Written by ContentPowered.com
After years of bad press, thousands of complaints, and even a juicy court settlement; Facebook finally shuts down one of its most controversial (and annoying) features.
Sponsored story ads are getting the guillotine this coming April and “heads are gonna roll” in the world of marketing.
In case you don’t have a background in marketing, Sponsored Story Ads would appear on your friend’s feed whenever you liked a product or service – regardless of what it was. This caused more than one awkward situation as the majority of Facebook users had no idea this was even happening – much to their embarrassment. Case in point, Grama didn’t need to know about your penchant for large-breasted Brazilian models but thanks to Sponsored Story Ads, you got a Sheyla Hershey calendar for Christmas from her and Grandpa this year.
On the flip-side, the feature was highly lucrative for Facebook, having generated over $200 million from 2011-2012 alone. Privacy advocates and annoyed consumers were left with a sour taste in their mouth over the site’s invasive use of data and eventually, pressure from both groups toppled a giant. At one point, Facebook settled a lawsuit for $20 million and agreed to allow users more control over how their content is shared.
What does this mean for marketers?
The loss of this function has had a dramatic impact on the social media business model for hundreds of companies and thousands of freelance internet marketers that had utilized the service to generate interest in their products and services. If you or your company had taken advantage of the service in the past, this is a hit below the belt. However, don’t lose hope, there are alternatives out there for savvy marketers to take advantage of that can be even more engaging without embarrassing your target market.
We profile 3 such alternatives in the remainder of this article.
Suggested Posts
One popular way for marketers to reach their target audience is the “Suggested Post”. This allows you to reach out to them before they even “like” your page.
Due to the fact the viewer of the Suggested Post has not “liked” your page yet, there is a very good chance that, unless you are a household name, your target has not even heard of your company, service, or product. You are going to need to capture their attention and engage them quickly in order to turn those views into likes. First and foremost, refrain from writing long-winded discourses and keep your copy tight. You are invading this person’s private space and the last thing they are looking to do is read 3 paragraphs of ad copy. Follow the K.I.S.S. approach here, “keep it short and simple”. Tell the viewer what you do, provide a compelling reason for them to engage your advertisement, and above all – provide value to them. This is prime real estate on Facebook and need be treated as such, otherwise – your ad budget is going to suffer greatly.
Remember, your choice of image can have a dramatic impact on your click through rate as well. Setup multiple campaigns and do ample split-testing to ensure the campaign you are running is giving you the best return on investment possible. Experience will bring with it the ability to choose images that are going to improve the cost-effectiveness of your campaigns but in the meantime, it is vital to test at least 10 combinations of ad copy and images until you find what works best for your particular campaign. Oftentimes, images that are not even related to your niche can generate click after click. Try finding something that catches the attention of the page-viewer – even if it is totally irrelevant to what you are trying to promote, the key here is generating attention for your ad copy. Careful inspection of existing ads on Facebook is a great way to determine what sort of images marketers are using to achieve similar successes. This can be especially important in highly saturated niches like dieting.
Facebook Ad Exchange
One of the most exciting developments in recent memory on Facebook is their inclusion of a performance ad exchange network capable of re-targeting page-viewers. Similar to demand-side platforms, the Facebook Ad Exchange creates a plethora of exciting opportunities for a marketer to exploit on their road to market domination.
For those new to marketing, re-targeting is the method in which a website deploys a cookie to your browser to mark where you have been on the web and serve ads related to your browsing habits and recent searches. Google has been using this to great success for quite some time and Facebook’s introduction of the the technology is a social-media first.
Since the inclusion of the technology back in June 2012, Facebook Ad Exchange has become one of the largest providers of re-targeted clicks on the web today. New customers can be prospected and developed via social media by paying careful attention to the browsing history of your current clientele. Chances are, your current customers share similar habits to your target audience, and that information can be utilized to formulate successful re-targeting campaigns. The key, as with all marketing endeavors, is to experiment with different techniques until discovering one that produces the desired result. A quick search of Google can provide invaluable information with apropos of utilization of this exciting, new technology.
CPC Vs. CPM: Which is better for your campaign?
Finally, there are the old, tried and true methods of generating traffic for your site – cost-per-click and cost-per-impression marketing. Both have their own place in the marketing spectrum and it is up to the marketer to decide where, when, and if to employ both.
First off, a marketer need understand that the goal of Facebook is to generate revenue for the company. This is a for profit business and customers that are generating them revenue are going to always, always, always be the ones that are having their ads on display most often. This is particularly true to saturated markets such as, dieting or app installs. It is up to the marketer to find that “sweet spot”, the balance between cost-effectiveness and lead generation.
A marketer also need understand that if they are bidding on a CPC basis and after 10,000 impressions, they have not even generated a single click, Facebook is going to rotate that ad out and replace it with something that is going to pay their bills. Remember, the marketing landscape is far more crowded now than it were 10 years ago. The days of bidding a few cents per click and expecting to generate traffic are long over.
This is where the advantage of CPM come into play, regardless of whether or not your advertisement is generating enough clicks for Facebook to consider it a profitable campaign, your ad is going to continue being seen. With CPM, it is especially important to understand your target audience and employ proper metric analysis in order to achieve a quality CTR. CPM can be a very effective means of generating traffic at a much lower cost than a CPC basis. However, it is vital to split test multiple campaigns until achieving the desired CTR.
In closing, regardless of whether or not the Sponsored Story Ads model exists – there are still plenty of opportunities for generating quality leads and traffic from your Facebook social media campaigns.
