — one of four fully-customizable call to action buttons — which allows a bot to directly interact with the user through their direct message inbox.

• Tweet copy: 256 characters (24 characters used for the card)
• Size: Minimum width 800 pixels
• Video specs (if used): same as Player Card, 16:9 aspect ratio required
• File size: 3 MB, apsect ratio 5:2 or 1:91:1
• Call to action text: 24 characters (emojis supported)

Related: How to create a mobile-first ad strategy

Tweeting with a purpose

Now that you’ve gained the knowledge of the best sizes and file types to build Twitter Cards with, it’s time to tweet your message to the world. Remember to keep in mind the Twitter ad specs that work best for your brand.

X

Twitter is now X! See the updated ad specs here:

Read the full blog here

The post The complete list of Twitter ad specs and image sizes appeared first on Strike Social.

Related: Determine your YouTube ad targeting plan

How to determine your YouTube ad groups

Example: Let’s say you own a small pet-supplies business in the city. Based on anecdotal evidence (what you see) and available data (your loyalty rewards program), your typical customers are:

• Young professionals between the ages of 24 and 36
• Single or newly married, with no children
• Exercise enthusiasts who enjoy the outdoors
• People who see pets as an accessory or an extension of themselves
• Upwardly mobile
• Have an estimated income between $55,000 (single) to $120,000 (joint)

As winter turns to spring, you know that you will gain new customers, along with their four-legged friends. There is nothing better than walking the dog on a sunny May morning!

With some assistance, two professional videos have been created to showcase your business. You want to run these video ads on YouTube. Here’s what you should do.

Step 1: Write down all the types of products that you sell

These might be:

• Pet bowls
• Pet beds
• Pet collars

Step 2: Parse out each product category, getting more specific

• Dog bowls
• Cat bowls
• Dog beds
• Cat beds
• Dog collars
• Cat collars

Step 3: Break it down even further with subsets for each category

Dog bowls

• Dog feeders
• Travel bowls

Cat beds

• Cat hideaways
• Cat beds and mats

Dog collars

• Adjustable dog collar
• Pronged dog collar
• Personalized dog collar
• Designer dog collar

Step 4: Make each product category its own ad group, with distinct keywords

Here is an example, shown in two ways: one poorly structured, one effectively structured.

Poorly structured ad group

Creates just one ad group with multiple keywords

Ad group: Pet supplies

Keywords

• Automatic dog feeders
• Cat heated beds
• Travel bowls
• Designer dog collar
• Enclosed bed for cats
• Cat hideaways
• Elevated dog feeders
• Cat mats
• Adjustable dog collar
• Pronged dog collar
• Personalized dog collar
• Collapsable dog bowls

Tip: You will notice that the poorly structured example above creates one generic ad group with multiple keywords, while the effectively structured example below creates multiple ad groups, each based on a specific product type with descriptive, related keywords.

Effectively structured ad group

Creates multiple ad groups with distinct keywords for each group.

Ad group: Dog bowls

Keywords

• Automatic dog feeders
• Travel bowls
• Elevated dog feeders
• Collapsable dog bowls

Ad group: Cat beds

Keywords

• Cat heated beds
• Cat hideaways
• Cat mats
• Enclosed bed for cats

Ad group: Dog collars

Keywords

• Adjustable dog collar
• Pronged dog collar
• Personalized dog collar
• Designer dog collar

Setting up your YouTube ad campaign for success requires you to map out all the possible ad groups and keyword combinations. Keep honing this skill to improve your video ad campaigns. Remember, practice makes perfect!

The post Determining ad groups for your YouTube campaign appeared first on Strike Social.

The role of music in advertising is rarely studied on its own and statistics as to the prevalence of an ad’s accompanying melodies are few and far between. A 1989 study by Musical Quarterly revealed that approximately three-quarters of ads include music in some way, a ratio that appears relatively stable over the years.

How Music Can Make Your Ad Creatives More Impactful

The use of music in advertising is unquestionable, but, do differences in video ad performance exist between the use of royalty-free music and rights managed music? Does one element lead to (or take away) the stickiness that every brand is looking for when they run an ad?

Stay with us as we discuss all things musical, from the meaning of copyrights to the use of royalty free pieces. Final consideration will be given to the discussion of the differences, if any, between the available types of music licenses. Does one perform better than the other? Let’s see:

The buzz words: copyrights, licensing and royalty free

According to the U.S. Copyright Office, protection occurs at “the time the work is created in fixed form.” It is the property of the creator, and any rights are owned in its entirety by the individual.

If an employer commissions a piece, then the original work belongs to the employer, and not the employee.

If created by an individual, then that person can give permission for use by other people or they can give permission to a royalty free library to sell the use of the music on their behalf.

This is an important distinction because all music, including royalty free music, belongs to the creator, who can distribute licenses for use by other individuals. A royalty free library only sells a license to use and not the original copyright.

Licensing

Once a song has been copyrighted, the creator can designate how his music will be used and by whom.

A license falls under three different purviews:

• Mechanical—gives an organization, usually a record company, the right to reproduce a piece of music onto CDs, DVDs, records or tapes.
• Performance—grants an entity the right to perform, broadcast or use an original, copyrighted creation in the public space. This type of license includes uses such as, when a song is sung, played, recorded or performed live, and covers mediums such as TV, radio, the internet, live concerts, hotels, bars, stores and so forth.
• Synchronization—gives the purchaser the right to reproduce the purchased song into something else, such as the soundtrack of a film, TV show or a music video.

An advertising video will always fall under synchronization, and it is up to the video creator or agency, to negotiate directly with the copyright holder. In some cases, such as what occurs with a popular, heavily played song, final approval and financial terms, will be discussed directly with the artist and his or her agent.

If the song was sold to a royalty free library, you will negotiate directly with the artists designated representative.

Royalty free music

With the rise of YouTube video, the need for inexpensive melodies to accompany both personal and commercial videos has increased exponentially. The purchase of royalty free music generally gives a buyer the right to synchronize, plus it affords you the right to use the music time and time again on your video.

Royalty free music is the opposite of “rights managed music” where a purchaser pays royalties according to the number of times the purchased music plays, plus the estimated number of people exposed to the melody. To sum it up, the owner of the video ad pays the royalty company every time the copyrighted music is played.

Now that we understand the differences between copyrights, licenses and royalty free, let’s discuss which type of music performs best in an advertising video

And the winner is…..

A study from the University of Basque tested four ads across a random sample of 540 consumers, ages 15-65. All four ads contained an identical script for a fictitious brand of water; one ad had no music while the other three included music as an ad component.

According to the report:

“The music selected had no lyrics, to prevent any interference with the generation of memories among the participants, and it was chosen following several group sessions with experts from an advertising agency. Finally, two musical versions (with music unknown to the public) were created specifically for the adverts, while the third version (well-known music) used What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.”

Each subject heard only one version of the ad and tests were conducted to determine the listeners’ perception, the emotional reactions elicited and the resulting brand sentiment. Researchers discovered that subject scores were “significantly higher” for the ads with music than the one without. In addition, the study reports that “the average scores were significantly higher in the version using the song by Louis Armstrong than in the other two versions that used unknown songs.”

Additionally, a 2015 study conducted by Nielsen further examined the memorability of ads. Their research showed that popular songs perform best at evoking emotions, a key ingredient to an ad’s stickiness, but for information heavy commercials, a generic, unobtrusive melody improves message recall.

The conclusion by Nielsen? Music ads vs. non-music ads can influence as many as four metrics: creative, empathy, emotive and information. Combine the use of popular music with a trendy artist, as seen in a Hewlett-Packard (HP) ad that used the artist Meghan Trainor and her song “Lips are Movin” and the results prove positive all around. HP saw a 26% increase in total dollar volume during ad air and a 6.53% increase in lift over the previous year.

Putting it all together

The good news from both studies is that the addition of any music type always performs better than an ad without music. So, how do you choose from a plethora of options?

For brands with a limited budget:

• Look to royalty-free music for your video ads. A good library houses a wide, variety of musical genres from heavy metal to country to classical.
• Libraries vary in quality, so do your research to find one where the music is hand-picked and the artists are screened.
• Look for music that complements your advertisement and matches the tempo of the music with the pace of the video.
• Explore different genres to find a style that best suits the advertisement—you may be surprised by what song clicks.
• Make sure the music coordinates with the video and maintains the structure and theme of the ad.

Money’s no object

• Look for an artist or song that appeals to your targeted audience. Ask yourself, what music are they downloading today?
• Research the artists you are considering. Do they match up well with the brand’s principles, mission and vision? Choose wisely, with a critical eye to maintaining your brand’s reputation.
• The use of a popular artist can result in higher sales, but it is more important to find the right song that moves the story along at a pace set to engage viewers and form connections.
• Consider including the artist in your video, for maximum engagement.

Through careful consideration of all the available music and by obtaining the correct license for your needs and budget, you are on your way to a successful video ad. Take your time, for as we’ve learned through research, music brings it all together.

The post The role of music in social media advertising campaigns appeared first on Strike Social.

But wait! Before you hit publish, have you considered how to boost your blog’s performance on Facebook? The quickest way to reach out to your internet audience is through social media. You can do this either organically or through paid advertising. Both have their merits, but if you are trying to accrue a following, it’s to your benefit to at least look into some of Facebook’s paid advertising offers.

Paid advertising allows you to directly target your intended audience, get your updates seen and drive traffic to your blog site.

Increase Blog Traffic with Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts

There are two paths from which to choose: Boosted Posts and Facebook Ads.

Boosted posts

Boosted Posts are an effective way to reach people who have already liked your page and to acquire new followers. A boosted post appears in the user’s newsfeed and can take several forms — status updates, blog posts, videos and events.

You can boost a post when you create it or anytime after it’s been published. Many people choose to boost a post after it has gained traction organically and outperforms other posts made by you. With a Boosted Post, you pay for the engagement on the post (likes, comments, shares, etc.)

Boosted posts are given priority over other posts, appearing higher on the feed for increased user discovery. Posts are boosted directly from your Facebook page. First, find the post you want to promote and then select the “boost post” button (directly below and to the right of the post.)

Next, determine who should see your post. You have several targeting options when boosting a post: people who like your page, people who like your page and their friends or people you select through targeting.

Let’s break down each option:

• People who like your page: many businesses did a poor job of initially attracting high-quality page likes. We tag our friends, many of whom have no idea what the page is about, and ask them to “like” our page. Our friends like the page because they ‘like’ us, not our product. Save your money for people who are really interested in your content.
• People who like your page and their friends: As with option No. 1, this choice is also best skipped as friends of your friends probably find your content irrelevant too.
• People you select through targeting: The targeting option lets you select the type of people you want to reach based on their location, age, gender and up to 10 interests. Your custom audience can be saved for future use or you can redefine your parameters next time you boost. This option is the best value for your money.

Facebook offers several options for both payment and boost run. As shown by the below screenshot, Facebook recommends spending an average of $30 but the amount paid can be as little as $10. However, a lower budget means fewer people are likely to see it. You also have the option to define your own budget. To learn more about your budget options, visit Facebook’s business page to know more about setting a budget and your payment options.

Once you have chosen your budget, you will need to choose a run time for your campaign. Boosted posts can run anywhere from one to fourteen days, or you can set a custom end date for your campaign. Facebook sums up your budget and duration decisions for you, plus an estimate of the post’s estimated reach. Take the time to experiment with different payment levels and run time to learn how each choice affects post reach. Then, select the terms which make the most sense for your budget and campaign goals.

Facebook ads

Facebook Ads are considerably different from a boosted post. First, where Boosted Posts take the form of Facebook content and live in the user’s newsfeed, Facebook Ads offer several placement options, such as Desktop and Mobile Feed, Right Column, Instant Articles, In-Stream Video, Instagram and Audience Networks. With Facebook Ads, you choose whether to run your ads across all of the eligible placements or to manually select ad placement during your ad set-up.

Additionally, Facebook Ads allow for specific targeting on a granular level and offers several marketing tools to help you meet your business objectives.

For blog promotion, we recommend Facebook’s Link ads format to direct interested users to your chosen content. The entire ad is clickable, so it doesn’t matter whether the user clicks on the text or the image; they will be taken to your web page.

Once you have selected “link ads,” you are directed to the first of three set-up pages, the Campaign. On this page, you can choose from several marketing objectives, such as awareness, consideration or conversion. For blog clicks, select “send people to a destination on or off Facebook.”

When someone clicks on your ad, they will be taken to the destination of your choice, which for this objective should be the content of your blog post.

Once you have selected your marketing objective, you will be taken to “ad set” to define your audience, set your budget and determine ad delivery schedule.

Want to know more? View the types of Facebook ads.

