Showing posts with label Wordstream Blog Feed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wordstream Blog Feed. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

A Look Inside Google AdWords' New Ad Suggestions Feature

Every advertiser takes immense pride in the ads they write.

After all, writing the perfect PPC ad takes time, creativity, coffee, the occasional beer, and months and months of testing. It’s more than writing a 140-character ad: it’s a monumental and never-ending task.

We know that writing ads is important and challenging, but busy advertisers and business owners know that their time is a precious commodity as well. How can hustling advertisers benefit from testing multiple ads per ad group without investing more of their limited time?

That’s the question Google is looking to answer with their new Ad Suggestions feature.

 adwords ad suggestions feature

As of now, Google will begin to automatically suggest new ads to run within your campaigns. Once Google creates an ad suggestion, advertisers will receive email notification and then will be able to review, edit, or dismiss these ad suggestions within the Recommendations page. If they don’t act within 14 days, these ads will be applied to their accounts automatically.

Why Did Google Create Automatic Ad Suggestions?

While some might welcome the extra help from AdWords, many PPC’ers don’t love the idea of Google adding ads to their account (potentially without their involvement). So why would Google risk upsetting advertisers?

Well, Google is only going to surface these suggestions in campaigns already set to “Optimize” their ad rotation and have potential to improve performance.

In most cases, these ad suggestions will appear in ad groups that aren’t already currently testing multiple ads. For those advertisers, these ad suggestions may save hours of having to create and test multiple ads per ad group. Unfortunately, many advertisers have forgotten this best practice:

 advertisers on adwords still arent testing enough ad variations

In ad groups with their ad rotation set to “Optimize,” sometimes simply having more ads with slightly different messages is enough to make a difference when it comes to performance.

Advertisers who have multiple ads average a 21% higher CTR than those that only have one!

Google hopes that by applying these ad suggestions to accounts with fewer ads, they’ll be able to deliver more relevant ads with a higher CTR.

 adding one additional eta can impact ctr

What Will Ad Suggestions Look Like?

Google will create these new ad suggestions by creating ad variations of existing ad messaging within your account.

Google will not create new original content or messages within your ads.

That means these ads shouldn’t look or perform radically different from your other ads and your messaging should be safe for your brand.

Consider these four ads: Can you tell which were written by humans and which were written by Google’s algorithms?

   adwords ad suggestion variant a

adwords ad suggestion variant b

adwords ad suggestion variant c

adwords ad suggestion variant d

Turns out most searchers can’t tell the difference either (it’s the first and third ones, if you’re curious). The automatically created ads have a 10% higher CTR than those manually written.

Once these ads are live in your account, they’ll appear like another ad, just denoted slightly differently.

 adwords auto-applied suggestion in action

These ads can still be changed, paused, or removed at any time, and you can filter to only view auto-applied ad suggestions as well.

auto applied ad suggestions radio button adwords 

When Google Won’t Create Ad Suggestions

There are some cases where the messaging in our ads is intentionally very specific and there’s not room for the creative variations that Google may automatically write for us.

Many industries, such as healthcare, pharma, rehab, or finance, may have to follow specific policies and laws when crafting their ads. For this reason, any ad groups with disapproved or limited approved ads will not be eligible for Google Ad Suggestions.

Ads by Bing

These changes aren’t unique to Google AdWords either.

Advertisers on Bing may notice the opportunity to opt in to Ads by Bing. Similar to Google’s Ad Suggestions, Ads by Bing will help improve your campaign performance by automatically creating variations of your existing ads.

 ads by bing

Unlike on Google, these ads will immediately go live and start testing against your original ads. Bing will also change your ad rotation settings to “rotate more evenly,” so that you can more easily evaluate their performance.

How Can I Opt Out of AdWords Ad Suggestions?

Some advertisers will welcome the extra help and enjoy the expected performance boost of these ad suggestions. However, if you’d rather have complete control over the messaging in your ads, you can easily opt out of receiving Google’s ad suggestions.

