3 Ways to Optimize Facebook Ads for Better Results

Are you running Facebook ads?

Do you want to get more out of your ads?

The right optimization can make or break your ad campaign. Target audiences, timing and ad creative are all important considerations.

In this article I’ll share three tips for making the most of your Facebook ad campaigns.

#1: Reach the Right Audience

Many marketers optimize their Facebook ads based on the soulless numbers they see on that platform, which often leads to reaching the wrong audience.

For example, when you run a campaign to increase your page likes, you only care whether your ads are increasing the number of likes. But consider that the number of likes says nothing about your fans’ relevance to your business.

For all you know, a substantial portion of fans could be fake—that’s definitely not the audience you’re going for.

Find 3 ways to optimize your Facebook ads for better results.

Whether you’re running a campaign to increase overall Facebook engagement, drive traffic to a website or convert website visitors, I assure you this issue still applies.

So how can you optimize your Facebook ads to avoid that trap? Check your data to ensure you’re reaching the people most likely to buy from you.

To see whether your current campaigns are working and truly reaching your target audience, go to your Facebook Ads Reporting page and click on Edit Columns.

Open Edit Columns to start matching your Facebook audience with your current customers.

Next, tick the following:

Data Aggregation > Campaign Name
Data Breakdowns > Age and Gender
Delivery & Spend > Reach & Amount Spent
Actions > The specific action your campaign seeks (e.g., website conversions)

Untick everything else and click Save Columns.

Choose the data to view.

You’ll end up with a table that looks like the one below.

Click Reach on the top row to sort the table. Now you can see the demographics of the majority of people your ad is reaching and how much of your ad budget you spent on them.

Sort your ad report table by reach.

The key question to ask yourself is whether your campaigns are reaching the people who will convert. If they aren’t, look at your individual ad sets and make changes to or stop the ones that aren’t working.
If you discover your current ads are reaching the wrong age group, change your demographic parameters in the Facebook ad settings.

On the other hand, if you see that your conversions (e.g., video views in the table above) are higher for a different age group or gender, you may want to allocate more of your ad budget to that audience.

Ad report data breakdown options.

Just a quick note: Your Facebook ad report also tells you where most of your conversions are coming from—country, (ad) placement, device and destination (funnel). But beyond these options, there is little to no information on the exact category or type of Facebook users who are converting through your ad.

#2: Compare Duplicate Ad Performance

This may come as a surprise, but I’m advising you not to create too many ad variants just yet. Don’t jump right into A/B testing.

Designing good ad creative takes real time and effort, yet so many brands simply dive straight into testing and trashing different ad images without giving them a chance to shine. It’s a waste of resources and money.

Before you do the same, try reusing an ad to see how the numbers differ. For example, I ran two duplicate ads for a client. Even though I ran both ads for the same period of time, the results differed in the total number of website clicks and cost per website click.

Compare duplicate ad performance to see how they stack up.

In the image below you can see that the click-through rates for both ads differ by more than 0.5% (neither click-through rate is ideal).

The average optimized CPM for both ads also differs significantly. The first duplicate is 70% more expensive than the second.

Take a look at the CTR and CPM for duplicate ads.

You have no control over which ad performs better, but you can optimize your overall campaign performance by comparing data and getting rid of the ads that aren’t making the grade.

#3: Include Interesting Images

Your ad creative can determine whether your campaign is a rousing success or a disappointing failure.
Zach Kitschke, head of communications at Canva, suggests you pick imagery that tells a story about your brand or product. Adding an icon to your design immediately increases the salience of your message.
No matter what, the visuals you use should be consistent—templates are great for this. And don’t forget the power of color. An emotive palette says a lot about your brand and should reflect your brand’s other marketing materials.
Zach also told me it’s important to have a balanced design. Try using the rule of thirds: divide your design into three columns and three rows, then space out your content along those points.

Use snackable images to convey your story.