Define audience

For this step, you need to either create a new audience or use a previously saved one. To create a new audience, first complete the basic demographics, age, gender, language and location.

The next step is to define your ad placement.

Facebook recommends automatic placement, as they believe this allows them to get you the best results at the lowest price. You can choose to remove placements, but it depends on your blog content–choose the placement that best fits your topic.

Finally, you need to set your budget and schedule. Facebook sets a minimum budget according to whether you’re using automatic or manual bidding. According to Facebook’s Ads Manager, the minimum for ads set in U.S. dollars is:

• For impression ad sets, the daily budget must be at least $1 a day
• For click ad sets, the daily budget must be at least $5 a day
• For event ad sets like offer claims or app installs, the daily budget must be at least $40 a day

Advanced options reveal the following choices: optimization for ad delivery (link clicks or impressions), automatic or manual bidding, when you get charged (CPC or per impression), to run ads all the time or on a schedule, and either a standard or accelerated delivery schedule.

Finally, you can choose your ad format and select your links and related Facebook page. To learn more about Facebook ad options, read the article Know your options: all the types of Facebook ads and Facebook Ads Manager.

Putting it all together

As you can see, Facebook Ads Manager offers more opportunities to customize and optimize your ad set over Boosted Posts. Choose your advertising format based on your budget, objectives and level of expertise. If this is your first time advertising on Facebook, you can always decide to ease into the platform to see how it all flows together. Whatever you decide, don’t be afraid to put yourself and your blog post out there; it’s the only way to grow both yourself and your following.

Ready to get started? View the options for Facebook ad sizes.

The post Want to boost your blog’s performance? Try Facebook advertising appeared first on Strike Social.

Beyond the platform’s massive amount of video content, YouTube is also the second largest search engine behind Google, receiving, on average, 167.4 million unique U.S. visitors per month. Add to that the 41.6 percent of U.S. users who regularly watch their favorite YouTube channels, and the platform presents a big opportunity for social media advertisers.

As such, YouTube provides several targeting options through Google’s AdWords and TrueView (YouTube’s ad platform) dashboard. To help you reach your desired audience, here are six in-depth tips to help you find success in YouTube advertising.

Related: Brand safety measures for YouTube advertising

1. Know your audience and how to reach them

One of the foundational components of any great advertising campaign is a firm understanding of the audience you are hoping to reach. The same goes for any noteworthy YouTube advertising campaign; to conduct a YouTube campaign worthy of your ad dollars, you first need to know who it is you are trying to reach.

Without the proper research, you may miss the target group you are trying so hard to reach in the first place; but by understanding the behaviors and attitudes, plus gaining clarity into the demographics of your very best customer, you set your advertising campaign up for success.

Related Content: How effective targeting helps you reach your desired audience

2. Create engaging content

The key to creating successful content is to create an engaging narrative. How does that look? First and foremost, you want to remember that play rates significantly drop off after 45 seconds. With that in mind, you’ll want the most important messages to be conveyed early on in case viewers stop watching. Be clear about what your business is offering and why it is relevant to the consumer. Finally, at the end of your video, provide clear next steps for the customer to take, be that making a purchase, sharing the video or visiting your website.

Related Content: How to create a viral video ad

3. Establish your ground game

Your return on investment flows from a well-constructed campaign. Be sure to incorporate the following actions into your campaign setup:

• Enhance viewer engagement by directing traffic from your video ad to your brand’s YouTube channel or off-platform website. Both places should have additional video content to allow for audience engagement. By continuing the consumer’s experience with your brand, you have greater control of the communication message, as well as the potential for increased engagement.
• Create a clear call to action to efficiently direct viewer traffic within your ad, so there is no confusion on the part of the consumer. You will lose engagement if users are confused as they are not likely to spend the time to figure out your directions.

4. Optimize your YouTube ad campaign

Managing a YouTube advertising campaign requires commitment and obsessive attention to metrics like cost-per-view (CPV) and click-through-rate (CTR.) Once a campaign has started, you need to take the time to study the advertising metrics that matter most to you. After you have a firm grasp on the metrics, you need to figure out what is working and not working within your campaign ad groups and then take the necessary steps to remedy the situation.

Related Content: 5 things to consider if your YouTube view rate is low

5. Include YouTube Analytics to get the full picture

Metrics matter. When you’re analyzing the performance of your ad, use the parameters provided to you by YouTube Analytics — and use a lot of them. You want to have the most amount of information possible to help paint the best picture of how your ad is performing on YouTube. Save time and select the automated reporting option to have your reports delivered to you via email.

6. Advertise, optimize, analyze, repeat

As with most things in life, if at first, you don’t succeed, try, and try again. To reap the benefits of YouTube advertising, you’ll need to be persistent. Continuously review and analyze the data provided by YouTube Analytics, and make incremental changes as required. Social media advertising is an investment of not only your time but also your money. Make it count!

Being successful with YouTube advertising requires a continuous commitment to grow your skills and stay up to date with social media advertising trends and changes. Hopefully, these six tips will help you achieve YouTube advertising success, but if you need any further guidance, consider a more hands-on solution through professional campaign management.

The post 6 tips for YouTube advertising success appeared first on Strike Social.

From setting up and running campaigns to communicating with clients, these tips will help you develop and expand your team. And your clients will thank you when they see an even greater ROAS.

Want our top tips for paid social success? Download this free guide now.

The post 5 Secrets of highly successful social media buyers appeared first on Strike Social.

Global management refers to the way an organization manages its business internationally. For brands with a large presence in social media advertising, global advertising means managing ad spend across multiple time zones, languages and customs. To succeed, global organizations need to combine business and marketing knowledge with an overall respect for cultural differences to help find its niche in the international business community.

We’ve researched best practices from not only the web, but also consulted with Strike Social’s social media advertising managers, who are responsible for managing ad budgets throughout the world. With clients in such faraway locations as Australia, Japan and Germany (to name a few), our media managers know what it takes to supervise remotely.

Streamline the process

When you are approaching global advertising, try to streamline the process as much as possible. This means automating manual steps whenever possible and standardizing the process to ensure that every step is understood and recorded. Additionally, keep your information organized and easily accessible so that you can pull from it at a moment’s notice.

Related: YouTube advertising know-hows

Create an A+ global advertising team

With global campaign management offices in Chicago, Krakow and Manila, we need staff to monitor and adjust ad placement during the peak hours of the campaigns geographical location. This requires hiring people who are driven, self-starters – when they see a problem, they fix it!

If your staff is scattered throughout the universe, make sure you have hired the best. Test for the characteristics and temperaments that your business requires, not what you think you should have.

Dive deeper: Secrets of highly successful social media buyers

Transcreate content

Since this is global management, remember that you’re going to have to adapt and translate content for different markets. The key with transcreation is to maintain meaning across the different advertising markets.

Think of it as a translation – the core message is there, it’s just delivered in a way that local audiences will understand and relate to. This will make your global campaigns stronger, as well as ensure that the message for each local market remains relevant to capture a new customer’s attention.

Introduce checkpoints and analytics

By introducing checkpoints for your advertising campaigns, you facilitate continuous campaign optimization. Implementing analytics allows you to determine success or failure through analysis of your quantitative data.

With technology making the world smaller, global business relations have never been more important for companies. Unfortunately, it is very easy to make mistakes that could be potentially ruinous for your company’s brand reputation. By maintaining a global, management perspective and utilizing analytics tools, you help to avoid some of the pitfalls that trip up even the best of companies, ensuring success in business ventures around the world.

Articles you may be interested in

• How to A/B test a social media ad campaign
• How to calculate ROAS and ROI
• 7 social media advertising predictions for 2017
• How machine learning can improve advertising

The post How to manage global advertising campaigns appeared first on Strike Social.

With 173 million daily users opening Snapchat over 18 times a day, the platform presents a highly desirable audience for brands both big and small.

Interested in learning how to advertise on Snapchat? We’ve made it a snap for you to decide if the platform works with your business.

Related: The complete list of Snapchat ad specifications

Quick Statistics:

• Snapchat’s user base is comprised primarily of millennials.
• 70% of young adults between ages 18 to 24 are on Snapchat.
• 40% of 25- to 34-year-olds use the platform.
• Users spend about 30 minutes on average on the app.

Get to know Snapchat

The pros and cons of using Snapchat as part of you paid social strategy.

Pros

Snapchat is a quick way to engage a massive, influential audience

First, Snapchat’s audience is comprised primarily of millennials who spend more than $65 million a year and influence upward of $1 trillion in total consumer spending. The app falls only behind Facebook as the largest platform used by millennials between ages of 18 and 34.

Also, unlike other social media, Snapchat boasts a highly engaged audience with its highly interactive structure. 60% of Snapchat’s daily users create photos or videos with the app’s camera.

Content is never lost

Due to the way Snapchat is structured, snaps are never lost in a timeline or subject to an algorithm which filters the content you see. This means your snap won’t get lost in a user’s list of messages.

Cons

It can be costly

Snap ads begin around $3,000 per month in ad spend with snap discover ads starting at $50,000 a day. That makes for a fairly large chunk of your budget. Throw in any lenses and you’re looking at costs ranging from $450,000 to $700,000 depending on when you want your lens to run.

While geofilters targeted to small areas can fall on the cheaper side, choosing to run any nationwide geofilters can still cost nearly $100,000.

Low adoption rates outside the US

A total of 75 million Snapchat users are located inside the U.S. Europe holds 57 million and the rest of the world sees 42 millionof the platform’s users. The lower adoption rates outside the U.S. are associated with the issues the Android version of the platform has, as Android is the more popular smartphone operating system outside of the U.S.

RELATED ARTICLEThe ultimate guide to how Snapchat advertising worksLooking for more? Find even more details in our Snapchat advertising guide.CTA TEXT

Available advertising formats for Snapchat

Now that we’ve looked at the pros and cons of Snapchat, let’s take a look at the platform’s advertising formats.

Snapchat’s self-serve ad management platform gives advertisers more freedom to control their ads and campaigns without needing to go through Snapchat directly. Snapchat ad manager also lowers the cost of advertising on the app as advertisers can control their bid and budget directly from this tool.

Snapchat ads come in many forms and at different price points. Here is a breakdown of their most recent offerings:

Snap ads

Snap ads consist of vertical, full-screen mobile videos that last up to 10 seconds and appear between users’ Snaps. You can add links and more information to your ad by allowing snapchatters to swipe up to see extended content like a long-form video, a link to install an app or a mobile website link. The swipe-up rate for snap ads is 5X higher than the average click-through rate for other comparable social platforms, according to Snapchat.

Sponsored geofilters

Snapchat geofilters are digital stickers tied to a geographic location that allow a Snapchat user to overlay the creative on posted photos and videos.

A single sponsored geofilter can reach 40% to 60% of daily Snapchatters in the U.S., making it a popular ad choice with many brands.

You can use sponsored geofilters to engage and interact with Snapchat users. First, you choose a site or location to make the filter available. When a Snapchatter ‘snaps’ within your desired location, the user will be able to see and use your geofilter to explain where, when and why they took the snap. A sponsored geofilter can cover specific locations, major events or your audience’s favorite hangouts.

On-demand geofilters

These geofilters, which are designed for small business needs, are similar to the above sponsored geofilter except with one caveat — with this format, the business can create its own filter design.

Once the design has been created, it is submitted to the Snapchat team for initial approval. After receiving the go ahead, an advertiser chooses the desired time frame and sets a geo-fence, which is a feature in a software program that uses the global positioning system (GPS) or radio frequency identification (RFID) to define geographical boundaries.

Sponsored lenses

Sponsored lenses offer an entirely new take on brand activation, giving users a chance to engage with brands through fun, animated masks.

To activate lenses, Snapchatters just tap the screen when the Snapchat camera opens. Some lenses include prompts like “raise your eyebrows” to trigger an animation, adding a unique twist to the experience.

It is also easy to send lenses to a friend or post one to your personal story. On average, Snapchatters play with a sponsored lens for 20 seconds.

Related: A guide to what’s inside the Snapchat self-serve ad manager

The cost of Snapchat ads

Snapchat advertising costs vary by ad type, duration and whether or not you want to run the campaign yourself or through Snapchat’s sales team directly. Using the self-serve platform, you’re charged based on cost per thousand (CPM) and you set a daily or lifetime budget for the campaign.

The Snapchat sales team also offers direct price points for the various ad formats.

• Snap ads start at around $3,000 per month in ad spend.
• Sponsored lenses vary day to day:
  • $450,000 per day if it’s running Sunday-Thursday
  • $500,000 per day on Friday and Saturday
  • $700,000 for holidays and special events, such as the Super Bowl
• Snapchat Discover ads run at about $50,000 daily.
• Sponsored nationwide geofilters are estimated to be about one-fifth of the cost of sponsored lenses.
• On-Demand geofilters can begin around $5, but ultimately depend on the duration and location of the filter.