Within your account’s settings page, simply expand the “ad suggestions” component and select “Don’t automatically apply ad suggestions” and then hit save.

 opt out of auto ad suggestions adwords

If you use an MCC to manage multiple accounts, you can even opt-out multiple accounts at once by selecting the “Management” tab within your MCC.

 opt out of ad suggestions adwords mcc level

From there, you can select any or all of the accounts in your MCC and then hit “edit” to change the ad suggestion settings for all of your accounts.



from Wordstream Blog Feed http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/04/17/adwords-ad-suggestions
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Friday, April 13, 2018

State of the Digital Marketing Agency in 2018

Last year, we released our first-ever State of the Agency report, an inside look at how digital marketing agencies run their businesses. It was a big hit, so this year, we’re doing it again, with updated data and twice as many questions to reveal what makes agencies tick, their biggest challenges, their pricing models, how they acquire new clients and more.

state of the digital marketing agency report

We gathered the data by sending a survey out to our agency clients (about a third of our customer base uses WordStream Advisor for Agencies to better serve their own clients’ advertising needs), and got back answers from hundreds of agencies all over the world.

Below you’ll find the results of our State of the Industry report – here’s how agencies are getting it done in 2018!

1. How Does Your Agency Price Your Paid Search Services?

how do agencies price their services

Half of responders price their services using a flat fee or retainer fee model, while 25% charge based on a percentage of spend (we got similar responses last year). About 12% use billable hours – which, as we noted last year, may undersell the value you’re offering if you use agency software to improve efficiency.

Of those who chose “other,” pricing models included charging by a percentage of profit or value per lead, a mixed pricing model (such as “Minimum Management Fee + Percentage of Spend”), or changing models depending on total spend. As one agency responded, “It depends on how high the media spend is. If it's a certain threshold, we'll do percentage of spend but if it's a small campaign, we'll do a management fee based on expected hours to manage it.”

2. If Your Agency Prices By Percentage of Spend, What Do You Charge?

digital agency pricing models 2018

Of those that charge based on a percentage of spend, most (about 18%) charge 15-20% of spend, with about 10% charging 10-15%.

3. Does Your Agency Charge Additional Fees for Any of the Following?

additional fees for digital agencies

While 22% of respondents do not charge any additional fees at all, among those who do, services that typically accrue extra fees include landing page creation and campaign creation. Account audits and implementing conversion tracking also made the list. Other services that warrant extra fees include remarketing and display ad creative.

4. Does Your Agency Charge a Setup Fee for New Clients?

agency setup fees

64% of agencies surveyed do charge a set-up fee – same as last year.

5. If Yes, How Much Does Your Agency Charge for a Setup Fee?

digital agency setup fee amounts

About 35% of agencies that charge a fee charge less than $1,000 for the service, with 25% charging over $1,000 but less than $2,500.

6. Does Your Agency Have Full-Time Employees Dedicated to Paid Search?

paid search agencies employees

Almost a third of the marketing agencies we surveyed do not have a single full-time employee fully dedicated to paid search advertising, while almost 40% have one full-time dedicated paid search manager, and 28% have two to five.

7. What Other Marketing Services Does Your Agency Offer?

digital agency marketing services

Other popular services that our agency clients offer include social media marketing, SEO, display marketing, web development, content marketing, email marketing, and creative services. Less common answers included public relations, sales enablement, account-based marketing, event marketing, and reputation management.

8. Approximately What Percentage of Time Does Your Agency Spend on Paid Search?

paid search agencies

Almost half of respondents said they spend less than 25% of their time on paid search advertising (not surprising, perhaps, considering all the other marketing services they offer!). About 12% spend more than half their time on paid search, with just under 5% spending most of their time on paid search.

9. What Are the Biggest Challenges Your Agency Will Face This Year?

top digital marketing agency challenges

Here’s one where the answers changed quite a bit. The single biggest challenge for the agencies we spoke with remains finding and acquiring new clients – but we’re pleased to see that time management is less of an issue in 2018 than it was last year. Just 23% of this year’s respondents said managing their time is a struggle, whereas 40% of agencies were struggling with time last year. Better tools, perhaps?