Donna Moritz of Socially Sorted likes to create “snackable” images that are easy for visitors to process and understand. Some examples of these snackable pictures are memes, quotes, behind-the-scenes photos, etc.
Of course, your goal in using these quick images is to have people take action—whether it be a like, comment, share or click—so make sure you give your audience a reason to follow through. That may be via a call to action or an attractive image that leads to a related longer blog post.

Your Turn

There are plenty of Facebook ad optimization resources online, but the most effective tips require you to look closely at your target audience, make sure you’re reaching those people and consider how you can best serve them.

Don’t be afraid to make changes as necessary. When your data shows an ad isn’t reaching the right people, change it. Likewise, if your data shows success, don’t be too quick to modify it.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these tactics? Did you see a change in your Facebook ad performance?

Share your favorite tips for successful Facebook ads in the comments below.

8 Twitter Tools to Improve Your Sales

Do you use Twitter to sell products?

Are you looking for useful Twitter tools to help you sell?

In this article I’ll share eight Twitter tools that help you analyze data, gain insights and boost sales.
The result: you’ll improve your marketing campaigns and keep your customers coming back for more.

Find 8 Twitter tools to improve your sales.

#1: Create Twitter Coupons

Everyone loves a deal!

To launch exclusive deals via Twitter, use social coupon platform TwtQpon. While apps like Groupon and Living Social simply create online coupons, TwtQpon offers a fantastic opportunity to boost sales.

With TwtQpon, you can create three types of online coupons on Twitter: percentage online, money discount online and free product in-store.

Here’s how TwtQpon works:

Design a TwtQpon for your ecommerce store and launch it.
The coupon appears in the Twitter feed of your followers and alerts them for the items you are selling. (You can also share the TwtQpon on other social networks.)
The “Tweet to Claim It” link on the coupon asks users to tweet a link to the coupon you created.
The coupon code gets unlocked and users are redirected to the product page on your ecommerce site. TwtQpons are redeemable both online (via a code) and offline (via print).
Customers enter the discount code and make the transaction.

Use TwtQpon to create percentage online, money discount online and free product in-store coupons.

Plus:

Online retailers are able to export a list of users who’ve claimed their coupons in real time.
White-label services are available for an additional fee for those who want to host the coupon on their domain with no mention of TwtQpon.

TwtQpon is an excellent tool that helps online retailers close sales while enhancing their social media marketing reach via Twitter and other social networks.

#2: Target Local Customers

Targeted advertising is the heart and soul of every marketing campaign.
SocialBro, an outstanding community management and analysis tool, saves you money by geo-targeting Twitter ads. Just like Facebook graph search, you can reach targeted customers within specific locations where you sell your products. This tool also allows you to set filters for advanced searches and helps you find active individuals locally in your niche.

Here’s how to target local customers on Twitter with SocialBro.

First, sign up for SocialBro using your main Twitter account. (SocialBro is free for those with fewer than 5,000 contacts.) Then authorize the SocialBro app to access it.

Now, go to the top navigation bar in your Dashboard.
Select the Search icon to explore bios with names and locations, as well as set advanced filters.
To do a geo-targeted search, go to the Target icon drop-down (this is available with paid accounts).

Search bios by name and location or do a geo-targeted search.

Audience exploration is just one of SocialBro’s offerings. It has follow/unfollow tools, in-depth analytics and filtration, export to Excel functionality and more.

#3: Analyze Followers

One way brands can amp up engagement and increase brand loyalty is to find their most important followers and reward them.

SocialRank helps you analyze your followers and tracks verified accounts that follow you on Twitter. You get monthly reports to your inbox about the Best Followers, Most Valuable and Most Engaged people in your Twitter network, which you can target and engage.

The paid subscription for this tool ($25/month) allows you to break down followers demographically and set up advanced filters to save time.

#4: Auto-Tweet Posts With Featured Images

Whenever you launch a new marketing campaign, notify your network and followers with an attention-grabbing image.
Twibble sends out auto-tweets with graphics included. Unlike other automation tools, such as Twitterfeed and Dlvr.it, Twibble inserts a featured image in every tweet from any RSS feed. More visually appealing tweets get more retweets and a higher click-through rate.