Putting it all together

Snapchat represents a tremendous opportunity for the right brand, with several ad options designed to delight its users. Look for additional, new formats as the company seeks to innovate in its competition with Facebook and Instagram.

If your business can manage to crack Snapchat advertising potential, you can expect significant returns. Hopefully, the information we have provided is a good start towards that successful campaign. We are rooting for you!

Expand your expertise. Browse Strike Social’s latest blogs here:

• 
  TikTok News and Updates Q1 2025: What Advertisers Need to Know
• 
  YouTube Shorts Views Are Changing: How You Can Adapt Your Paid Ads Strategy
• 
  7 Social Media Advertising Trends You Should Know in 2025
• 
  Increase YouTube Subscribers with Google Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide
• 
  Easter Day Sales Strategy: Drive More Conversions with Demand Gen Ads
• 
  Meta Advantage Suite: How to Use AI-Driven Optimization for Smarter Ads

The post How to get started with Snapchat advertising appeared first on Strike Social.

Some questions to ask (and answer) include:

• Who is your very best customer?
• How would you describe them?
• How old are they?
• What gender(s) should you include in your targeting?
• Do they have kids? Or, are they empty-nesters or adventurous singles?
• What is their degree of education?
• What motivates them?
• Where do they spend most of their time?
• Why are they interested in your product?
• What will convince them to buy?

Sounds great, right? But where do I find all of this information?

If you are a small business owner or your organization maintains detailed customer records, then you are in luck, as most of the information is either in your head or your CRM software (or both!)

To gather the data, you can:

• Look through your contacts database.
• Speak with your sales office to glean insights.
• Create forms or surveys to collect information directly from your customers – but keep it short and specific to demonstrate that you value your customer’s time.
• Interview customers and prospects. This can be done formally, through a third-party firm, or informally by engaging people whenever and wherever you meet.

Next, condense the information to create two-to-three customer personas. A persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on market research and real data retrieved from an organization’s records. Personas bring your ideal customer to life and paints a mental picture upon which to build a narrative for the brand. This step ensures everyone is focused on the ‘who, what and why’ of your target customers and allows you to construct effective, integrated messaging across all marketing channels.

Get granular with your targeting

Once you have established personas of your very best customers, go deeper with your insights by getting granular. Granular refers to highly specific and accurate targeting. For example, instead of wealthy grandmothers, think rich widowed grandmothers above 75 who live in New Haven Connecticut. Okay, maybe it isn’t that specific, but you get the idea. Essentially, the purpose of granular targeting is to help you deliver your ad to the most precise group of consumers possible.

How to get granular?

First, determine your targeting options by selecting the devices, location, demographics and interests that you want to target. Remember, it is standard practice to focus across devices (desktop, tablet, mobile) and operating systems.

With interests, you can select a target audience based on pre-set categories ranging from gaming to sports and fashion to beauty. Your ad will be shown only to those most likely to be interested in your offering.

Finally, does your brand currently advertise on TV? If yes, you might want to consider custom affinity audiences which allow you to extend the reach of TV to the digital world at an economical price. You can create custom affinity audiences two ways: free-form interests entered as keywords or referencing the URL from a website which is frequented by your desired customer.

For example, say you have created a video ad to be served on YouTube, and you want to target avid hikers; you could enter the website URL for Backpacker. AdWords would then determine from the URL that the website is about hiking gear, hiking trails, road trips, and survival skills. Next, AdWords concludes that people who search for the above words would be interested in your ad, titled, the best boots for winter. And finally, your video ad would be shown to people who have actively searched for the identified words.

Without the proper research and preparation, you may miss the target group you are trying so hard to reach in the first place; but by understanding the behaviors and attitudes, plus gaining clarity into the demographics of your very best customer, you set your advertising campaign up for success.

The post How to use effective targeting to reach your social media advertising audience appeared first on Strike Social.

It is time to learn more about ROI and ROAS so you can define the metric that works best for you.

The differences between ROAS and ROI

While they sound similar, ROI and ROAS operate differently from each other.

• ROI is a business-centric, strategy oriented metric that measures how ad expenditures contribute to an organization’s bottom line. It takes earnings into account only after expenses have been deducted.
• ROAS optimizes to a tactic and is an advertiser-centric metric that measures the efficacy of a digital advertising campaign. It focuses on growing business through incremental conversions and measures gross-revenue against every dollar spent on advertising. It acts as a comparison of the amount spent to the amount earned.

Now that we’ve established the differences between ROI and ROAS, how is each one calculated?

Related: How to use social media to generate sales.

Calculating your ROAS and ROI

How to calculate ROI

(Gains – Cost)/Cost = ROI

Example: let’s say you have a product that costs $100 to produce and it sells for $200. You sell 6 of these products as a result of advertising via Google AdWords. Total sales equal $1200, but your AdWords costs are $200 with production costs of $600.

ROI = ($1200-($600+$200))/($600+$200)=50%

RELATED: How much does it cost to advertise on social media? Discover your advertising costs with the help of this guide.

How to calculate ROAS

Revenue from ad campaign/Cost of ad campaign = ROAS

Example: Your company spends $2,000 on an online advertising campaign in a single month. During this month, the campaign yields a revenue of $10,000.

ROAS = ($10,000/$2000)=5

Therefore, the ROAS is a ratio of 5 to 1 (or 500 percent) as $10,000 divided by $2,000 = $5. In other words, for every dollar your company spends on its advertising campaign, it generates $5 worth of revenue.

Related: How to maximize your social media ad spend.

Additional considerations

Remember, advertising costs include more than just the listing fee. To calculate the actual cost to run an advertising campaign, consider adding these factors into your ROAS calculation:

• Partner/Vendor costs: These are customary fees and commissions associated with partners and suppliers that assist on the campaign or channel level. An accurate accounting of in-house advertising personnel expenses such as salary and other related costs must be tabulated. If these factors are not accurately quantified, ROAS will not explain the efficacy of individual marketing efforts and its utility as a metric will decline.
• Affiliate Commission: The percent commission paid to affiliates, as well as network transaction fees.
• Clicks and Impressions: Metrics such as average cost per click, the total number of clicks, the average cost per thousand impressions, and the number of impressions purchased.

RELATED: The best ad units to drive sales Get more bang for your buck by focusing on the best ad units for driving sales.

When to use ROI and ROAS

If you are selling a service or the goal of your ad campaign is a soft metric such as to raise awareness for your organization or to get people to attend an event, then ROAS is a great number to work from as it helps you evaluate which advertising method works best for your goal. Remember, ROAS tests tactics, so if you want to know which platform yields the greatest number of web clicks (e.g., Facebook or Twitter), you can calculate your ad spend to improve future advertising efforts.

However, as in the case of our ROI example, if you are selling physical goods with its associated production costs, you need to assess ad spend by calculating ROI. Fortunately, AdWords makes it easy for you to pass these variables to your account through the use of conversion values.

Understanding ROI and ROAS is a crucial step in launching a successful social media advertising campaign. Based on your campaign goals, continuously assess your ad’s effectiveness by drilling down into your ad numbers. This commitment will pay off by allowing you to spend your advertising dollars wisely.

The post How to calculate ROI and ROAS appeared first on Strike Social.

However, by committing to making exceptional videos and learning to think like an A-list producer, the odds of your creative gaining traction in the advertising world increases incrementally. Remember, you don’t have to hit a million to be successful. Your brand’s definition of ‘viral’ could be one-hundred or one-thousand strong; the key is to aim each time for a quality video.

To help your video gain views, we’ve assembled the latest research and best practices for video creation. Here is the breakdown:

Lights, camera, action!

Viral content elicits strong emotions that compel viewers to share said content with their network of friends and family. Thus, when you’re creating something in the hopes of going viral, try thinking like a movie producer:

First, elicit emotions right away. With the sheer glut of media that is out there, waiting to be consumed, it is harder than ever to keep an audience’s attention. Make your audience feel real emotions from the start so that they can forge an immediate connection with your content and stay engaged.

Ride the waves

After you have triggered an emotional response, don’t just leave them high and dry. Guide your audience through the emotions you want them to experience. According to an article written for the Harvard Business Review,“ads that produce stable emotional states generally aren’t effective at engaging viewers for very long.”

By creating an emotional roller coaster, people pay attention as they wait with anticipation for the next dramatic move.

Be novel

The brain was designed to remain in a static state and to normalize everyday activities in order to reserve the bandwidth to operate in case of an emergency. The brain accomplishes this through the use of schemas, mental models we create to make the world work, enabling us to discern patterns and to fill in the missing details. In other words, schemas allow us to assume predictability in the world.

A schema buster defies any preconceived notions we have developed over time about an object, idea, or person. In viral media, busters play the role of keeping a viewer’s attention engaged in order to digest the creative and understand it.

Brand as backdrop

A movie may include an all-star cast, but a great director never allows its stars to overwhelm the film. In the same way, exceptional video allows a story to develop independent of brand products, integrating them subtly into the storyline.

According to an analysis by Priceonomics, it is easier to sell a viewer on the value of a product if they are emotionally invested in the storyline. Overly promotional advertisements leave consumers disgusted and suspicious of the brand in question.

Aim to strike a balance between communicating brand name and sticking to the script. You can achieve this by creating a relevant role for the brand and integrating it seamlessly within the storyline. Use imagery to tie the video ad back to the brand’s value. And, finally, include recognizable brand shots.

Last, engage and distribute

If you have followed the above suggestions and created an engaging video ad, there is an increased chance that the audience feels compelled to share with their network of family and friends. So, get your creative out there in front of an audience! Here’s to your video’s viral success.

The post How to create a viral video ad appeared first on Strike Social.

Related: Calculating ROAS and ROI

How to optimize Google Ads

1. Have a clear goal

As with any ad campaign, you will only be successful if you have a very clearly defined goal in mind. You don’t want to blindly advertise as it wastes both time and money (two business components that seem to be inexplicably linked to one another.) Are you hoping to increase brand awareness? Maybe you want to increase the number of visitors to your website. Google Ads can help you to do all of these things but before you write your ad copy, determine what you want from the campaign and how you are going to measure its effectiveness.

2. Choose one network to run your campaign

With Google Ads, there are two types of networks: search and display. Ads placed within the Google Search Network reach people when they’re already searching for specific goods or services. Your search ad appears on the page as a result of a keyword inquiry. The Google Search Network includes Google’s search engine and Google’s partner networks, such as AOL search, Ask.com and Netscape.

Google’s Ads Display Network places your ad on thousands of affiliated websites outside of Google Search, allowing you to connect with the customer through a variety of ad formats on over two million websites.

We suggest separating out your ad campaigns rather than choosing to run one on both networks simultaneously. Search and display are very different from each other, as are the way you write ads, select keywords and set bids for the two; it is not to your advantage to lump them together. Think of it kind of like pickles and birthday cake. They both satisfy your hunger and cravings, but in two very different ways. But just because they both satisfy you, it doesn’t mean you should put them together.

An alternative is to develop two separate campaigns, one for each network. Running two campaigns concurrently not only allows you the opportunity to see which network performs best but also gives you the ability to individually adjust spending according to campaign performance.

3. Use negative keywords

Negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaign. It is just as important to choose what to target as it is to choose what not to target. Negative keywords allow you to do that. Say, for example, Apple was starting out today. If they were trying to build awareness via online advertising, they would want to select “Apple” as a keyword and “apple pie” and “apple tree” as negative keywords because they are not related to Apple the tech company. Think about your business and what search terms could yield false results. Turn these into your negative keywords to more finely hone your advertising.

4. Weed-out bad placements

By bad placements, we mean those placements that could be detrimental to your brand reputation. This shows up as an advertisement for healthy food choices shown before a video on how to make a four cheese lasagna. While that example will only seem silly, other bad placements are sites with sexually suggestive content, parked domains, fake news websites, error pages and controversial videos as revealed by this NBC News report of companies caught off guard by their ad’s placement before Isis videos.

Carefully manage placement and be vigilant about investigating the location of your ad’s delivery. Use a placement report to see which web pages your ads run on, plus learn more about data on impressions, clicks and conversions.

5. Structure your keywords

In many cases, a business will create one campaign and fill it with all of their keywords. This action essentially makes the campaign more of a broad match rather than a campaign targeted at a very specific customer segment. Consumers who see the ad deem it irrelevant and disregard it. The result? Advertising money lost and a poor ROI for your campaign.