We added a new answer this year – hiring and training new employees – and 15% of agencies said they struggle with this process. As agencies grow, it’s critical to bring on new talent and get them up to speed quickly so they can serve those new clients.

10. Does Your Agency Anticipate Growing the Amount of Paid Search Spend You Manage This Year?

how are agencies growing spend

Always be growing! 95% of agencies we surveyed plan to add more paid search spend under management this year.

11. In the Last Year, By How Much Has Your PPC Spend Under Management Grown?

digital agency spend growth

We’re excited to see that almost half of agencies who responded have grown their PPC spend under management by more than 25%.

12. What Industries Do Your Clients Work In?

digital agency client industries

Marketing agencies using WordStream Advisor serve many different industries, with some of the most popular including healthcare, home services, real estate, ecommerce, legal, travel, software, and auto – with 30% of agencies serving other industries not listed here.

13. What Percentage of the Paid Search Accounts You Manage Were Not Created By Your Agency?

digital agency accounts

As we saw last year, the majority of agencies who responded say less than 25% of their accounts were not created by their agency. (In other words, most agencies are building most of their clients’ paid search accounts from scratch.)

14. What Online Advertising Platforms Are You Currently Managing?

digital agency ad platforms

About 70% of the agencies we surveyed are managing client accounts on at least three major ad platforms: AdWords, Bing, and Facebook. A quarter of respondents focus their online ad services on AdWords. (Not surprisingly, no respondents manage only Bing.)

15. How Much Time Do You Spend Every Week on PPC Management? (Per Client)

ppc agency time management

The most common response: one to five hours per client per week. However, there’s a lot of variation here, with about 15% of agencies spending more than 10 hours per week on each client’s PPC.

16. How Much Time Do You Spend on Reporting? (Per Client)

digital agency reporting

Another happy result: More than half of agencies are spending less than one hour per week, per client, on reporting. (Who wants to spend all their time reporting?!)

17. When Optimizing an Account, What Do Your Prioritize First?

agency account optimization priorities

Another new question this year: Where do you start when optimizing a new account? By far the most popular starting point was keyword research. Makes sense to us – we always say you can’t get anywhere in search marketing without the right keywords.

The second most popular starting point was negative keywords – a common pain point that came up in our last Grade and Get Paid contest, where entrants were asked to run two AdWords Grader reports and describe what they learned. (A failure to set the right negative keywords is a huge source of wasted spend.)

18. Where Do You Do Most of Your Competitive Research?

agency competitive research

More than half of agencies conduct all competitive research in AdWords alone. But SEM Rush and SpyFu are pretty popular competitive tools too.

19. What Is Your Main Source for Acquiring New Clients?

how do agencies acquire clients

Far and away the most common source of new client acquisitions is client referrals. But 26% get the most leverage from upsells.

20. What Resources Do You Turn to Learn More About Paid Search/Running An Agency?

agency resources

Agencies use a host of different learning resources, from blogs to seminars, to stay on top of trends and the changing world of online advertising. Commonly named resources include WordStream (thanks! We try!), Moz, Google documentation, YouTube videos, HubSpot, SEM Rush, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, Udemy, Quicksprout, Clix Marketing, PPC Hero, Ahrefs, and the Agency Management Institute.

State of the Agency In 2018: Key Takeaways

What were the overarching trends this year? What’s top of mind?

