MARKETING
How to Unite Your Facebook Ads with Your Overall Marketing Strategy
Marketing is like a great dinner plate. It has some delicious carbs (pasta is our love language), a great source of protein, and healthy fats. Your marketing “dinner plate” should look something like this:
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Paid Media
- Search Marketing
- Social Media
And, just like any good meal, these elements taste best when the flavors complement each other. You don’t want to eat an English Trifle mixed with Shepherd’s Pie (unless you’re Joey Tribbiani).
You want to eat something that goes well with the rest of your meal. What makes a great dinner plate is exactly what makes great marketing.
Great marketing is an overall marketing strategy that encapsulates all of your marketing efforts into one mega-strategy that gets traffic and conversions.
It uses your content strategy in your paid media and your paid media in your email marketing. It’s a holistic marketing approach that doesn’t just lead to traffic and conversions. It’s a more efficient use of your time, budget, and team.
3 Questions That Will Unite Your Facebook Ads with Your Marketing Strategy
As marketers, we need efficiency. More often than not, we’re working on tight budgets, don’t have the time we need to get everything done that we want to (does anyone?!), and might not even have the team necessary to turn our strategies into reality.
When you unite your Facebook ads with your marketing strategy, you can repurpose content to avoid going over budget. You don’t have to worry about creating brand new funnels and testing them to get more traffic; you can let Facebook drive that traffic for you. And you don’t need to wait until you can add more help to your team to turn leads into customers.
These are the three questions we ask ourselves to make sure our Facebook ads align with the rest of our marketing strategy:
What content can you repurpose into Facebook ads?
The content your brand is creating for emails, social media, and content marketing can all be repurposed into Facebook ads. This is prime-time content because you already have data on it. If you saw a particular post get more engagement than usual when posted organically, then guess what post you should put some $$$ behind?!
You guessed it.
Here are a few ways to take the content you already have and turn it into high-converting Facebook ads:
- Take your most viewed blog posts and turn them into paid ads
- Find organic social posts with the highest engagement and/or conversion rate and run them as paid ads
- Use your highest converting email subject lines as headlines on your Facebook posts
We do this all the time. If you check out our Ad Library on Facebook, you’ll see that we repurpose high-performing blog posts into Facebook ads (that drive traffic to our website).
Once a Facebook user clicks on that post and goes to our website, we can pixel them and retarget them with a free offer that requires an email opt-in.
What’s better than copy that’s already proven to be a hit with your customer avatar? Being able to put money behind that copy and know it will be a hit with your paid audience.
Are you tapping into all of your funnels on Facebook?
If your Facebook ads are living on an island with their very own funnel to get a viewer from Point A to Point B, you’re sitting on a lot of untapped potential. It’s like sitting on an island hoping someone will come and rescue you without realizing you’re actually on a boat docked on the shore.
Let’s paint this picture to show you what you’re missing out on.
If you have a search marketing strategy that takes someone from Google to your blog post and to your offer to subscribe to your newsletter—that can be turned into a Facebook ad. Instead of having someone find you through search marketing, they can find you through a paid ad on Facebook, be taken to that blog post, and opt in to your email list.
How many of those funnels do you have?
We’d guess one for every single blog post on your website. (There’s that boat we were referring to).
You can unite your Facebook ads with your marketing strategy by adding them to existing funnels. If you know something works, milk it!
For each of these funnels, you’ll be able to double, triple, or quadruple the amount of Facebook ads you can show your audience (bypassing ad exhaustion!):
Search → Blog Post → Subscribe = Paid Facebook Ad → Blog Post → Subscribe
Organic Social Post → Landing Page → Entry-Point Offer = Paid Facebook Ad → Landing Page → Entry-Point Offer
You’re sitting on funnels built out for other parts of your marketing strategy that can be copied and pasted over to your Facebook ads. Efficiency is the name of the game, and we’re constantly on the lookout for ways to do more with what we create.
Do you have an email list of hot leads?
Your email list is full of people who have proven they’re your customer avatar. They told you they’re interested in what you’re doing the moment they clicked “Subscribe.” So, why is this list just waiting for you to email them with the *hope* of turning them into customers?
There are more ways than email to nurture your subscribers. That’s where retargeting comes in. We’re not talking about the type of retargeting that’s based on a user’s behavior on your website.
In your Facebook Ads Manager, you can upload your email list and retarget them with specific ads. When we say specific, we mean that you can’t show them the ads you’re showing your cold leads who haven’t subscribed yet.
These subscribers see ads made for hot leads. These are ads that:
- Tell them about your latest offer
- Tease launches about products they’ve shown interest in
- Give them exclusive discounts or access because of their subscriber status
Here’s how to upload your email list to your Facebook Ads Manager:
Just because your email list counts toward your email marketing doesn’t mean it can’t be united with your paid ad strategy.
Unite Your Facebook Ads With Your Overall Marketing Strategy
Your Facebook ad strategy wants to be included in the delicious marketing dinner you’re cooking.
Better yet—it’ll make that dinner turn out better than it could have without it. It’s like the added spice that turns your existing content into lead magnets, adds more traffic to your funnels, and nurtures the subscribers you’ve worked so hard to get.
Ask yourself these 3 questions to unite your Facebook ads with your overall marketing strategy:
- What content can you repurpose into Facebook ads?
- Are you tapping into all of your funnels on Facebook?
- Do you have an email list of hot leads?
This is how you create a holistic marketing strategy that repurposes your content, drives more traffic to your best funnels, and nurtures your audience until they’re ready to buy.
Source link
MARKETING
YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]
Introduction
With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.
Types of YouTube Ads
Video Ads
- Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
- Types:
- In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
- Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.
Display Ads
- Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
- Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).
Companion Banners
- Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
- Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.
In-feed Ads
- Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.
Masthead Ads
- Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.
YouTube Ad Specs by Type
Skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Action: 15-20 seconds
Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
- Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
Bumper Ads
- Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
- File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 640 x 360px
- Vertical: 480 x 360px
In-feed Ads
- Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Headline/Description:
- Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
- Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line
Display Ads
- Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
- Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
- File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
- File Size: Max 150KB.
- Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
- Logo Specs:
- Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
- File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
- Max Size: 200KB.
Masthead Ads
- Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
- File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).
Conclusion
YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!
MARKETING
Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists
Amazon pillows.
MARKETING
A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots
Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.
To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.
Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots
Salesforce’s evolving architecture
It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?
“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”
Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”
That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.
Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”
Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot
“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.
For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”
Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”
It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”
What’s new about Einstein Personalization
Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?
“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”
Finally, trust
One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.
“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”
You must be logged in to post a comment Login