A better practice is to group keywords into tightly related groups. So, if you are selling fashion apparel, you would separate tops from bottoms and accessories from sale items. You may even want to narrow it down further by grouping keywords associated with specific styles, colors, etc. This makes your ads more targeted and thus better equipped to help both you and your customer.

6. Use conversion tracking

If you are putting all of this effort into optimizing your ad campaigns, you want to make sure you are seeing results, right? That’s why is important to have conversion tracking. For a lot of businesses, a conversion may be a purchase, sign-up or lead with your ad being the thing that inspired those actions. Thus, conversion tracking is an exceptionally useful tool to implement as it gives you a specific metric by which to measure your campaign’s ROI. At the end of the day, the goal is to make conversions and what better way to do that than by tracking them?

7. Diversify ad sources

If there was one piece of advice to take from finance it would be that in nearly every case, it is in your benefit to diversify. In the case of online advertising, you don’t want to solely rely on Google Ads. Why? Because while Google Ads is an exceptionally-built platform and does its job remarkably well, it means that you’re also relying on it for all of your leads and sales. That’s a scary prospect when you put it to words, right? What if something happens with a change in the marketplace or more competition arrives and your returns from Google Ads start to slow down?

It is in your benefit to use more than just GoogleGoogle Ads for online advertising because you want to have a number of different advertisers on the off-chance one stops being useful to you. There are plenty of online and offline sources of traffic out there some of which have actually delivered better results thanGoogle Ads. It is to your benefit to look into diversifying your ad sources.

Leveraging these Google Ads optimizations you will see greater success with your advertising campaigns.

The post 7 hacks for Google Ads optimization appeared first on Strike Social.

Strike Social’s social media advertising predictions for 2017

1. Video-streaming taxes will pick up steam

Lawmakers around the world are looking to tax video-streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Google and Apple.

France’s National Assembly voted in favor of a video-streaming tax in October. Coined the “YouTube tax,” France would apply a 2 percent levy on all video streams, plus an additional 8 percent assessment for the downloading of pornographic or violent content (10 percent total). France’s law, which needs further approval, would apply the tax to either subscription or advertising revenue.

The taxing idea has gained traction in the United States as well, with several California cities considering amendments to municipality codes to include the taxing of subscribers of video-streaming platforms. Cities claim to have lost millions in revenue due to a decrease in cable subscribers, as more Americans become cord cutters.

At Strike Social, we believe this trend will continue and possibly accelerate in 2017. How it will affect advertising revenue is unknown, but the increased cost of doing business could lead to economic stress throughout the chain.

2. Emerging technologies will take a bite out of cookie tracking

As the ability to track individuals from device to device becomes more reliable, Digital ID technologies are changing the way we count unique users. Moving beyond the cookie would be beneficial to digital advertisers, as brands would be able to discern unique visitors, regardless of device and lead to more accurate advertising metrics.

Underscoring the importance of accurate visitor counts, a 2014 British study showed that people switched between devices (laptops, tablets and mobile phones) 21 times over the course of an hour. Under the current method for counting users, each device counts as one user. Cookie-based technology skews the count and keeps digital enterprises from receiving accurate information on the number of unique and returning visitors to a site.

To counter the cookie conundrum, alternative tracking methods, such as deterministic and probabilistic matching, are finally gaining traction in the cross-device recognition space. 2017 will be the year in which this technology corrects the inaccuracies of cookie counts.

Improved user identification methods will lead to upheaval within the digital advertising space, as brands, agencies and media buyers hash out not only the inflated head counts but also the duplicative cost of placing ads before the same user, even if he or she is accessing content via multiple devices. Should brands and agencies pay for the same ad to be served to the same consumer over and over again? Improved user identity will be the beginning of the end of the entire metrics debate.

3. More live-streaming options could be a doubled-edge sword

Live video exploded in 2016. At Strike Social, we expect it to rise to the top of people’s most watched content. Brands should prepare for big opportunities with the medium. Companies such as Southwest Airlines, Experian and Nestle, which began broadcasting on Facebook and Periscope back in 2015, know the power of live video to connect on a more personal level.

Brands have branched out from broadcasting content to sponsoring live video in an attempt to further their reach. In addition to Periscope and Facebook, Instagram is moving toward live streaming, giving advertisers another way to tap into audiences and form new relationships. Twitter’s live streaming of NFL games adds to the mix of available platforms for direct engagement with consumers.

Brands will be able to connect with both potential and current customers on a variety of platforms, affording them increased flexibility to choose the placement that best meets their customers’ unique interests and behavior.

That said, with live videos growing popularity, the escalation of available platforms and increased use of brand ambassadors who create their own live feeds, 2017 could see some public relations disasters that result in stricter controls around the creative license.

To preserve their reputation, brands must remain vigilant about the content produced and published by third-party sponsors on social media.

4. Apps will take more of a backseat to mobile sites

Since 2014, app usage has been relatively flat compared to mobile web visits (see chart below). Furthermore, according to the Pew Research Center,app downloaders tend to use a relatively small number of apps on a regular basis. Almost half of app downloaders reported that they use five or fewer apps at least once per week, and just 16 percent indicated that they use more than ten apps on a regular basis.

Only apps with long-term usefulness — such as major e-commerce platforms, social media powerhouses and financial gateways — will have sticking power. As a social media marketer, consider all the positive and negative possibilities before investing in app development. It may not be worth the hassle.

5. Artificial intelligence will make business better

Artificial intelligence will yield better conversions through conversations with customers. Facebook started down this path with an Uber deal that lets users hail, track and pay for rides through the social giant’s messaging app. Subsequent brands include Zulily, KLM and 1-800-Flowers.com — all examples of targeted marketing within the platform’s private conversations space.

Facebook’s use of chatbots prepares a new path to be explored by advertisers, especially as the use of improved artificial intelligence and chatbot functionality allow brands to initiate conversations and offer products and services to a wider array of consumers.

Other platforms will take a deeper dive into the technology, as shown by WhatsApp’s expected use of chatbots in 2017 and Google’s recently announced click-to-message ads, an option that opens a prefilled text to perform everyday actions, such as making reservations.

Building off that ability is Wink, a platform that creates branded emojis for targeting within a consumer’s messaging app. For example, a user searches for holiday treats and receives a targeted message from a brand like The Popcorn Factory spotlighting its holiday tins and goodies.

The expanded use of chatbots to improve the customer experience will grow in popularity with both brands and users in 2017, giving social media advertisers better options and more opportunities to reach their customers at multiple touch points.

6. Content subscriptions will outpace free sites

The data clearly shows subscriptions as the dominant revenue model, comprising 50 percent of 2016 media revenue. People will pay for access to premium content to avoid advertising and benefit from the perception of higher quality offerings.

This trend might be troubling for advertisers, as consumer access of free content has steadily decreased over the past five years, from a high of 23 percent in 2011 to 12 percent in 2016.

Fortunately, media buyers, brands and social media platforms will continue to innovate with advertising options in order to reach consumers and to improve a user’s brand experience. This trend is an opportunity for you to select the platform and ad format that best suits your target audience.

7. Facebook will more aggressively take on Google in search

Google has long dominated the web, with control over how information is both searched and found. But Facebook is making inroads into Google’s share (see graph below).

In July, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook averages 2 billion searches per day, a 33 percent increase from its record 1.5 billion one year earlier. Slowly but surely, Facebook has been positioning itself as the search engine to discover trending topics and activate audiences.

The platform also launched true keyword search in 2014 and new “chatter” communities to connect passionate users around topics and interests. Other introductory search offerings include “Professional Services,” “Marketplace” and the “Recommendations and Events” tool.

All this suggests a more aggressive push by Facebook to build out its monetization architecture, with the potential of capitalizing on paid search with side bars for comparison, plus paid and sponsored ad placement. Look for Facebook to continue innovating on this front. Stay current with their ad changes, as they may present an opportunity for you to grow your business too.

What predictions do you have for 2017?

Follow Strike Social on LinkedIn to continue the discussion. And cheers to a successful 2017 ahead!

The post 7 social media advertising predictions for 2017 appeared first on Strike Social.

The list is international, with winners from Australia, the U.K. and Japan included in the top ten. These ads are an inspiration to any brand looking for success in social media advertising as they follow some of the best practices in the industry. So, grab your popcorn and enjoy Strike Social’s picks for the most interesting video ads of 2016.

“Yahoo Fantasy Football – Win At Football – Gloat with your boss, Part 1”

Publisher: Yahoo Sports

Release date: August 11, 2016

Why is this a winner? “Uppercase is for winners; lowercase is for losers.” This video had us laughing as it uses humor to underscore the passion of Fantasy Football fans. As we have mentioned before in other blog posts, humor is one of the best strategies to grab attention on social media. It works especially well on YouTube, when users have the option of skipping your ad, and for campaigns that aim to raise brand awareness.

“Fiery Lunchtime Social ‘Feed’ – Hot Tuna Cheese Melt”

Publisher: John West Fiery Tuna

Release Date: July 19, 2016

Why this works: This video combines people’s love for cooking shows with their love for animal videos and is filled with hysterical mayhem as the main character destructively demonstrates how to make a hot tuna cheese melt. Again, a good example of how to use humor to attract attention.

“Trash this ad”

Publisher: Hefty Brands

Release Date: October 31, 2016

Why this works: Created for the final days of the 2016 U.S. election, this video ad quietly captures viewer attention through the lack of sound, a rarity with most advertisements. It also captures the essence of those days, when American voters were polarized and exhausted of the political debate. It is this unexpected approach that draws attention to the brand in this ad.

“Political parties we wish existed”

Publisher: Sportsbet.com.au

Release Date: June 26, 2016

Why this works: This bold video from the land down under is simply shot but uses relatable dialogue to keep viewers interested. Plus, it takes advantage of a popular topic to put the brand into the conversations that are drawing engagement on social media.

“Got no strings”

Publisher: Beats by Dre

Release Date: October 17, 2016

Why this works: The catchy tune draws from the vintage, stringed character, Pinocchio, who joyously threw off his ‘strings’ one day. Famous actors pick up the beat, demonstrating the freedom of “no strings.” The changing tempo and unexpected action draws the viewer into their world. Celebrities bring credibility to the brand and help catch viewers attention.

“The Paradoxes of Chanel”

Publisher: Chanel

Release Date: November 11, 2016

Why this works: The vivid graphics that morph from one shape to another caught the attention of our media buyers. This ad is like a perfectly designed building, created with modern, sharp lines and sophisticated color. Its concept translates the values of the brand.

“Even Santa poops”

Publisher: PooPourri.com

Release Date: November 25, 2016

Why this works: Most people love a little potty humor and this video from PooPourri never disappoints. Blending the beloved Santa character with a parody of modern social media pictures, this ad will keep you laughing at its temerity.

“すしパンダが行く！ 第3話 〜パンダの鯖ビアン〜”

Publisher: Sushi Panda

Release Date: November 19, 2016

Why this works: Sushi lovers, ever wonder about the fish’s origins in your favorite roll? Sushi Panda gets its sushi from Norway, at least that was our take away from this Japanese video. The song is catchy and the characters are so bad that they are funny.

“Spaceship”

Publisher: Slack

Release Date: May 3, 2016

Why this works: Another nod back to nostalgia in Slack’s video ad about the amazing things done by teams. Cleverly transposed throughout the video is Slack’s multi-colored hashtag logo which are shown popping up at the right moment to keep the building of the spaceship on track; all possible because of teamwork and Slack!

“Fawlty car, #should’ve”

Publisher: Specsavers

Release Date: January 3, 2016

Why this works: A simple short story that conveys the brand message with humor and slapstick comedy. You won’t have time to think about skipping this ad. It is short and efficient. Perfect for social media.

The post The 10 best video ads of 2016 appeared first on Strike Social.

After you have a firm grasp on the metrics, figure out what is working and not working within your campaign ad groups and then take the necessary steps to remedy the situation as warranted.

A low view rate is one thing that could go wrong with your video ad campaign.

View rate is the total number of views on your video ad, divided by the number of people the ad was served to.

Video view rate is an important gauge of your ad’s appeal to the YouTube viewer. The higher the view rate, the greater the engagement shown by the audience.

You want your video to be viewed, not skipped or ignored — but, what can you do to improve views?

Related: How much does it cost to advertise on YouTube?

Potential problems and solutions to boost your view rate

• Having a bid that’s too low. Your ad bid has to be competitive to be served. Increase your bid for auction and compare to see if views go up.
• Restrictive ad parameters or wrong target audience. Either one could lead to low ad views. Improve your targeting by reviewing your methods and adjusting as necessary. It can take a lot of dialing up or dialing down before you discover exactly who and what to target for campaign success.
• A poorly executed ad. Ad quality can lower your CPV as the ad auction places a high value on ads that command a user’s willingness to view-through. Improve your ad creative to boost ad view.
• Ad length. Shorter ads tend to have higher view rates. Internet users value brevity. Remember, your ad is keeping someone from accessing the content they selected. Your ad needs to be so riveting that the viewer momentarily forgets his destination.
• Ad fatigue. While there are measures in place to ensure that your ad isn’t repeatedly served to the same customer, it isn’t always foolproof. Infuse your campaign with other high-quality ad creatives, if available.