  • Growth, growth, growth – Digital marketing agencies were successful in growing their paid search management under spend last year – but they’re not stopping now! Most agencies are looking to drive further growth this year, whether through upsells or bringing on new clients.
  • Quality of service is key – With word of mouth and client referrals as the #1 way to acquire new accounts, delivering stellar results to existing clients is absolutely crucial. Agencies need to strike the right balance when it comes to dividing resources between maintenance and growth activities.
  • Cross-platform advertising – Most agencies we spoke to are managing online ad spend across at least three different platforms, and offering a number of different services aside from paid search. Agencies get that businesses need to run cross-channel campaigns and diversity their marketing channels to succeed in 2018.
  • Hiring/education/training – You can’t grow your agency without adding more head count or adding new tools and software to make existing reps more efficient. With aggressive growth, both are needed – and either way, agencies need to set aside resources so they can hire and retain great talent and keep their staff trained on all platforms.

Over to you, agencies – how have your strategies changed in the past year? What changes are you looking to make in the future?

Thanks to Kate Lindsay and Chris McHale (and, of course, our customers!) for their help in creating this report.



from Wordstream Blog Feed http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/04/12/state-of-the-agency-report
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Thursday, April 12, 2018

Google’s “More Results” Test Could Spell Drastic Change in Paid Search

Reports started coming in a couple weeks ago that Google was undertaking a new beta test: replacing the “next” button at the bottom of mobile search results pages in favor of a “more results” button—which, when clicked, would load more results on that same page, as opposed to hopping to a new page. These early rumblings reached a crescendo a few days ago, when, as confirmed by Google’s Danny Sullivan, Google began rolling the feature out universally: 

Google More Search Results Danny Sullivan

In this post, we’ll give a full rundown on the “More Results” test as it has unfolded, and discuss the potentially substantial ripples it could send throughout the world of paid and organic search.

Let’s dive in.

Google More Search Results

What Is Google’s “More Results” Test?

More Results is a mobile-only test currently in beta at Google. Google is experimenting with replacing the option to click to the next page of the SERP with the option to merely expand (or elongate) page one. To illustrate, here is a nice gif of the proposed action from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land.

Google More Search Results Barry Schwartz

In theory, then, if More Results were to go completely universal, and if Google were to stick with it, pages two and up of the SERP would be indefinitely eliminated, and all results would exist on “page one.” The effect that would have on ranking designations remains unclear. What is clear, at least for the moment, is that this is a mobile-only test.   

Google More Search Results Danny Sullivan

In theory (again), More Results is perfect for mobile. Back in December of 2017, Google tested a very limited version of More Results. The button itself came two-thirds up a truncated page, after just two or three search results. The current iteration of More Results would seem to offer the best of both worlds—the decreased load time of staying on page one, with the full-bodied flavor of a full mobile SERP. An endlessly scrollable page—in case, say, you reach result number 15, decided result number 5 was click-worthy after all, and want to quickly scroll back.

Implications: Desktop vs. Mobile

As I’ve said, this experiment is tailor-made for mobile, and really doesn’t change much of the current aesthetic. You’re going from this:

Google More Search Results Next

And this:

Google More Search Results Page 2

To this:

Google More Search Results Button

Sideways to down. Nothing groundbreaking there.

Still, the prospect of staying on one page is appealing, especially if you’re remote and load speeds are already compromised—a pretty common mobile occurrence.

And on desktop? Does More Results make sense? Ehhhhhh.

Google More Search Results Serp

Sacrificing those funny-looking O’s is going to make it awfully difficult to skip to page 3 on multiple IPs and vigorously up the click-through rate of your number 36-ranked blog post. Not that someone would do that. Ditto, it’s going to make it hard for your average Joe to skip back to that bed and breakfast he mentally earmarked after his third tap of “More Results”—especially if he’s tapped it 3 more times since then.

But honestly, the most sensible argument against More Results on desktop might just be that we don’t need it. The desktop experience allows for plenty of clicking accuracy, and desktop browsing (usually) receives the benefit of wifi-connected load speeds. More autonomy where you can afford it, right?

What about my ads?

The jury is still very much out on how More Results could affect mobile advertising (though we have some ideas). If you’re among those thinking about the efficacy of your mobile AdWords campaigns, it might pay to direct some pointed concern @dannysullivan (sorry, Danny), because we can’t do much more than give it the eye test and make observations. That said, when you look at how ads appear on the current mobile SERP, there is one very interesting thing to note.