Add a new feed, preview and schedule auto-tweets on Twibble.

Here’s how to use Twibble.

Go to twibble.io and sign up with your Twitter account. Authorize Twibble to access your account and then enter your email to complete registration.
Click the Add New Feed tab to create a feed.
Configure the scheduling feature and fill in all the necessary fields. Customize your tweet by entering custom URL for link shortening and add hashtags. After you finish everything, preview your tweet and click Create.

Once the feed’s created, content from your RSS feed will be auto-tweeted from your Twitter account whenever it’s updated.

#5: Monitor Brand Reputation

Brand reputation matters, especially when you sell products online. No matter how good your ecommerce marketing campaigns are, you still need to know who’s saying what about your brand on social media.

Monitor your website reputation with Twilert. Set up real-time email alerts using keywords, hashtags, brand names, products or anything else related to your business.

With Twilert, you’re also able to narrow down the results by geographic locations to keep an eye on competitors’ business, as well as newly launched products and branded hashtags. View trending topics, track conversations and more.

#6: Create Instant Online Surveys

Online surveys boost engagement of your ecommerce campaigns, help gain customer insights about your products and let you collect relevant feedback.

Create four types of surveys with Twtpoll: a #hashtag survey, one-question survey, multi-question survey and quiz. (If the interface looks familiar, it’s because Twtpoll and TwtQpon are both from 63 Labs.)
The hashtag survey uses #hashtag in answer choices and votes are sent via tweet using @reply.

One-question surveys let you create online polls. Multi-question surveys allow you to ask different types of questions of your followers. Finally, a quiz is a series of questions and the final results are displayed at the end. Twtpoll charges by the question or by the month.

The one-question survey is one of the four types of surveys available from Twtpoll.

Here’s how to use Twtpoll.

Login to your Twitter account and go to twtpoll.com.
On the home page, click the create a Twitter Survey tab.
Choose which kind of survey to create for your ecommerce marketing campaign.
Create the poll and add filters to segment desired results.
Define your audience if you’d like to limit responses.
After you create the survey, click the Activate link on top right to start collecting votes.

Twtpoll offers the option to add a brand logo and schedule the best time to tweet your survey, as well as other exciting features.

#7: Explore Analytics

Although the Twitter analytics dashboard easily measures, explores and tracks the performance of your tweets, Hootsuite is still a must-have for your marketing arsenal.

Hootsuite measures the reach and effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, and provides actionable metrics to track social media engagement on Twitter.

Hootsuite offers a number of easy to use analytic options.

Here’s how to use Hootsuite for Twitter analytics:

Go to Hootsuite and sign up for a free 30-day trial.
Link your Twitter account.
In your Hootsuite dashboard, hover over the panel on the left and click the Analytics tab.
The dashboard will display your Twitter Profile Overview Report with all the useful data. Examine the level of engagement, follower growth, most popular links and more.

Use Hootsuite to plan bulk marketing tasks for your ecommerce marketing campaign, schedule tweets in advance, integrate RSS feeds, collaborate with people and update content on multiple networks. Plus, the Hootsuite App Directory allows you to manage important apps (like Instagram and YouTube) in the social media analytics dashboard.

#8: Block Spammers

Marketing campaigns on Twitter attract a lot of spam.

Try TwitBlock, a wonderful free tool that blocks spammers and removes clutter from your Twitter stream.

TwitBlock lets you know how many of your followers are junk and also allows you to block them by acting as a bulk-blocking tool for Twitter.

Spot the spammers and get rid of nuisance accounts, so you know the people you are tweeting with are genuine.

Conclusion

If you sell on Twitter or have an ecommerce site, you need to do everything you can to study customer trends, analyze online habits and keep your brand solid. That way you can improve your reach, engagement and sales.

What do you think? Which Twitter tools support your sales? What tools do you use to monitor your ecommerce campaigns on Twitter?

Please share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments.

Monday, 15 December 2014