Taking the time to examine each possibility for poor view rate, you can start to diagnose and make corrections to achieve future campaign success.

Related: How to calculate ROI and ROAS on YouTube

The post 5 things to consider if your YouTube view rate is low appeared first on Strike Social.

For advertisers, that means that there is immense opportunity with Twitter. Knowing the basics will help you go a long way in the Twittersphere, as like every social media platform, it has its own unique characteristics.

We will uncover the foundation of Twitter to help you build up your followers and increase the odds of advertising success.

How to advertise on Twitter

There are four types of ad campaigns that you can run on Twitter. Each one is broken down below for you. What’s great about Twitter advertising is that you can either be specific or broad with your targeting. And, as Twitter has such wide, international use, you can easily reach both global and local audiences.

Related reading: The complete list of Twitter ad specs and image sizes

Drive traffic

The purpose of website cards is to drive traffic to your site using images, contextual content and a clear call to action. Website Cards are a good resource to to boost site traffic, increase online purchases and drive specific, consumer actions. As each campaign operates on a cost-per-click basis, you only pay when someone clicks through to your site.

Promote accounts

This type of campaign is all about boosting your followers. Why does that matter? Because someone following you on Twitter is not only more likely to see your ads but to also advocate on your behalf and become a customer.

The key to follower campaigns is to create a compelling reason for people to follow you. As a business, this means something along the lines of exclusive discounts, information about upcoming products and other things of that sort. For the best results, Twitter recommends that you create at least three ads with slightly different wording to see which performs best.

Boost brand awareness

The primary purpose of an engagement campaign is to boost brand awareness and further develop your relationships. Twitter advertising measures engagement by the number of likes, retweets, and replies you get to posts. If you’re familiar with Twitter, these often take the form of “Promoted Tweets” and appear labeled as such on your timeline. Impressions are free and you pay when a user engages with any of your promoted tweets.

App promotion

Perhaps the most specific of all, app campaigns are designed specifically for the promotion of apps. Very similar to the website card campaigns, an app card allows users to preview an image, view app ratings, and install or open an app directly from their timeline.

What’s particularly interesting about this type of campaign is that you can target users based on their device type, operating system of Wi-Fi connectivity. The app campaign can increase downloads, encourage app re-engagement and target the most likely users of the app. And, just like website cards, you pay on a cost-per-app-clickpricing system.

How to create a Twitter business account

Now that you know the four basic types of Twitter ads, it is time to learn how to set up a Twitter account for your business.

1. Go to www.twitter.com and click the button, “have an account,” which is located in the upper right section of the banner.
2. Choose a @username for your company (also known as your “handle”). Choose a profile photo that visually represents your brand and fits well in a thumbnail size.
3. Create a bio within the 160-character word limit that has all useful information that consumers can use such as location, business hours, and a link to your website.
4. Decide on a header image. Since this is a wider image, think of our header image as a sort of virtual billboard for your company: It can feature products with graphic and text and should probably be swapped out periodically to highlight certain promotions.
5. Pinned Tweets are important posts that you keep at the top of your timeline. To pin a tweet, click on the “More” option on a tweet and scroll down to select “Pin to your profile page.” What are important tweets? Typically, for a business, important tweets are those that highlight the latest product offerings, promotions, or events.

Tips for Success

• One thing to remember when starting out on Twitter is that not everyone knows your product. With that in mind, explain it to them using graphic, picture ads like this:

  

• If you feel like your responses are stagnating or declining, try to refine your approach. Experiment with different images, text and calls-to-action to see what works.
• Try to fine-tune your targeting To have even better results, invest in keyword targeting, geo-targeting, follower targeting, tailored audiences targeting, and behavior targeting.
• Pause campaigns that are under-performing and reassess
• Remove campaigns, keywords, and follower groups that are not performing well and replace them with something else
• Analyze device-specific conversion data and respond accordingly

In the world of social media advertising, there is little that can compare to Twitter’s effectiveness. With such a wide user base and a variety of advertising options, it is an ideal platform for businesses both big and small. Now you have the tools to make it happen for your business. Good luck!

The post How to advertise on Twitter appeared first on Strike Social.

Don’t worry, though; we’ve got you covered. Read on for our suggestions on how to make your social ads go further.

Smart Ways to Get the Most from Your Social Media Advertising Budget

Evaluate your current return on investment

Remember, it’s about spending smarter not harder. The first step is to calculate your marketing return on investment (ROI.) This necessary step lets you see where exactly your ad dollars are going and determine which strategy best maximizes sales.

From there, you can begin to formulate a plan for where to invest the bulk of your ad dollars. A deliberate, performance-based strategy leads to strong tactics and smart, advertising spend. To maximize the impact of your social media advertising, it’s equally important to maintain your website and hosting services. Regular upkeep of MySQL databases and CRM platforms is essential to ensure that once you achieve social media conversions, the subsequent processes operate smoothly. 

Eliminate poor performing tactics and tools

Now that you’ve evaluated your ROI and created your plan it is time to move forward. One of the hidden traps in decision making, “the sunk-cost trap,” causes people to continue with the mistakes of the past. In other words, we hate to give up, let go or move on when things aren’t going well, preferring to believe that things will turnaround. Except, it’s not working.

It may not be working for any number of reasons; perhaps it’s the type of ad, the platform, or even your target market. It’s also possible that you may not be correctly utilizing an individual ad tool, but if you are, and you still aren’t seeing green, then it’s best to re-allocate your advertising money.

Invest more in what is working

Take the money from your underperforming areas and invest in the medium that is showing promising returns. Maybe it’s YouTube videos or Instagram’s carousel ads, whatever it is, take advertising spend from the underperforming assets and shift to what is working or shows promising returns. Remember to carefully track the social media advertising metrics that matter most to ensure that your ad campaigns continue to work at optimal performance.

Make your ad better

Are your ads failing you? Maybe it’s not the platform but a fundamental problem with your creative. Are they confusing? Misleading? Are they reaching your intended target market? No platform or ad tool in existence can make a winning campaign out of a faulty ad. Could you get the same message across from a 2-minute ad in 30 seconds? Go with the shorter cut. Are people electing not to view your ad or bouncing off after a few seconds? Ad performance improves with good design principles, a compelling narrative arc and an easy to follow storyline.

Related: Are short-form ads better for your brand?

A good old fashioned A/B test

If you’re not familiar with the concept, an A/B test is when you take two or more ad units and test them against one another to see which imagery and copy perform the best. From there, you steer your ad dollars towards those ads with the top performance.

A/B testing works with bivariate or multivariate analysis. For example, testing two ads with only a few minor differences will reveal which variables resonate with your customer. You can test headlines, body copy, images, titles, video, call-to-action buttons or any combination of the two to see what works best for your target audience. A/B testing affords you the best actionable insights to ensure a higher return on investment.

Convert organic to promoted

You’ll see this sometimes in the music industry with artists releasing radio singles. If a certain song performs well on iTunes or Spotify, then a record label may turn it into a formal single to boost sales. The same principle can be extended to social advertising.

Related: Separate your organic efforts from your paid ads

If you see the performance of an organic post doing very well, then consider turning it into a promoted post or ad. In fact, you should try it because, at the end of the day, you want to get sufficient ROI for your ads. If you see one doing well on its own, give it a little promotional nudge to do even better and further boost that ROI.

Putting it all together

Making your social ads go further involves everything from the courage to let it go to testing to see what format works best with your audience. Resolve to review your advertising campaigns today; it is a practice that will ultimately result in smarter ad spend and a greater return on investment.

The post How to maximize your social media ad spend appeared first on Strike Social.

We can’t decide that for you, but we do have a list of seven points to consider as you debate the pros and cons of social media advertising.

7 Reasons to Use Social Media for Your Advertising Campaigns

1. Social media advertising allows you to connect with the people who need your service or product

According to a 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of online adults use a relatively diverse array of social networks,which is defined as more than one of the five social media platforms measured in the survey. Additionally, as 65 percent of U.S. adults admit to using social media, it is to your brand’s benefit to be there as well.

Simply put, the first step to making a sale is awareness, so you want to advertise in the places where everyone’s eyes are. Products exist to alleviate a person’s pain point and to improve their quality of life. Advertising allows you to remind consumers of their unmet needs; the first step, though, is finding where they are and that place is social media.

2. Social media provides varied platforms and numerous advertising formats

One of the beauties of social media advertising is that it offers something for everyone. If you want to reach middle-aged adults and older you can use Facebook. If you want to target millennials there’s Snapchat. You can even break it down to content. If your ads primarily rely on visual aesthetics, then try using Instagram or Pinterest. Whatever your goals, there is likely a social media platform to support them.

3. Social media platforms allow you to create specific target audiences

Advertisers and social media platforms have a sort of symbiotic relationship with one another. Advertisers need the platforms to be able to raise awareness about their product, service and company. And the majority of the platforms need advertisers to fund them. As such, social media platforms provide a multitude of services to aid advertisers in their efforts to reach users. For instance, you can target consumers as broadly or as narrowly as you like to craft the right message for the right person. Such highly customized targeting options are great reasons to advertise on social media.

4. Social media platforms drive targeted traffic to your website or landing page

When it comes to measuring the success of your advertising campaign, click-through is one of the most important metrics. The click-through rate for all social media platforms is reportedly increasing, as shown by Facebook’s quarter over quarter rise in click-through rates from 0.18 percent in Q1 to 0.36 percent in Q4 (2013 statistics.) Ad engagement also continued to improve during the same period, as advertisers became more sophisticated and social media platforms improved targeting options and the desktop and mobile experiences.

5. Social media marketing will get you more sales

What matters most at the end of any advertising campaign is whether or not it can turn engagement into sales for your business. You’ll be happy to know that social media is proving to be a successful sales channel for many brands. According to a 2015 Feedback Systems report, 61 percent of socially engaged organizations reported a positive impact on revenue growth. Additionally, in a 2014 survey by Aberdeen, 46 percent of social sellers reported they hit their quota as compared to 38 percent of sales reps who did not meet their expected sales.

6. The ROI on social media ads is unbeatable

For the most part, it’s more cost effective to advertise on social media platforms over other digital sites. The average cost per click on Google Adwords is $2.32 across all industries, but for a targeted boost post on Facebook or Pinterest, you can pay as little as $0.12 per click. Social media makes earning traffic quick, easy and affordable.

7. Advertising on social media offers insights into your customers

Perhaps the most awesome thing about advertising on social media is that you can gain real insight into how your ads are performing and how they resonate with your target audience. No more projections or having to conduct surveys as services like Facebook Analytics provide you with stacks of data to help you understand how your ads are performing with consumers. Even beyond those analytic features, you can see how well an ad is socially performing by looking at the number of likes, shares, or comments on your ads.

Get into action

Social media advertising is quickly becoming the new standard and it’s difficult not to see why since it offers many benefits for the advertiser, such as the ability to reach specific consumer targets. When combined with all of the above benefits, social media advertising delivers the metric that matters most, a return on investment.

What are you waiting for? Start looking into what social media advertising can do for you and your business today.

The post 7 reasons to advertise on social media appeared first on Strike Social.

However, the terms in and of themselves are confusing as most people do not know the nuances of these words and mistakenly believe they are interchangeable with one another. They throw them about both online and offline, adding to the mishmash of understanding.

Online blog forum Moz stated in an article, “Everything you need to know about sponsored content,” that they had received numerous questions from clients about the whats and whys of sponsored content, but their research “struggled to answer most of them.” Even the world wide web lacked a definitive answer.

In this article, we will take a deep dive into the contextual differences between branded content, native advertising, paid social media and sponsored content. Hopefully, by the end of the article, you will understand all of the slight distinctions between these terms and feel confident with the use of each term.

Paid social media: an ad type

Any ad that appears on a social media platform and suggests a social response, such as a ‘like,’ ‘share’ or ‘connect,’ falls under the umbrella of paid social media. Paid social media is often (but not always) embedded in the social content through the user’s individual newsfeed. However, ads located to the right of the user’s feed and that contain a social call to action (like, share or connect) also fall within the realm of ‘paid social media.’

Native advertising: part of the natural environment

Characterized by its seamless insertion into a platform’s feed, native advertising is often found in paid social but can also hold space in paid search, sponsored articles, recommendation widgets and within apps.