Head to your mobile device and type in a query that’s going to return some paid results. I went with, simply, “mobile ads”:

Google More Search Results Mobile

Nothing out of the ordinary here. A few paid results to start, 10 organic results, and a few paid results to finish:

Google More Search Results Mobile 2

What’s interesting, though, is what happens when you do tap “More Results”:

Google More Search Results Mobile 3

If that button says “Next” instead of “More Results,” the next 3 or 4 results are ads. At the top of page 2. It appears that with More Results, however, in order to avoid listing six/seven ads in a row, Google has pushed those ads beneath the 10 organic results you would normally see on page 2. That means that if your ad was in the 11th position in the mobile SERP, it’s now in the 21st. Likewise, scroll down and tap “More Results” again, and the ads you would normally see at the bottom of page 2 have been relegated beneath 10 more organic results.

To put this in a less muddled conceptual lens, and using “mobile ads” as an example: in the old mobile SERP, the ratio of organic results to paid results per page was 10:7. On pages 1, 2, 3, so forth. In the new mobile SERP, the ratio changes from 10:7 to 10:3 after your first click of “More Results.” Way less ads, way more organic results.

It’s too early to tell what, if any impact this change will have on mobile campaigns, but you can easily imagine some lost visibility on the paid side of things. Still, when Google has eliminated ads in the past (a la right-hand sidebar ads), it’s because those ads were hardly getting clicks anyway. So it could be this will have little to no effect on impressions or clicks. We’re keeping our ears to the ground either way!

What does it all mean??

If Google catches the amount of flack for More Results as if did for Zero Results, this experiment will last about as long as that one did: no longer than a week. Interestingly, More Results and Zero Results share the same ostensible benefit (decreased load time), but seem to contend with different stakeholders. The biggest detractors of Zero Results were SEOs (over the loss of organic traffic and visibility) and users (over the misunderstanding of their search intent). The biggest detractors of More Results may very well be acquisition specialists losing visibility in their paid campaigns.

Clarity should emerge in the coming weeks!

We’ll do our best to update this post as the story develops.



from Wordstream Blog Feed http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/04/12/google-more-results-test
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Wednesday, April 11, 2018

3 Killer Facebook Ad Types You Probably Aren’t Using (Yet)

While the Creative Hub is riddled with superlative examples of big brands (with creative teams and swollen bankrolls) launching neat stuff on Facebook, it can be difficult to envision, say, an accountant or plumber or three-person startup creating Canvas ads.

That doesn’t mean you need to stay married to the same old static image creative (but hey, if it’s working, don’t abandon it: expand).

In fact, there are a handful of alternative ad types that can jumpstart your Facebook ad strategy that don’t require you go out and find yourself a Jon Hamm knockoff with a MacBook Pro.

With that, here are the three Facebook ad types you probably aren’t using yet (but definitely need to roll out across your account ASAP)…

Underutilized Facebook Ad Type #1: Offer Ads

You’ve structured your account perfectly…

Your audiences have achieved peak granularity…

You’re still not moving units.

Sometimes you just need to start a fire under someone’s ass to make them act. And, for many bargain-starved browsers, a good ol' fashioned promotional discount is the perfect prod to incite a purchase.

So, why not sweeten the deal with a Facebook offer ad?

 facebook offer ads underused ad format

Offer ads are one of the best ways to get peoples’ attention on Facebook and prompt them to act.

They provide you with a handful of options in terms of the form and exclusivity of the promotion you’re pitching, and can serve as the perfect complement to your existing promotion-centric advertising efforts.

If you sell your wares online, prospects will receive notifications across all their apps and devices to remind them of your promotion.

But it’s physical stores that stand to benefit most from offer ads.

If you run a brick and mortar outfit, shoppers who walk through your front door can whip out their smartphones and use the offer served to them on Facebook in real life. They also get an email about the offer and—the best part—when they’re near your store, Facebook will remind them that you offer will expire soon: name another ad type with this many touch points!

