How to Craft a Successful Facebook Ad Campaign

Karen Buck, Marketing Communications Consultant, Zehno

Rob Kerr, Associate Vice President of Interactive Marketing, Bowdoin College

eduWeb Conference 2012

This is probably all outdated already.

  Check in with the audience

  Benefits of FB ads

  First things first

  Lightening round case studies

  Looking at your options

  Random tips from the trenches

  Resources

Agenda

  Facebook ads are just one slice of what we do

–  A very effective slice

  Today’s presentation is based on specific project

experiences, some using ad formats that are no longer available

  Hoping the room can add as much to the convo

Disclaimer!

  Noel-Levitz E-Expectations Survey

  Noel-Levitz E-Expectations Survey

  Varsity Outreach: Facebook and Admissions

Why are you here?

  Not search-based!

  Hyper targeted

  Relatively inexpensive

  Measurable

  Reported to be effective

  Help to overcome the trickiness of being seen with Timeline and updates to feed behavior

Benefits of Facebook ads

  Setting objectives

  Refine and segment

–  Not “more students” or “more money”

Marcomm 101

–  Who is your audience?

–  What is your message?

–  What does success look like?

–  How will you measure?

–  What’s your budget?

Goals not tools

Lightening-round case studies!

St. Ambrose Pilot (2010)

  The point: You have to test and benchmark

  Objectives

–  Increase brand awareness

–  Build affiliation with existing institutional Facebook pages

–  Drive quality traffic to admissions websites

–  Benchmark the effectiveness of Facebook as a search

channel/lead generation tool

St. Ambrose Pilot (2010)

  28 segments

–  Alumni

–  Current students

–  Prospective first-year students, targeting local and select city high-school students, overlaid with specific interests

–  Prospective transfer students enrolled in regional institutions

–  Prospective graduate students for MBA, social work, education and criminal justice programs

St. Ambrose Pilot (2010)

  Ad Budget: $30,000 over 2 months

  Results

–  175 million impressions

–  30,000 clicks, at about just over $1/click

–  “Like” growth: 0 to 1,979 for main page,

Class of 2015 from 0 to 113

–  18,000 visits to website

St. Ambrose Pilot (2010)

  Standouts

–  Friends of alums

–  Friends of the class of 2014

–  MBA women over 23

–  Transfers overall

–  Specific geographic targets for undergraduate admissions

www.sau.edu

DashboardOct 1, 2010 - Nov 28, 2010

Comparing to: Oct 1, 2009 - Nov 28, 2009

0

10,000

20,000

0

10,000

20,000

Oct 4 Oct 11 Oct 18 Oct 25 Nov 1 Nov 8 Nov 15 Nov 22

VisitsPrevious: Visits

Site Usage

603,032 Visits

Previous: 514,485 (17.21%)

1,366,119 Pageviews

Previous: 969,920 (40.85%)

2.27 Pages/Visit

Previous: 1.89 (20.17%)

45.97% Bounce Rate

Previous: 61.11% (-24.77%)

00:02:08 Avg. Time on Site

Previous: 00:02:09 (-0.84%)

22.86% % New Visits

Previous: 18.10% (26.28%)

Visitors Overview

0

5,000

10,000

0

5,000

10,000

Oct 4 Oct 11 Oct 18 Oct 25 Nov 1 Nov 8 Nov 15 Nov 22

VisitorsPrevious: Visitors

Visitors

167,688

Traffic Sources Overview

Direct Traffic339,775.00 (56.34%)

Search Engines154,167.00 (25.57%)

Referring Sites108,821.00 (18.05%)

Other269 (0.04%)

Map Overlay

Visits

0 594,214

1 Google Analytics

St. Ambrose MBA (2011)

  The point: Track down “missing” constituents to build alumni network value

  Objectives

–  Build and strengthen connections with MBA students and alums so that career outcomes/ROI of degree can be tracked

–  Attract alums and likely prospects to a social-media platform

–  Create a social-media platform with content contributions from administrators, faculty, students and alums to demonstrate to prospective students the “extras” and family atmosphere of an Ambrose MBA

St. Ambrose MBA (2011)

  Audiences

–  MBA alums

–  Current students in MBA programs

–  Current students enrolled in St. Ambrose

undergraduate programs

Ambrose grads at Deere Reconnect with your MBA classmates. See who’s doing what in the Quad Cities and beyond

St. Ambrose MBA (2011)

  Ad Budget: $10,000 over 2 months

  Measured

–  Impressions: 49 million

–  Clicks: 8,678 — avg. $1.15/click

–  Growth in affiliation: 0 to 1,001 “likes”

–  600-800 impressions of each wall post

–  13 career updates shared

–  7 inquiries

Bowdoin College Annual Giving (2012)

  Challenge

–  Drive annual fund donations with focus

on converting young alumni

  Facebook

–  Ad plan as part of marketing strategy

–  Strong reach tool

–  Strong targeting tool

–  Poor messaging tool

Bowdoin College Annual Giving (2012)

  Creative

–  Tested multiple ads

–  Original goal was “microtargeting”

–  “innate nosiness” wins out

Bowdoin College Annual Giving (2012)

  Results

–  Low clickthrough, high yield

–  $1.12 avg CPC — .03% CTR

–  10% conversion rate (made a gift)

  Takeaways

–  Microtargeting dropped us below thresholds

–  Very successful as an added campaign layer

–  Value depends on conversion rate, works for us

Tulane Energy (2011-2012)

  The point: Get creative with how you use ads

  Objectives

–  Launch new master’s level program via social media

–  Reach out to likely prospects at specific schools, and with

affiliations with energy organizations or energy companies

–  All on a shoestring, but with some flagship video content

available

Tulane Energy (2012)

Tulane Energy (2012)

Page now at 2,220+ “likes”

Tulane in Colombia (2012)

  The point: Slice out minute segments

  Objectives

–  Boost attendance at in-country information sessions

–  Extend reach through network of those who already affiliated

with the MBA program

  Targeting is different for different cultures

–  Europeans need 1 month before event; South Americans,

just 1 week

Tulane in Colombia (2012)

Tulane in Colombia (2012)

  Ad Budget: $1,200 over 1 week

  Measured

–  Impressions: 27 million impressions

–  Clicks: 11,731 — 10 cents/click!

–  1,373 “Connections”

How to do it

  Patience! You’re going to learn a lot, and things will constantly, unexpectedly change

  A page—or not

  Maybe a custom tab—check out PageModo

  Segmented audiences

  Ad creative customized for your audience segments

What you’ll need

It’s easy… and complicated!

  Traditional

Choose the right ad

  Sponsored stories

Choose the right ad

Page Like

Page Post

(Also available: Checkins and app use)

Wisdom from the trenches

Be at peace with low click throughs

Game the system: Tell FB you’re rich!

Don’t target via Zip code

Create pages based on audience POV

Sponsored stories only work with a lot of likes

Visuals—and color—matter

Monitor and tweak, monitor and tweak

Start small! Ask for a like, not an application

Point back to FB when possible

Integrate with your CRM!

What have you found?

To summarize

  Set specific objectives

  Segment your audiences to target effectively

  For admissions: Serve up hyper-targeted creative

  Measure

  Monitor and tweak

  Keep on tending your page

Questions and comments

Resources

  Zehno white papers and free enewsletter:

www.zehno.com/papers

Hubspot: www.hubspot.com

  Facebook Marketing Solutions:

www.facebook.com/marketing

  Liz Gross: lizgross.wordpress.com