Regardless of placement, users respond more favorably to native ads than display ads, as shown by a study by IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough. The study found that consumers looked at native ads 52 percent more times than banner ads, while 25 percent more users reported recall seeing a native ad rather than a banner or display ad.

Native advertisements are thought to enhance a user’s experience as the ad flows freely with the content and does not potentially pop up or fade out like intrusive display ads.

Native ads also work for users as they contain ‘disclosure’ language, meaning the platform typically includes the words “sponsored” or “promoted” in or around the ad.

Other variants of disclosure language includes:

• “Suggested post.”
• “You might also like.”
• “Recommended for you.”

Disclosure language is typically placed in the top left corner of the ad but can also be seen at the bottom or to the left of a social prompt such as “Susie Smith, Natalie James and Paul Lee like StrikeSocial.” Here is an example of a social prompt on Facebook.

Branded content: brand as publisher

For the purpose of this article, branded content is any content that is solely developed by the brand and published on the organization’s owned site(s.) It places the brand firmly under the publisher category. With branded content, the objective is to build an audience and engage with people who are interested in a particular brand and want to learn more about its ecosystem.

For example, American Express creates and publishes its content, places it on micro-sites and uses it in any number of proprietary ways such as email content, lead generators and so forth. other creators of branded contentinclude Major League Baseball, Red Bull, General Mills and Coca-Cola.

Sponsored content: a paid, collaborative partnership

Sponsored content differs from branded content in two specific ways. First, the content is created as a collaboration between the brand and the publisher’s staff. Second, the developed piece is placed on the publisher’s site. Sponsored content’s objective is to drive awareness, generate leads and increase traffic conversions through the delivery of interesting informational or entertaining content. It also allows a marketer to align its ads with a specific target and reach a targeted audience.

Sponsored and branded content are two of the most complex terms as platforms such as Facebook and professionals such as journalists, prefer to use the term ‘branded content’ over ‘sponsored.’

Here is an example of sponsored content, as created by The Telegraph for Etihad Airways:

Facebook defines branded content as “content that features a third party product, brand, or sponsor (“marketer”) and is typically posted by media companies, celebrities or other influencers.” Under our researched definition, Facebook’s use of branded content is incorrect, but it is a fuzzy area and one which requires research before ad placement to ensure full understanding: be precise in your language with these obfuscated terms and make sure your team understands the differences.

Refer to Facebook’s branded content policies and the branded content tool to aid in the creation and delivery of ad. Branded content posts appear in the user’s news feed and include a ‘with’ tag.

To summarize:

• Paid social media refers to any ad placed on a social media platform that encourages a social response (like, share or comment.)
• Native advertising can exist within the social media space, but its primary purpose is to blend in with the user experience, respective to the platform placement.
• Branded content is created by and housed by the brand (in-house staff on the brand’s owned site(s)
• Sponsored content is information written by a publisher at the behest of the brand. The completed content can be placed within the publisher’s realm or on a social media platform.

We hope you now understand the differences between paid social media, native advertising, branded content and sponsored content.

Now go out and start advertising!

The post What is the difference between paid social media and sponsored content? appeared first on Strike Social.

But before going further, you may want to brush up on your social media ad auction lingo. To help, we’ve compiled the following list of 21 essential terms to know. Understanding how these words relate to the social media ad auction ecosystem will be critical to achieving long-term campaign success.

Ad auction

An online bidding system that matches a keyword query with an ad. For each impression, the social media ad auction system selects the best ads to run based on the ad’s maximum bid and ad performance. All ads compete against each other in the social media ad auction process, with the ad most likely to be viewed or clicked on selected for delivery.

Automatic bidding

A set, daily budget that lets the advertising platform adjust your cost-per-click (CPC) bids. Automatic bidding brings you the most clicks or views possible within your budget.

Bid

The maximum amount you are willing to pay for your ad to be shown to a viewer in the social media ad auction. Bids can be automatic or manual (see automatic and manual bidding for additional definitions.)

Bid modification

Choosing to bid more or less within the social media ad auction, based on the target variables most valuable to your campaign. Bid modifications are calculated as percentages, so a +2 modification on your previous bid of $1.00 means your new bid is +20 percent — an additional .20 cents — for a total bid of $1.20.

Campaign

A set of ad groups (ads, keywords and bids) that share a budget, location targeting and other settings. Campaigns are often used to organize categories of products or services that you offer.

Dashboard

An interactive user interface that resembles a car’s dashboard. A dashboard presents your ad performance metrics in an easy-to-read format.

Demand-side platform (DSP)

A system that allows buyers of digital advertising inventory to manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts through one platform.

Demographic targeting

A targeting option that enables you to deliver or not deliver your ad based on a user’s age range, gender or parental status.

Estimated bid

Targeted bids that are estimated based on historical data and/or competitor analysis. Targeted bids are determined by the platform on which your ad will be displayed.

Interest categories

A targeting option that selects users based upon their known interests in specific category types. Users’ interests are captured through their preferences or browser history.

Lifetime budget

The set amount of spend over the lifetime of your ad set.

Likes and interests

A targeting option that enables you to refine your ad’s target audience based on what people have included in their profiles as well as the pages, groups and other things on Facebook they’ve connected with. This includes sections such as interests, activities, favorite music, movies and TV shows.

Location targeting

A targeting variable that sets a geographical location for ad delivery. A user’s device must either be within the radius of your location target or have actively searched (as shown by a search query) for a product, service or place of interest within your set location.

Manual bidding

Active management of your campaign to allow you to bid for the clicks/views that mean the most to your business. Manual bidding is set at either the ad group or individual keyword level and is based on a number of factors, such as past keyword performance and ad placement.

Maximum bid

The highest amount you’re willing to bid in the social media ad auction, also called a “ceiling.”

Minimum bid

The least amount you are allowed to bid in the social media ad auction, also known as the “floor.” Each platform sets its own minimum bid.

Optimization

The art and science of making changes, such as lowering or raising your bid, to yield higher results for your campaign.

Primary payment method

Your first payment method of choice for advertising.

Spent today

The amount spent on your ad set as of midnight that day.

Suggested bid

In manual bidding, a range to help your select your bid.

Targeting

Defining an audience for your ad.

Total spend

The complete amount spent at the conclusion of your advertising campaign, social media sponsorship or promotion.

Want more terms?

Take a deep dive into Strike Social’s comprehensive social media advertising glossary.

The post 21 terms to know for success in the social media ad auction appeared first on Strike Social.

Ryan Holmes, CEO and founder of Hootsuite once said that “our digital lives have grown more tangled and cluttered.” If I didn’t know better, he may have been talking about the mass of social media advertising terms, multiplying with the creation of each new platform or binary jump in technological ability.

The content team at Strike Social wanted to see if we could capture in its entirety every possible word, acronym and platform variant related to digital and social media advertising. It was a mammoth undertaking, one which will constantly need updating as new terms are universally created or modified. Be sure to check back often for updates to our comprehensive guide to social media advertising terms.

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Abandonment rate Back to Top

The number of users who abandon an online shopping cart prior to the completion of a purchase.

Account currency Back to Top

A specific unit of currency, which you set in your account settings, to record financial transactions.

Account ID Back to Top

A unique ID, represented by numbers, to identify yourself, your ad account or ad group.

Account spending limit Back to Top

The ceiling you set on how much you want to spend on advertising.

Actions Back to Top

For Facebook, the number of actions taken by a user on your ad, page, app or event after viewing your ad, even if they didn’t click on it. Actions include page likes, app installs, conversions, event responses and more. For example, two page likes and two comments count as four actions.

Active View Back to Top

A YouTube technology that allows Google AdWords to determine the viewability of your ad campaign.

Activity Back to Top

For Facebook Ads Manager, a column located in the conversion tracking area that shows the number of conversion events over a seven day period. Ad account: for Facebook, an account used to manage all your ads. Ad accounts can be managed by multiple people, with each person having the possibility of one or more different levels of access to an account.

Ad auction Back to Top

An online bidding system that matches a keyword query with an ad. For each ad impression, the ad auction system selects the best ads to run based on the ad’s maximum bid and ad performance. All ads compete against each other in the auction process, with the ad determined to be most likely viewed or clicked upon selected for delivery.

Ad bid Back to Top

The dollar amount offered at auction for your ad to be shown.

Ad blockers Back to Top

A type of software or browser extension that can remove advertising content from a web page, website or mobile app.

Ad group Back to Top

A shared set of keywords organized by a related theme, such as “cleaning supplies” or “energy bar.” Ad groups are used to categorize and organize by related themes

Ad ID Back to Top

A unique, numerical ID created for ad identification.

Ad schedule Back to Top

An account function, controlled by the account manager, that allows the scheduling of times for ad show to users. For example, brand x wants their video ad scheduled to coincide with their tv ads, which are shown between 12 and 4 pm, Monday-Friday.

AdSense Back to Top

For YouTube, a tool that allows advertisers to show their ads on a publisher’s website or curator’s channel. AdSense account holders earn money when YouTube users view ads while on the publisher’s site or curator’s channel.

Ad set Back to Top

A group of ads that share the same daily or lifetime budget, schedule, bid type, bid info and targeting data. Ad sets enable you to group ads according to your criteria, and to retrieve the ad-related statistics that apply to a set.

Ad text Back to Top

Copy that is held in a text ad for a PPC account. Text ads contain one or two headlines, description lines, a display url and a destination or final url. (see pay-per-click)

AdWords Back to Top

Owned by Google, AdWords allows businesses to run PPC and PPV ads on Google’s Search Engine Results Page, Search Engine Partners Page, Google Display network and the Google shopping platform.

Adds to cart (conversion) Back to Top

The number of times something was added to a shopping cart on your website as a result of your ad.

Adds to cart conversion value Back to Top

The total value returned when items were added to a cart on your website as a result of your ad.

Ads Back to Top

Image, text or video that is created and shown to the public to sell a product or announce an event or idea.

Ads API Back to Top

In Facebook, ads API allows you to create and programmatically manage ads.

Ads manager Back to Top

Where you create and manage your Facebook ads. Ads Manager allows you to not only run your ads but also create ad targets, set your budget, view ad performance and review your account information and history.

Advanced filtering Back to Top

For Google AdWords, a way to filter account statistics so you can search for the data that is most important to you and your campaign, such as “YouTube earned actions” or “Max CPV.” Advanced filtering allows you to filter by standard labels or create your own unique filters.

Algorithm Back to Top

Aprocedure for making calculations and solving problems; the backbone of computer science and the software it spawns.

Amount spent Back to Top

The total amount of ad spend during your advertising campaigns start and end date.

Analytics Back to Top

Using various sources of technology to measure the performance of a campaign.

App card Back to Top

In Twitter, a tweet that allows a user to download your app directly from Twitter.

App engagement Back to Top Back to Top

For Facebook, the number of actions, including app installs, credit spends and app uses that result from your ad.

App engagement Back to Top

Metrics that track how much a user is engaging with your app.

App installs Back to Top

The number of app installs as a result of your ad.

App story engagement Back to Top

The number of actions related to the application story as a result of your ad.

App uses Back to Top

The total number of uses of your app as a result of your ad.

Archiving Back to Top

The process of filing social media messages and associated metadata.

Attribution Back to Top

Assigning credits from a sale to the marketing touchpoint(s) viewed by a customer prior to purchase.

Attribution window Back to Top

The maximum length of time that can elapse between a click and a conversion. An advertiser cannot attribute a sale to an advertisement if the time period between the two events is too long.

Auction Back to Top

See ad auction

Auction fluctuation Back to Top

An erratic rising and falling of price due to the increase or decreases of participants within the auction. The more advertisers in the mix, the bigger the fluctuations.

Audibility Back to Top

The ability to hear a video on a social platform. Several platforms, such as Facebook, mute a video’s sound unless a user specifically chooses to click on it.

Advertisers want to include both viewability and audibility of video as a measurement objective in order to fully understand the quality and value of an impression purchased by the advertiser.

Audience Back to Top

The group of people who can potentially see your ads.

Audience network Back to Top

A network of mobile app publishers who have been approved by Facebook to show ads in their apps.

Automated reporting Back to Top

A universal term for the scheduling of existing, user-generated reports that are regularly refreshed according to a designated timeframe. Most social media advertising dashboards allow for the scheduling of automated reporting; refer to each platform for individual instructions on how to create these reports.

Automatic bidding Back to Top

A set daily budget that lets the advertising platform adjust your cost-per-click (CPC) bids. Automatic bidding brings you the most clicks or views possible within your budget.

Avatar Back to Top

An image that represents an internet user, often in the form of a small icon, as seen in video games and other online forums.

Average handling time Back to Top

In social customer service, the average time required for a team to resolve an issue from start to finish.

