Tips for the Top 3 Social Media Channels

Optimisation applies to all paid digital media, which means social ads too. The socials (while all too happy to gain ad revenue) have criteria that advertisers must meet to promote it. Then getting your ads to perform better comes with heaps of trial.

After years of testing and tweaking, here are our insider tips to see your paid digital media soar!

LinkedIn Ad Optimisation

LinkedIn is the number one business networking platform—and B2B brands can’t afford to miss out on its huge revenue-generating potential. But marketers everywhere will agree that of all the social media channels, advertising on LinkedIn is the most expensive.

So, the answer is to push organic content, then, right? Well. LinkedIn’s algorithm is quite particular about what it will and won’t show audiences. The algorithm isn’t just hard organic content but ads too!

Optimising your paid digital media channels, like LinkedIn ads, is a must. Here are some inside tips.

1. Be specific with your targeting.

You want to reach the highest decision-makers—but so does everybody else. Broad targeting for CEOs, COOs, CIOs, etc., wastes money. Even “Business Owner” is too broad because that could apply to the mom-and-pop corner shop as much as medium-sized enterprises.

Lean into your niche. Target job functions, company industry, and job level. Don’t be afraid to add exclusions and set your desired geographic region, too.

2. Have clear goals.

As much as you’d like to grow brand awareness, campaigns set for this goal are designed to give you high reach but often result in low clicks. You want as much bang for your buck as possible. Set a more specific goal, like an engagement objective, instead. LinkedIn will better direct your ads, and you can measure your campaign success more accurately.

3. Choose a top-performing format.

We’ve noticed that single-image ads tend to have a higher display frequency than carousels.

4. Have a frequency strategy.

When starting out, set your campaigns to “rotate ads evenly”. It helps you to track the creative’s performance.
Talking about creatives, we recommend 3-5 ads within a campaign.
When you’ve got a grip on what works, you can adjust your digital media spend appropriately.

5. Beat budget blues.

As with all digital advertising, you want to pay as little as possible. That means finding your lowest CPC bid and sticking to manual bidding when your audience size is under 40 000.

Optimising Facebook Advertising

The debate about whether B2B brands should pursue Facebook or not is as old as the social network itself. Regardless, as a paid digital media channel, Facebook advertising works. It is the world’s largest social media platform (2.95 billion monthly active users), with a whopping 1.5 billion searches performed on it daily.

Meta, which owns Facebook, owns Instagram as well. So, the first hot tip is ensuring these socials are connected!

1. Aim for engagement.

Engagement campaigns yield better results than traffic campaigns.

2. Be picky.

As with LinkedIn, you want to be specific with your targeting. Some customised audiences have as many as 17.5 million people. Set inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Label your audiences correctly as well.

3. Segment well.

We’ve said this before in our Social Media Marketing Best Practices Blog, “Know your audience; segment and personalise as much as possible.” Segmentation is essential to a great customer experience, and in this case, a great advertising experience too.
Divide your audience sets into relevant categories. Remember, you can’t have a field technician and CEO in the same category.

4. Optimise your analysis, too.

Make sure that Facebook Pixel is working (and active) to enable accurate and updated audiences.
Date website visitors back by 180 days instead of 90.

5. Optimise Facebook Ad Creatives.

Adjust your copy to speak to each persona. You can’t really make an ad personal and emotive if you’re trying to use the same creative for construction managers and network engineers.

• Ensure your copy is informative—separate long paragraphs for readability (but ideally, keep the copy concise).
• Always include a CTA in your copy.
• Don’t duplicate copy (in primary text and descriptions, for example).

Twitter Advertising Optimisation

Twitter is a favourite for authentic, organic content—and you’re hard-pressed to find better engagement elsewhere. The challenge for marketers (and creators) is that you need to push content out at a rate of knots to win the Twitter game organically.

“Twitter Ads are the perfect complement to organic content strategy,” says the digital media platform, and we agree. Advertising on Twitter actually helps to lift the burden of organic content demands.

1. Be brief.

If you want your ad read, keep it short! The 280-character limit is great organic content where you’re explaining something. But ads with under 100 characters perform better.

2. Leverage video.

We hope that video creation is part of your digital media strategy. The benefits of video LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram are astounding. Let’s not forget that the second-biggest social media network is, in fact, YouTube. (Yup, YouTube is classified under social media).

A 15-second video grabs attention quickly and can convey a wad of information. If you don’t have video, consider any rich media to break through.

3. Set multiple, focused ad campaigns.

Again, targeting is paramount on crowded social media networks. It’s better to have a tailored message designed for a specific audience than try the one-size-fits-all approach.

Run multiple campaigns with focused messages to niche audiences. Compare how each performs to refine your digital media advertising strategy

Best Practice for Ad Creative Across All Digital Media Platforms

Here are your staples for digital media ads across all channels.

• Write for a specific audience.
• Write about your audience (not yourself).
• Use engaging visuals.
• Have one message.
• Solve a problem.
• Have one goal.
• One CTA. Always add a CTA.
• Test, test, test.
• No, your logo does not have to be bigger.
• Test your landing pages, too!

And there you have it. If you’d like more expert advice on paid digital media management, we’re ready! Give us a call today.