(Note that your promotion will always appear in prospects’ “Offers” bookmark)

facebook offer ads logo 

Interestingly enough, though, hardly anyone seems to be using these things.

Exploit their ignorance my friends.

Part of the reason offer ads might not be as widespread as they should be is that the option to create them only appears in your Ads Manager account if you select specific campaign goals (more on that in a moment) or boost an offer from your Facebook Business Page. Pretend I didn’t say that last bit; creating ads from anywhere other than Ads Manager is a fool’s errand.

Offer ads are made from modular components that can be stripped or added as you see fit. The title (which should probably, you know, tell prospects exactly how sweet a deal you’re offering) can be up to 50 characters in length; the details—the textual meat of the thing—cap out at 250.

create facebook offer ads title and details 

It’s also important to note that you need to set an end date for your offer ads. Per Facebook, the ideal length for your promotion is 7 days; this is enough time for it to been seen, shared, and, most importantly, served up again as a reminder.

As I mentioned earlier, offers can be redeemed online (using an offer URL), in store, or both; you also have the option to add catch-all or unique promo codes to allow for more effective tracking.

 facebook offer ad redemption

The last two need-to-know kernels regarding offer ads are that you can control the total number of available offers and the ability to share promo codes directly from an offer ad; while you may feel inclined to err on the side of exclusivity, I’d suggest setting the bar prettyyyyyyyy high. After all, if you’re working with well-defined, engaged Facebook audiences, these folks probably have friends who’d be into your offer as well. In other words…

facebook offer ad hide share button 

…don’t check that box ^^^

Now, the best way to get people to use the offers you serve up on a platter is to make your discounts substantial; Facebook recommends pushing things that are free or at least 20% off. Color me shocked.

Some caveats about offer ads

Facebook offer ads, versatile and powerful as they may be, do come without a few peccadillos. They can only be used when you choose the Traffic, Conversion, or Store Visits objectives (fail to do so and the slider that enables offer ads won’t appear in the Ad Set interface).

Finally, before you go ahead and activate an offer ad, make sure you’ve double and tripled checked everything: once pushed live, they can’t be edited or deleted.

Underutilized Facebook Ad Type #2: Video Ads

According to Facebook, people spend five times longer looking at video than at static content on both Facebook and Instagram. This could be related to the fact that more than 100 million hours of video are consumed on (just) Facebook every day.

Sure, images and carousels are effective tools for brand building, lead generation, and, you know, sales. But nothing captures the attention of the scrolling masses quite like video.

None of this is a secret.

facebook video ad metrics 

Why, then, are so many SMBs sticking with stills?

When it comes to Facebook video ads the barrier to entry is far less daunting than you might think.

In fact, these days that statement applies to video in general. I mean look at Drift. If you’re a marketer in any sense of the world, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled upon at least one of their videos in recent months (on product launch days they’re positively unavoidable on LinkedIn). Outside of the small handful composed by their in-house video team, none of these clips are particularly flashy. Most are recorded on phones. There’s minimal production. And they clearly work. Because they keep makin’ ‘em.

You can bring this same DIY approach to your business’s Facebook ads. Yes, that’s right: Driving engagement doesn’t require a director, a green screen, and a $10,000 production budget.

Simply by virtue of being some shade of dynamic, a shocking number of people will stop and look. Hell, you don’t even need to get walk-while-recording-your-face-and-waxing-poetic complicated: you can use apps like Ripl (to add animation) or Legend (for text overlay) to turn existing static assets into quick, attention grabbing videos…

 facebook video ads are easier with the legend app 

… then upload those assets to Facebook or WordStream Advisor (that’s right, we support video ads)…

wordstream advisor facebook video ads 

And pair them the same audiences you’re already successfully serving ads to across Facebook, Instagram, and the Audience Network.

Watch what happens (you won’t be disappointed).