Average CPC Back to Top

A calculation based on the total cost for each click divided by the number of clicks. For example, your ad gets two clicks, one cost $0.20 and the other cost $0.40 for a total cost of $0.60. Divide $0.60 by 2 (total number of clicks) to get your average CPC of $0.30.

Average CPV Back to Top

A calculation based on the total amount paid for each view divided by the number of views. For example, you have five video views in which you were charged $0.25 cents, $0.25, $.50, $0.75, and $1.25. Add all five numbers together ($3.00) and divide by the number count (5.) $3.00/5=$0.60 average CPV.

Average response time Back to Top

In social customer service, the average time that a company takes to respond to a customer’s messages during the handling process.

Backup payment method Back to Top

Optional payment methods that can be added to your ad account. Backup payment methods are used when there is a problem with your primary payment method. Employing automated payment systems ensure a smooth switch to a backup method if the primary one fails.

Bid Back to Top

The maximum amount you are willing to pay for your ad to be shown to a user. Bids can be automatic or manual (see automatic and manual bidding for additional definitions).

Bid modification Back to Top

Choosing to bid more or less at ad auction, based on the target variables most valuable to your campaign. Bid modifications are calculated as percentages, so a +2 modification on your previous bid of $1.00 means your new bid is +20% or an additional .20 cents for a total bid of $1.20.

Big data Back to Top

Very large amounts of unstructured data; in most cases, this data is then organized into rows and columns for analytical ease.

Billing summary Back to Top

A summary of all of your past ad charges that includes a detailed breakdown of activity within a set of dates and a description of the ads that ran during the billing period.

Bitly Back to Top

A URL shortener and link management platform. Bitly is a private company that shortens over 600 million links a month.

Block Back to Top

The equivalent of blocking someone’s phone number; you cut off all means of contact with this user. A block is universal across most social media platforms; you can’t see the offender’s social information and he/she cannot see yours.

Board Back to Top

In Pinterest, a board is where you save your pins and is a throwback to physical bulletin boards where announcements and important papers were ‘pinned’.

Bounce rate Back to Top

The percentage of users that land on your website or landing page (paid or organic) and leave without performing additional actions such as clicking to another page, performing a form submission or purchasing a product etc.

Brand advocate Back to Top

A customer who has had such a pleasant transaction experience that they help to market it on their own time; think of it as your friend telling you about “this great restaurant I went to last week.”

Brand awareness Back to Top

A consumer’s familiarity with a brand’s image, trademark, symbol, products or services.

Brandjacking Back to Top

Hijacking a brand to further your own interests; this can take the form of satirical marketing campaigns, fake accounts and more.

Budget Back to Top

The maximum amount you are willing to spend on each ad set.

Budget remaining Back to Top

The amount of money available after an expenditure. Social media advertising dashboards show on a daily basis the amount of ad money spent and the amount remaining, as determined by your initial ad budget and ad run time. (campaign start/end date.)

Bumper ad Back to Top

A six-second video format, sold through Google’s AdWords auction and displayed on YouTube and the Google network.

Call to action (CTA) Back to Top

A request, usually in the form of a clickable image or button,that drives a user to further engage with a brand. This engagement could be any number of actions such as buy, download, share, sign, view and so forth.

Campaign Back to Top

A set of ad groups (ads, keywords and bids) that share a budget, location targeting and other settings. Campaigns are often used to organize categories of products or services that you offer.

Campaign ID Back to Top

A unique numerical ID associated with a campaign.

Campaign spending limit Back to Top

The overall spending amount allowed for an entire campaign. A campaign spending limit ensures that all the ad sets and ads in your campaign stop running once your campaign spends the amount you have set.

Carousel ads Back to Top

Used in Instagram, Facebook and select Twitter accounts; Carousel ads allow people to swipe across a device to see additional product images. A call-to-action button gives the viewer the option to learn more.

Check-in Back to Top

Geographically “checking in” with Facebook to let others know where you have been.

Checkouts Back to Top

In Pinterest, the number of times a sale was completed on your website as a result of your ad.

Checkout conversion Back to Top

A product or service purchased by a customer after clicking on your ad and visiting your retail site.

Checkouts conversion value Back to Top

The total value received from checkout conversions as a result of your ad.

Clicks (all) Back to Top

A term used to define an action in which an ad viewer ‘clicks’ on an ad in order to see the full offer. In social media advertising, a click could be a page like, a comment, event response or app install. Clicks can help you understand how well your ad appeals to an audience.

Clickbait Back to Top

Asocial post with an outlandish or sensationalist headline designed to entice readers into clicking on it for the full story; ex: “7 Ways This Apple is Actually Your Mother!”

Clicks to play Back to Top

A video metric that measures the number of times a user ‘clicks’ a video and it starts to play.

Click-through rate (CTR) Back to Top

A ratio that shows how often people who see your ads ‘click’ on your CTA or call-to-action. CTR is calculated as a percentage and determined by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. (see call-to-action)

Clicks to website Back to Top

The number of clicks on your ad that results in a user going to your website.

Closeup Back to Top

For Pinterest, a closeup occurs when a pinner enlarges your pin for a closer view.

Conversions Back to Top

Customer-completed actions, like adding an item to a cart on a website or getting someone to open an email.

Conversions for Pinterest Back to Top

Calculated from data collected via Pinterest’s conversion tracking tag; it is the number of completed actions, such as purchase, sign up, download, etc., on your website that can be attributed to promoted pins.

Conversions from clicks Back to Top

A universal concept, but one that is specifically defined by Pinterest in its glossary as “when someone on Pinterest clicks your Pin and keeps going to your site (from Pinterest.)” Google AdWords has evolved from the term ‘conversions from clicks’ and encourages its users to solely focus on conversions.

Conversions from repins + closeups Back to Top

In Pinterest, it is when a user repins your pin or clicks to view it as a closeup.

Conversions from views Back to Top

A universal concept, but one that is specifically defined by Pinterest in its glossary as “when somebody sees your pin on Pinterest.”

Cookie Back to Top

A tech term for a small text file of up to 4KB which is dropped and stored on a user’s computer for the purpose of website recognition and recording your preferences. Cookies can be stored either temporarily or permanently, at least until you clear your cookie history.

Cost per 1,000 people reached Back to Top

The average cost to have your ad shown to 1,000 unique people.

Cost per 10-second video view Back to Top

The amount spent for a 10-second video view divided by the number of views.

Cost per action Back to Top

The average amount paid for each action taken on your ads.

Cost per all actions Back to Top

The average amount spent for all actions taken on your ads.

Cost per acquisition (CPA) Back to Top

Also known as cost per conversion; it is the metric that shows your ROI (return on investment). CPA measures the total cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign or channel level.

Cost per app engagement Back to Top

The average cost per action, related to the application as a result of your ad.

Cost per app install Back to Top

The average cost for install of your app as a result of your ad.

Cost per app use Back to Top

The average cost for each app use as a result of your ad.

Cost per check-in Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each check-in as a result of your ad.

Cost per checkout (conversion) Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each checkout on your website as a result of your ad.

Cost per click (CPC) Back to Top

The average amount paid per click to your website, as a result of your ad. CPC is calculated as cost divided by paid clicks.

Cost per clicks to play video (CPPV) Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost per click to play a video as a result of your ad. CPPV is calculated as cost divided by video play

Cost per credit spend action Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each time an advertising coupon was spent in your desktop app as a result of your ad.

Cost per engagement (CPE) Back to Top

In advertising, CPE occurs when a user engages with an ad unit; in Pinterest, the average paid per engagement, such as repin, closeup and click, on your content. CPE is calculated as cost divided by total engagement.

Cost per event response Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each positive response to join for your event as a result of your ad.

Cost per gift sale Back to Top

The average cost of each gift sold on Facebook as a result of your ad.

Cost per key web page view (conversion) Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each view of a key page on your website as a result of your ad.

Cost per lead (conversion) Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each lead on your website as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app achievement Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each level achieved action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app action Back to Top

The average cost of actions that happened on your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app add to cart Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each add to cart action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app add to wish list Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each add to wishlist action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app checkout Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each initiated checkout action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app content view Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each registration action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app credit spend Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each credit spend action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app feature unlock Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each feature or achievement unlocked action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app install Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each install from a mobile device as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app payment detail Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each add payment information action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app purchase Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each mobile purchase action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app rating Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each rating action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app registration Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each registration action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app search Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each search action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per mobile app start Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each mobile app start action as a result of your ad.

Cost per offer claim Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each offer claim as a result of your ad.

Cost per other mobile app action Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each other action in your mobile app as a result of your ad.

Cost per other website conversion Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each time someone took another action on your website as a result of your ad.

Cost per page engagement Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost per action related to the page and your page’s posts as a result of your ad.

Cost per page like Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each page like as a result of your ad.

Cost per page mention Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each page mention as a result of your ad.

Cost per page tab view Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost of views of tabs on your page as a result of your ad.

Cost per photo view Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each photo view as a result of your ad.

Cost per post comment Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each comment on your page’s posts as a result of your ad.

Cost per post engagement Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost per action related to your page’s posts as a result of your ad.

Cost per post reaction Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each reaction on your ad, such as like, love, haha, wow, sad or angry.

Cost per post share Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost for each share on your page’s posts as a result of your ad.

Cost per unique click (all) Back to Top

The number of clicks received divided by the number of impressions.

Cost per video view Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost per video view, calculated as the amount spent divided by the number of video views.

Cost per view (CPV) Back to Top

For Google Ads and TrueView, the amount you’ll pay when a viewer watches your ad for 30 seconds or more. You are charged only if the viewer continues to watch your ad.

Cost per website action (all) Back to Top

For Facebook, the average cost of all actions, as tracked by your Facebook pixel or conversion pixels on your website, after people viewed or clicked on your ad.

Credit spends Back to Top

For Facebook, it’s the number of times advertising coupons were spent in your app as a result of your ad.

Custom audience Back to Top

For Facebook, an ad targeting option that lets advertisers define their Facebook audiences.

Custom conversion Back to Top

In Facebook, an advertiser can add custom conversions when the platform’s standard events do not apply, or you want to split or customize standard events placed on your website. (see standard events)

Community management Back to Top

The process of cultivating relationships around a common interest; in the case of social media marketing, you want to be a part of that interest

Connection Back to Top

The LinkedIn equivalent of a ‘Friend.’ In business terms, it is a way of building a network of business connections.

Content curation Back to Top

The process of scouring the web for the best and most useful content and presenting them in a way which conveys meaning; Reddit functions as a very large user-curated site.

Content management system (CMS) Back to Top

Think WordPress; a CMS powering 43% of the web, is an application that allows you to draft, edit, schedule and share content online; the most popular of these systems have simple editing tools that don’t require users to have working knowledge of coding.

Content marketing Back to Top

A marketing strategy designed around creating content to attract and retain customers; this content can be pictures, videos, blog posts, etc.

Content rate Back to Top

The rate at which content is produced by you or others within a specific time period.

Conversions Back to Top

Any action taken by a consumer on a website that demonstrates a site visitor is becoming a customer; this can be sales, downloads, newsletter signups, etc.

Conversion map Back to Top

Entirely unrelated to the conversion maps in science-based fields, these conversion maps are a visual representation of the terms most commonly associated with a keyword; they are there to help you see connections between phrases online and paint a better picture of the consumer you may be targeting.

Creative commons Back to Top

A public license that gives you the ability to use otherwise copyrighted material; this usually involves the sharing of photos in a social media post, and it benefits you to find photos protected under this license to avoid any sticky legal situations.

Custom Conversion Back to Top

An action that does not fall into one of the other conversion types. Daily budget: the average amount of daily spend on an ad set.

Dashboard Back to Top

An interactive, user interface that somewhat resembles a car’s dashboard; it presents your ad performance metrics in an easy-to-read format.

Deflection rate Back to Top

The percentage of customer service issues on social media that are transferred to more traditional channels like email or phone.

Delivery Back to Top

Facebook term to indicate whether an ad is active or not.

Demand-side platform (DSP) Back to Top

A system that allows buyers of digital advertising inventory to manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts through one platform.

Demographic targeting Back to Top

A targeting option that allows you to deliver your ad based on a user’s age range, gender or parental status.

Desktop app credit spends conversion value Back to Top

For Facebook, the total value returned from advertising coupons spent in your desktop app as a result of your ad.

Device Back to Top

A term for a digital medium, such as desktop, tablet or mobile.

Direct Back to Top

In Instagram, it’s the forum with which you send direct messages to other users.

Discovery ad Back to Top

For TrueView and YouTube, discover ads run on the search results and watch pages for desktop and m.youtube.com, as well as the homepages for desktop and YouTube mobile apps. Discovery ads consist of an image thumbnail and up to three lines of text. When a user selects your discovery ad, the user will be redirected to the YouTube watch or channel page to view the video.

