Focus on Metrics that Matter
Begin with making a strategic decision on what is measurable that best aligns to your brand’s broader business goal. Consider what data is available and what tracking capabilities are possible through Facebook platforms or partners such as Instagram and Audience Network.
Focus on metrics tied to a key business goal (e.g. brand awareness or online sales) and try to move away from a reliance on proxy metrics (e.g. post engagement or click through rate). These can still be tracked as secondary metrics..
Better data signals lead to more actionable measurement. Digital marketing through Facebook’s product platforms offer a variety of methods to use data signals for measuring outcomes. Some examples include use of the Facebook pixel, App SDK or Offline Conversions. There also are solutions to help you customize this data further (e.g. Custom Conversions) to get closer to the metric that really matters. To set up for advertiser success, focus on metrics that matter and consult with our social media marketing team.
Questions to Consider
- What success metrics are being tracked?
- Are these metrics driving your brand forward, or are they proxies?
- If proxies, are they correlated with business outcomes?
- What data sources are fueling my success metrics?
Signals
- Ads Manager Reporting Metrics (Reach, Impressions, Clicks)
- Facebook Pixel
- Facebook or Partner SDK
- Offline Conversions
- Custom Conversions
- Leads API
Understand Results that Facebook Currently Drives
Understand the return on investment Facebook is driving for your brand. Assess incremental impact of the key metric, if possible.
The solutions we recommend use experimental design to evaluate causal impact of advertising. We define incrementality as the degree to which a measurement method estimates the true causal effect of an isolated marketing activity. The ideal process is to design an experiment using a simple test vs. control framework to isolate the variable. In this case, the variable tested will help a brand better understand the value of media spend.
The Social Group™ team, working with Facebook, offers a variety of options to explore incrementality: using the self-service lift solution (Ads Experiments available in Ads Manager).
To set you up for success, understanding the incremental return on ad spend is critical before moving into testing specific variables for further optimizing on the platform.
Questions to Consider
- Is Facebook and related products driving sales?
- Is Facebook and related products driving my brand?
- Do I know if these results are incremental?
- Which attribution model should I use
Measurement Solutions
- Facebook managed and partner* Brand Lift (baseline incremental performance testing)
- Facebook managed and partner* Conversion Lift (baseline incremental performance testing)
- Ads Experiments (self-serve Brand Lift and Conversion Lift)
*requires a Facebook rep to activate and inform which regions are supported for these solutions. The Social Group™ can help.
Optimize Your Performance
To make the most of a brand’s efforts across social media marketing, it is best to develop a testing mindset, adjusting our strategies based on insights from our tests to decide what works best. Our best practices can guide you in getting started and set up for success. Beyond that, we recommend creating a brand specific test plan to learn what works to further optimize towards your business goals.
We begin with a hypothesis and align on decisions we will make based on the test outcome before getting started. Solutions offered include Split Testing (A vs. B) and multi-cell Lift (A with test and control vs. B with test and control). These designs allow us to isolate one variable: bid strategy, creative, placement, etc. to better understand which strategy drives more of the key business outcome your brand prioritizes.
Questions to Consider
- Which creative strategy works better?
- Which audiences respond best to my message?
- How should I address full funnel messaging?
- What is the impact of prospecting on sales outcomes?
- Which campaign drives more awareness of a product?
Measurement Solutions
- Split Testing (A vs. B; no control groups)
- Facebook managed Conversion Lift (comparison testing; with control)
- Facebook managed Brand Lift (comparison testing; with control)
- Facebook managed and partner* offline sales lift measurement solutions (comparison testing; with control)
*requires a Facebook rep to activate and inform which regions are supported for these solutions. The Social Group™ can help.
Determine How Social Media Marketing Fits in the Media Mix
Solutions in this phase help brands better understand how channels assist one another and work together to drive outcomes when more than one is involved in a consumer journey. These tools inform longer-term strategic decisions like media budget allocation.
In order to best understand how much an advertiser should credit Facebook and family products such as Instagram as a channel, it is important to have first addressed how many incremental outcomes can be attributed to ad exposure. This requires using experimental design to compare outcomes to a control, as recommended in the two previous phases of the journey.
Social media marketing is intended to help brands approach this with supplemental data points to their existing source of truth systems to better understand the impact each channel had. Each of these solutions has its own methodology whether it be experimental design or modeled data. Choosing the right approach requires business context.
Questions to Consider
- How does cross device behavior impact measurement of outcomes?
- How does social media marketing complement and compare with other channels?
- How much credit should Facebook family products (i.e., Instagram and Audience Network) get in an attribution or media mix model?
Measurement Solutions
- Facebook Attribution
- Partner MTA*
- Facebook’s Matched Market Lift (limited regions)*
- Mobile Measurement Partners (MMP)*
- Viewability Verification*
- Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM)*
*requires a Facebook rep to activate and inform which regions are supported for these solutions. The Social Group™ can help.
Inform Total Media Spend with Better Data
The journey is never over. Brands can move back and forth on the measurement journey based on priorities and business questions. It’s a good idea to revisit any of the previous phases when there is a new marketing objective, message or audience. The adoption of a testing and learning mindset is accomplished when your brand is making data-driven decisions to inform your total media spend and evaluate where to best place your next marketing dollar.
It is important to test assumptions and determine what will drive the most growth and profitability for your brand. Continue to inform your media plans through testing tools outlined in the previous steps. Doing this well requires data-driven ways of working and an agile approach to testing.
Questions to Consider
- How much budget should be allocated to specific channels?
- What systems should I use to drive better attribution?
- Do my measurement tools account for cross device behavior?
- Am I using ongoing iterative testing to make better decisions?
- How do people navigate through my website or app before conversion?
Measurement Solutions
- Leverage all solutions that can help answer ongoing business questions. Specifically, Attribution, MTA Partners*, MMP*, and MMM* help address total media mix measurement.
*requires a Facebook rep to activate and inform which regions are supported for these solutions. The Social Group™ can help.
As a Facebook partner agency, The Social Group™ has the tools and experience to elevate your brand, integrate multi-dimensional marketing campaigns, quantify our efforts and amplify your goals. If you’d like to work with us, drop us a message!
Source: Facebook Partner Agency Resources
