The modern media landscape is fast-paced and constantly evolving – with new tech advances hitting the headlines every day. One constant in the world of Social Media has been the power and strength of Meta (Parent company of Facebook and Instagram) over the past decade.
Facebook and Instagram continue to be very powerful platforms for businesses looking to expand their reach, increase brand awareness, and boost sales.
In this blog, you’ll learn the following:
- What is Meta Advertising
- Why advertise on Meta
- The key to successful Meta advertising
What is Meta Advertising
In the dynamic world of digital marketing, Meta advertising has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses to reach, engage, and convert their target audience.
Meta Advertising refers to the suite of advertising solutions offered by Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. It leverages the expansive user base and sophisticated data collection methods of these platforms, enabling businesses to deliver highly targeted, personalized, and effective ads to their audience.
How Meta Advertising Works
But how does Meta Advertising look in action? Let’s look at an example. Imagine you run a boutique travel agency and want to target couples aged 25-35 who recently got engaged. With Meta Advertising, you can specify these exact demographics, interests, and behaviours. You can show them a stunning carousel ad featuring your best honeymoon destinations right in their Instagram feed, complete with a call-to-action button that leads them directly to your booking page. This hyper-targeted, seamless ad experience is what sets Meta Advertising apart.
There are seven key stages of Meta advertising designed to align with your marketing campaign:
- Choosing your objective
- Selecting your audience
- Deciding where to run your advert
- Setting the budget and schedule,
- Selecting an advert format
- Launching the campaign
- Measuring and optimising the campaign performance.
Meta Advert Types
Meta offers a variety of ad formats to suit your business’s unique needs:
- Photo Ads: Simple yet effective, these ads feature a single image with a compelling headline and description. Ideal for showcasing a product, promoting a sale, or raising brand awareness.
- Video Ads: These ads allow you to tell a richer story using motion, sound, and time. They’re great for tutorials, testimonials, or captivating narratives about your brand.
- Carousel Ads: Carousel ads feature multiple images or videos that users can scroll through. They’re perfect for showcasing a range of products or different aspects of a single product.
- Slideshow Ads: These are lightweight video ads that play automatically in high definition and work well on all connection speeds.
- Collection Ads: These immersive, full-screen ads combine videos, slideshows, and photos, and allow people to browse and purchase products directly from the ad.
- Messenger Ads: These ads appear in the Messenger app, allowing you to initiate conversations and engage directly with your audience.
- Story Ads: These full-screen vertical ads allow you to immerse viewers in your content in a format that’s optimized for mobile viewing.
DECLINE OF ORGANIC VISIBILITY AND THE NEED TO ADVERTISE.
However , the landscape of Facebook and Instagram marketing is certainly not what it used to be. In the early days, an organic post could reach a significant portion of a business’s Facebook or Insta followers. Fast forward to 2023, organic reach on Meta has dropped to :
– Facebook organic page reach hovers around 5.20%. That means roughly one in every 19 fans sees the page’s non-promoted content.
– In 2023, Instagram gets an organic reach rate of 4.20% on average.
Essentially, this means that businesses relying on organic promotion alone are likely to find their impact is very limited. Unless they’re producing highly engaging posts and content that– such as very edgy brands like Ryanair, or the small proportion of highly savvy small businesses who do social exceptionally well – your impact in social media may be low, and a waste of time resources!
One of the primary factors behind low organic reach on Meta lies in Meta’s commitment to improving the experience of ordinary Meta users. Over the years, the platform has shifted its emphasis towards prioritizing content that users are more likely to engage with and value, while penalizing poor organic content that users are unlikely to interact with.
As a result, content from Facebook Pages now takes a backseat to content from users’ friends and family. This has led to a ‘Pay to Play’ scenario for many businesses, requiring them to promote high-quality content via Facebook Advertising.
PAY TO PLAY – THE META ADVERTISING ADVANTAGE
It’s no surprise that so many businesses have integrated Meta advertising into their marketing and growth strategy.