How to make a great Facebook video ad

While your video ads don’t need celebrity guests or ice wall-melting zombie dragons to move the needle, there are best practices that should be adhered to if you want to wring was much value out of them as possible.

facebook video ad superlative example 

Facebook recommends that your videos are:

  • Less than 15 seconds in length
  • Shot vertically (for optimal mobile performance)
  • Include your brand and/or the product you’re promoting right out of the gate
  • Are designed to be experienced without sound

What does that last bit mean?

Most people who engage with Facebook video ads do so on their phones or while performing thirty other actions on a computer; in either case, they aren’t listening. This means that if your value proposition is spoken, a good chunk of your prospects (viewers you’re paying for) are going to miss it.

To ensure your message is received, add text to your videos (using one of the aforementioned tools), use images that makes sense without sound, and leverage the hell out of the ad text (90 characters), headline (25 characters), and link description (30 character) fields.

Underutilized Facebook Ad Type #3: Messenger Ads

Last but not least, we have Facebook Messenger ads.

Let’s talk numbers real quick…

 facebook messenger ads user metrics

Via Facebook

Messenger takes advantage of the fact that the majority of us have no interest in picking up the phone; most folks would rather talk with their fingers and thumbs.

Now, I am by no means the first person to extoll the virtues of Facebook Messenger. There’s a guy named Larry you might be familiar with who’s so convinced of its value that he went and started a company to help marketers tap into its utility by leveraging chatbots built on the platform. But while Facebook chatbots are capable of a million and one different actions, we’re here to talk about ads.

Facebook messenger ads can be as simple or complex as you like and come in two different flavors: click to messenger and sponsored message. Both are underused.

This is a mistake.

facebook messenger ads two formats 

Click to messenger ads are exactly what they sound like. They are served as standard ads (on Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram) with a special CTA that, when clicked, opens into a Messenger conversation.

 facebook click to messenger ads

After selecting “Messages” as your campaign objective and choosing “Click to Messenger” at the Ad Set level, you’re directed to build out your audience, budget, placement, and ad scheduling as you would with any other Facebook ad type.

facebook click to messenger ad set level 

At the ad level, though, the “Ad Setup” interface has an additional button (below the standard fare) labeled “Edit Messenger Setup.”  

facebook ad setup click to messenger ad 

More on what that’s for in just a second, but note that, in the event you gloss over this step, any prospects who clicks your ad’s CTA button will be taken to Messenger and served a default response. This is not the way to maximize an underutilized ad format.

Switching gears, sponsored message ads send a message to people who have an existing Messenger conversation with your business (duh).

facebook sponsored message ads 

By default, sponsored message ads are sent to everyone with an existing conversation with your business. If you’d like to reach a more targeted subset of your chatty compatriots, you can click “show advanced options” to open the regular audience creation interface.

facebook sponsored message ads advanced audience options 

When it comes to ad creation for sponsored messages (and messenger setup for click to messenger ads) the process is relatively similar. The main distinctions are that, for click to messenger ads you’re able to use “text only,” “text and image,” or “text and video,” whereas the video option is unavailable with sponsored messages.

In both instances, you customize just about everything, from the initial message to the custom responses that a user can choose from; in the event you’d rather use the opportunity to direct prospects to specific pages on your website, you can roll with hyperlinked buttons instead of suggested replies.

facebook messenger ads custom replies and buttons 

Using some combination of replies or buttons, you can drastically increase the speed and scale of personalized customer interactions. For a more engaging experience, you can let AI do the legwork by clicking, you guessed it, “Connect Your Bot.” But that, my friends, is a topic for another day.

What Are You Waiting For?

As a platform with a seemingly infinite number of targeting options and well over a dozen ad types, it’s easy to let paralysis by analysis dictate your Facebook advertising strategy. By implementing just one of the three ad formats discussed in detail today, you’ll give your business a distinct advantage over the competition. What more could you want?!



from Wordstream Blog Feed http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/04/11/underused-facebook-ad-types
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