How to run a successful Social Ad Campaign: Part 2 - Budgeting & Targeting
Budgeting
When clients ask how much they should be spending on paid social campaigns, the answer is that there are no set results that any budget can guarantee, and campaigns will consist of trial and error. That being said, after you start running campaigns you will be able to see how many results you are achieving depending on spend. You can then start to work on creating personalised benchmarks which you can use to inform future campaigns.
In the beginning, it is best to work with a lower budget so that you can see what copy and creative assets give the best response. Once you have started to see results, you can invest more budget into optimised campaigns so that you can ensure you are spending money most effectively.
For most ad platforms you have the choice between setting a ‘Lifetime Budget’ or a ‘Daily Budget’. A lifetime budget means you set the total amount you want to spend on the campaign and the platform will automatically try to spread out your budget evenly across the specified duration whilst also taking into consideration what results you are achieving and optimising spend accordingly. A daily budget allows you to specify the maximum amount your campaign is allowed to spend each day, so you have a little more manual control, for example if you wanted to spend more at the weekend as more of your target audience are online then.
Once the budget has been decided you need to work out how to target the delivery of your campaign. Too niche or too generalised targeting will likely result in higher spend and fewer results. You firstly need to work out your target audience and their personas, and then use the below strategies (either in isolation or more likely a combination) to find them on social media.
Targeting
Demographic
Demographic targeting is hugely important for schools as you don’t wait to waste budget reaching adults who don’t have children of the correct ages. Ad assets and copy should be tailored to match this targeting. Conduct some research into who the decision makers usually are for your families (parents, grandparents or the prospective students themselves) and make sure your ads are targeted to this demographic.
Geolocation
Location targeting will be especially beneficial for day schools where they have a set catchment area. By inputting this area into your ad platforms targeting it will ensure the ads are only shown to users in this area, so you avoid paying for wasted impressions. Having said this, there is no reason to say that location targeting wouldn’t also be a useful strategy for boarding schools. Using Google Analytics you can see the areas most of your website viewers are coming from, if there is a strong trend here, it may be worth targeting the popular areas with a paid campaign.
Remarketing
A Remarketing campaign targets users who have already interacted with various pages on your website, and therefore you know they have already displayed an interest in your school and are likely of higher intent levels. You can select which page visitors you want to target, so for example, you won’t want to necessarily target visitors to the alumni pages with a campaign which tries to drive admissions. In contrast, you would want to target people who have clicked on the admissions page who didn’t end up submitting an enquiry form.
Lookalike
Using Facebook Ads Manager you have the ability to create lookalike audiences for your ads, which is a great way to target users who are similar to your existing customers. There are multiple sources for a lookalike audience, but the two most popular ones are from CRM data and previous website visitors. Once the existing audiences are collated, Facebook can create a lookalike audience of users who exhibit similar qualities, and therefore are also likely to be interested in the school. Lookalike audiences can range from 1% - 10%, with 1% being the most similar.
After you have set the budget and targeting, the basics of your ad campaign are set up. The next step is getting creative with what types of ads you are using so keep your eyes peeled for our next blog post!
As always, if you need any assistance with anything we have discussed please don’t hesitate to drop us an email.