In fact, According to a recent report, Facebook’s ad revenues are expected to hit $153.76 billion in 2023—a 13.1% increase from 2022. It’s the third successive year Facebook’s ad revenues have surpassed $100 billion.
Meta Advertising presents an enormous opportunity for businesses. Meta Ads allows businesses to promote their products and services to highly targeted audiences across the platform. This enables businesses to design campaigns aimed at achieving specific marketing goals, including:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive relevant traffic to their website
- Gain video content views
Utilising Meta as part of a successful marketing operation is not straightforward! In particular, Meta Advertising requires a strong level of knowledge and practical capabilities – in what is a very competitive field.
Typically, small businesses make fundamental mistakes when using Meta Advertising – summarised here (with more details in our ‘Common Meta Ads Fails’ Blog post ) :
- Boosted Posts: A Superficial Approach that wastes money
- Poor Ad Account Structure: Undermining Your Success
- Poor Targeting: Missing the Mark
- Campaign Structure: Maximizing Efficiency
KEY TO SUCCESSFUL META ADVERTISING
The key to successful Meta advertising lies in utilising its powerful targeting capabilities. During the ad set-up stage, businesses can micro-target their users based on location, demographic information, and a wide array of interests.
So, what are the main elements of using Meta advertising successfully?
Testing and Optimisation
Advertising on Facebook in 2023 requires an ongoing process of testing and optimization. Creatives – the images, videos, and other media used in ads – are of utmost importance.
A compelling creative can grab a potential customer’s attention, make your brand memorable, and ultimately drive them to make a purchase. Beyond creatives, ad copy and audience targeting also need continuous and rigorous testing.
Below are some of the main winning creative types we have seen create the best results for clients via Meta advertising when matched with high-converting benefit-driven copy:
- Video Ads: Video content generally yields high engagement rates and can be a great way to demonstrate a product, tell a story, or share customer testimonials. These can range from short, snappy clips to longer, more immersive content. Short videos (15-30 seconds) are often used for ads as they are more likely to retain viewer attention.
- Carousel Ads: Carousel ads allow businesses to display up to 10 images or videos within a single ad, each with its own link. They’re useful for showcasing different aspects of a product, telling a story, or explaining a process step-by-step.
- Dynamic Product Ads: These ads automatically show the right products to people who have expressed interest on your website, in your app, or elsewhere on the internet. They’re very effective for retargeting campaigns.
- Ads with Clear Calls-to-Action (CTAs): No matter what type of creative you use, ads that include a clear, compelling call-to-action tend to perform better.
OCTAVE DIGITAL: DELIVERING SIGNIFICANT GROWTH VIA META ADS
At Octave Digital, we’ve used Meta Advertising to drive very significant results for our clients.
Client: Royal Canal Greenway
Our targeted Meta Advertising campaign for the Royal Canal Greenway propelled their online presence to new heights:
- Page Visitors Skyrocketed: We boosted their average page visits from 450 per month to a whopping 7500 per month over a three-month period. That’s an increase of over 1200%!
- Likes and Followers Soared: From November ’22 to May ’23, we increased their page followers from 4752 to 9498, costing an average of only 0.13p per page like, marking an increase of over 85%.
- Engagement Amped Up: We improved engagement, including likes, positive comments, and shares, by over 300% from November ’22 to March ’23.
Client: Cavan Tourism
Our Meta Advertising efforts for Cavan Tourism have driven significant tourism bookings throughout the county and expanded their online community:
- Broad Reach: Our campaign reached over 300,000 potential visitors, significantly raising the visibility of Cavan’s unique offerings.
- Page Likes Growth: Within a short span of 30 days, we increased their page likes by 1000, strengthening the community of Cavan enthusiasts.
These examples demonstrate how Meta Advertising can dramatically enhance online visibility, foster engagement, and ultimately drive business results.