Display ads Back to Top

Are advertising boxes displayed in a distinct section of a webpage that are typically reserved for paid advertising and lead conversion. For many social media platforms, the reserved section is the right column of the page.

Dynamic ads Back to Top

It is the name given by LinkedIn for a customizable, creative ad that is displayed on the right column of the users desktop.

Earned clicks Back to Top

For Pinterest, the number of visits to your website after viewing your repined, promoted pins. (see repin)

Earned likes Back to Top

Found in Google AdWords but applicable universally, earned likes occur when a user likes your video.

Earned impressions Back to Top

For Pinterest, the number of views your promoted pin received after they were repinned (see promoted pins)

Earned playlist additions Back to Top

For YouTube, earned playlist additions occurs when a user adds the video to a playlist.

Earned repins Back to Top

For Pinterest, earned repins are the number of times your promoted pin was repinned by people who saw it outside of your paid campaign. (see promoted pins)

Earned shares Back to Top

Found in Google AdWords but applicable universally, earned shares occur when a user shares your video.

Earned subscribes Back to Top

For YouTube, occurs when a platform user subscribes to your channel. This action is valuable because content from the channel plus channel avatars can now be viewed on the user’s YouTube home page.

Earned views Back to Top

For Youtube, when a viewer watches subsequent videos on your YouTube channel or chooses to watch the same video again.

Effective clickthrough rate (eCTR) Back to Top

For Pinterest, it is the average clickthrough rate of promoted pins. eCTR is calculated as total clicks/total impressions.

Effective cost per click (eCPC) Back to Top

For Pinterest, eCPC is the average amount per click for paid and earned clicks combined. eCPC is calculated as cost/total clicks.

Effective cost per engagement (eCPE) Back to Top

For Pinterest, not to be confused with eCPC, it is the average amount per total engagement, such as repin, closeup and click, including both paid and earned engagement. eCPE is calculated as cost/total engagement.

Effective engagement rate (eER) Back to Top

For Pinterest, the effective engagement rate for promoted pins. eER is calculated as total repins + total closeups + total clicks/impressions)

Embedded media Back to Top

Media from one place being displayed within another; e.g. you can embed videos into written blog posts.

End date Back to Top

The date scheduled for campaign conclusion.

Endorsement Back to Top

If you list a skill on LinkedIn, people that are connected to you can “endorse” you for those skills i.e. they can substantiate your claims.

Engagement Back to Top

The number of clicks on an element such as an icon, image, trailer, link and so forth.

Engagement rate Back to Top

The percentage of people that are engaged with your advertisement, social media post or promoted content. This is an important metric as it can help you determine the quality of your social media efforts. The engagement rate is calculated as (the number of engagements/the number of times your ad, post or content is shown.)

Estimated bid Back to Top

An estimate based on historical data and/or competitor analysis of where you should set your bid.

Event Responses Back to Top

For Facebook, the number of “interested” and “join” responses for your event as a result of your ad.

Fans Back to Top

For Facebook, when someone “likes” your page, they become a fan of it; for businesses, this is a sort of social media email list since these people will receive updates that you post to your page on their feed.

Favorite Back to Top

Twitter’s equivalent of “liking” something. You click a heart symbol on the bottom of a tweet to do this.

Feed Back to Top

Sometimes called a “news feed”, a feed is a constantly updating series of content and information.

Follower Back to Top

Someone who follows your Twitter account’s updates; Instagram also has this feature.

Following Back to Top

Accounts that you follow on Instagram or Twitter.

Follows Back to Top

A verb meaning that you follow the updates from a user’s account and they will appear in your Twitter or Instagram feed.

Frequency Back to Top

The average number of times your ad was shown to each person.

Frequency capping Back to Top

An advertising term; restricting (capping) the number of times (frequency) a unique viewer is shown the same advertisement.

Friend Back to Top

Someone you are connected with on Facebook.

View Part 2 | G – #

The post The comprehensive glossary of social media advertising terms appeared first on Strike Social.

Like most advertisers, you’re probably sold on Facebook advertising as well. You know your goals. You’ve set your strategy. In short, you’ve completed all the groundwork for a successful ad campaign. Now it’s time to go shopping.

So which media format is best to convey your brand’s message, and where should your creative be placed? This primer on all the different types of Facebook ads will walk you through everything you need to know to strike the perfect match.

Dive deeper into the types of Facebook ads: The complete list of Facebook ad sizes

Placement options for Facebook ads

When it comes to placing your advertising on Facebook, you have three main options: the desktop right column, the desktop news feed and the mobile news feed. These types of Facebook ads are pretty easy to understand based on name, but it’s important to realize that some adjustments will need to be made to optimize your creative from format to format.

Desktop right column

The desktop right column is really just that: the column on the right-hand side of Facebook’s news feed (no tricks, we promise). Just be mindful that the smaller format requires some tweaks to what you might also be running in the main feed on desktop. Also, know that the right-hand column does not appear on mobile.

Desktop news feed

Facebook’s desktop news feed is what people see when they log into the site on — you guessed it — a desktop or laptop computer. This larger format allows for greater flexibility with your advertising.

Mobile news feed

The mobile news feed is what people see when they fire up Facebook on a smartphone. As is the case with most websites, Facebook optimizes its news feed for this tighter space. So take note when you assemble your ad: Make sure your creative is still readable and impactful. Also, consider how people might interact differently with video when they’re on the go.

 ^{Image credit: Facebook}

Types of Facebook ads

Now that you know where your ad campaign might appear on Facebook, consider your options for media format. Do you want to advertise with images, video or one of the other unique types of Facebook ads? Here are the many formats available for your creative.

Advertising with images on Facebook

The most familiar of all the types of Facebook ads, display has been an internet staple long before social was even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye.

 ^{Image credit: Facebook}

Why images?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Give people a snapshot of your brand, product or service — something that will make a lasting impact. Images serve as an emotional pathway, connecting conscious thoughts with unconscious desire.

Available for

• Desktop right column
• Desktop news feed
• Mobile news feed

How to create a Facebook image ad

1. Go to Facebook’s Ads Manager.
2. Choose your campaign objective.
3. Define your audience, budget and schedule.
4. Advance to step 3; select media, text and links to create one or multiple ads.
5. Select “single image.”
6. Select a stock photo, or upload your own.
7. Use the cropping tool to shape your ad to your specifications.
8. Review ad.
9. Place order.

Advertising with video on Facebook

If a picture is worth a thousand words, consider the exponential effect you can have frame by frame. That’s why video is quickly eclipsing display as the ad format de jour.

^{Image credit: Facebook}

Why video?

Video has exploded, with 90 percent of people saying that watching a product video aided in their decision-making process. Videos afford advertisers the opportunity to explain, entertain or gain loyal brand followers. When expertly executed, video also breaks down difficult concepts. Of course, you can’t go wrong with making your ad entertaining — in fact, comedy comprises 39 percent of online video consumption.

Available for

• Desktop right column
• Desktop news feed
• Mobile news feed

How to create a Facebook video ad

1. Go to Facebook’s Ads Manager.
2. Choose your campaign objective.
3. Define your audience, budget and schedule.
4. Advance to step 3; select media, text and links to create one or multiple ads.
5. Select “single video.”
6. Upload your video.
7. Review order.
8. Place order.

Tip: Facebook only supports certain types of video files. Make sure your video complies with Facebook’s ad guidelines.

Advertising with Canvas on Facebook

Introduced by Facebook in 2016 (and coming soon to Instagram), Canvas is a mobile-optimized media option that offers a full-screen experience with images, videos, links and text. Because these totally immersive ads live exclusively on Facebook, you can worry less about bounce rate. The only caveat is that the content must also be original to Facebook.

^{Image credit: Facebook}

Why Canvas?

Canvas ads are popular with retail advertisers, because the format allows for rich, glossy layouts akin to a magazine. The full-screen aspect can bring brands to life through compelling storytelling.

Available for

• Mobile news feed

How to create a Facebook Canvas ad

1. Go to Facebook’s Ads Manager.
2. Click “create ad.”
3. Choose the “clicks to website” objective.
4. Define your audience, budget and schedule.
5. Advance to step 3; select media, text and links to create one or multiple ads.
6. At the ad set level, select “edit placements” and then “mobile only.”
7. Choose “Canvas” for your ad level destination.
8. Add a previous Canvas doc or select the + button, next to the text field, to open Canvas Builder.
9. When in Canvas Builder, select a theme, header, photo and button.
10. Choose how you want your Canvas photo to fit on a mobile screen.
11. Choose a font, color and a destination URL for your button.
12. Click “add component” to add text blocks, buttons and photos.
13. Use the right side of Canvas Builder to preview your creation and ensure Canvas quality.
14. Arrange the order of your Canvas components.
15. Click “save” at the top.
16. Close Canvas Builder.
17. Choose your headline and text. This will appear with your ad on mobile.
18. Review ad.
19. To complete ad, click the green “place order” button.

For more on the Canvas ad creation process, visit Facebook’s help center.

Advertising with Carousel on Facebook

With Facebook’s Carousel format, you can add up to 10 pictures/videos, headlines/links or calls to action in a single ad placement. People can view all these assets by swiping left to right on mobile or clicking through on desktop.

^{Image credit: Facebook}

Why Carousel?

Carousel ads are great for showcasing different items in a product line or specific product details. Carousel ads can also tell a more complete brand story as people swipe through each card. Other creative uses include mobile app tours and telling a customer’s story.

Available for

• Desktop right column
• Desktop news feed
• Mobile news feed

How to create a Facebook Carousel ad

1. Go to Facebook’s Ads Manager.
2. Click “create ad.”
3. Choose from one of the following campaign objectives: “send people to your website,” “increase conversions on your website,” “get video views” or “get installs of your app.”
4. From the ad format section, select “multiple images from one ad,” located at the top of the page.
5. Go to images and links. Uncheck the box labeled “automatically show the best performing images and links first” if you like the order of your images. Leave the box checked if you want Facebook to automatically sort your images (note: you may have to select “show advanced options” to see this box).
6. Go to “images and links.”
7. Select the “1” box, upload your first image and complete the details of the first card. Specific URLs and descriptions can be added in this step.
8. Repeat the above step with additional images, descriptions and specific URLs.
9. Click “remove” to delete an uploaded image.
10. Satisfied with your Carousel ad? Click “place order.”

Advertising with Collection on Facebook

Launched in March 2017, Facebook designed Collection to get people shopping! A mobile news feed format, Collection helps people find and buy products shown in a marketer’s video, slideshow or image. The ad format displays a row of 4 product images that expand into a full-screen catalog of up to 50 product images.

Tapping on a product image takes a user to the mobile site or apps product page.

To get started you will need an image or video and you will need to create a product catalog.

^{Image credit: TechCrunch}

Available for

• Mobile news feed

How to create a Facebook Collection ad

1. Go to Facebook’s Ads Manager.
2. Click “create ad.”
3. Select “traffic” or “conversions” from the ad objective menu and click “continue.”
4. Select “website,” “messenger” or “app.” If you’re using an app, Facebook recommends that you link people directly to your products within your app.
5. Choose your audience, budget and schedule.
6. Click “continue.”
7. Select the Collection format.
8. Select an image, video, or slideshow. For video, 1:1 or 16:9 aspect ratios are recommended. For images, an image size of 1,200 x 628 pixels is recommended.
9. Choose your Facebook Page, a headline (25 characters recommended) and text (90 characters recommended).
10. Select your product catalog from the drop-down menu.
11. Select your product set, or click + to create a new product set. Facebook recommends that your product set contains all products relevant to your main image, slideshow or video. The more products there are in your product set, the better the ad is likely to perform. The minimum number of products is 8.
12. Select “mobile news feed” under ad preview to see your collection format ad.
13. Note: Because this feature is mobile only, you may see a pop-up window asking you to remove all non-mobile placements. Click “remove placements.”
14. The products featured in the news feed section let you control the 4 product images below your video, slideshow or image. By default, the 4 images will be ranked by the likelihood of purchase.
15. Click “change” to select 1 – 4 specific images from your product set. The product images you select won’t be ranked by likelihood of purchase.
16. Select “preview” below “post click experience” to see what the ad would look like after people tap on it.
17. Select “send notification to Facebook” to send your collection format ad to your mobile using the Facebook app.
18. Click “place order” to finish.

You know the types of Facebook ads. Now find the perfect fit.

Now that you know all the types of Facebook ads, you have a lot of flexibility. Consider which placement and media option makes the most sense for your brand while testing the waters to take your creative in new directions. From simple images to custom Canvases, you will be cornering the Facebook market in no time.

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