Think Works Digital Insight Facebook

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THINK WORKS DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK FEBRUARY 2013

Welcome!

Spring! Well nearly, it means it’s time to brush off the social media strategy and delve into mastering marketing through the hippest platform around, right? Well, not so fast. The trusty ‘old’ Facebook (with the practically ancient lifespan of nine years) might just be the channel to invest in this year. While many thought of it as predominantly a branding tool, new developments are shifting Facebook to perform as a hybrid platform for branding and direct response generation for marketers.

We have made the job easy for you and compiled a review of newly launched tools and features that could benefit your campaigns. To make sure you are really ahead of the curve, we have also reviewed some of the new features currently at testing phase in the USA. Hope you find it useful.

Duncan Fisher Operations Director Latitude Digital Marketing

Contents 01 Welcome 02 Out now: Facebook tools and

features

02 Facebook Exchange promises improved conversion rates and high precision targeting 03 Virality via Facebook Offers 03 Reaching actual and prospects customers through Custom Audiences 04 App Install Ads on mobile 04 The Logout Experience 04 Page Notifications ensure you get seen

“New developments are shifting Facebook to perform as a hybrid platform for branding and direct response generation for marketers.”

05 Coming soon: Facebook tools

and features

05 Brace yourselves – search hits Facebook!

06 Ranked Comments boost engagement 06 Threaded Comments improve usability 07 How can it work for you?

07 Custom Audiences 08 App Install Ads 08 Offer Ads 09 Conclusions 10 Contributors www.latitudegroup.com | 1

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

Out now: Facebook tools and features Facebook Exchange promises improved conversion rates and high precision targeting

Remarketing strategies have been at the forefront of PPC activity for a while now. Following a successful testing period last September, Facebook has now rolled out the Facebook Exchange (FBX), adding more fuel to the remarketing fire. With over 1 billion active monthly users on Facebook, it’s no wonder many advertisers are rushing to take advantage of it.

The FBX is a means of retargeting potential customers on Facebook, using cookies to help advertisers reach people that have visited their website. They do this displaying relevant advertising on Facebook when they next log in. As with display remarketing, audiences targeted through the FBX are more likely to convert, because they have visited your site before and are already interested in your products or services. For retailers especially, the FBX can help generate more revenue and conversions at a lower cost.

The FBX could change the credibility and value of Facebook as an advertising platform. For marketers who want to reach their customers with better targeted messages, drive higher levels of engagement, and ultimately improve conversion rates, the FBX is the tool they need.

“For marketers who want to reach their customers with better targeted messages, drive higher levels of engagement, and ultimately improve conversion rates, the FBX is the tool they need.”

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

Out now: Facebook tools and features Virality via Facebook Offers

Facebook Offers is a product that allows marketers to create and spread promotions to fans and the wider Facebook audience. The offer is redeemable through a click, which then generates a story, making it visible for the user’s friends on Facebook. Offer Ads are a great way of not only encouraging purchases, but also increasing consumer engagement through likes and comments. Ultimately, they help to keep customers loyal with great discounts and increased brand exposure.

Offer opportunities:

Use it to promote particular products where you need to shift stock.

Become a fan Drive direct traffic to the fan page and website by redeeming the offer.

Friend-to-friend sharing = colossal viral exposure Offer Ads also have a huge viral impact. Studies have shown that up to 75% of the offers claimed on Facebook were a result of friend-to-friend sharing. This viral exposure is fuelled partly by organic stories, which allow brands to reach a much broader audience than the initial target they paid for. Marketers can further support the viral impact by running sponsored stories alongside their Offer Ads. Consequently, the Offer will spread by ‘word of mouth’, giving it more credibility.

Add bar codes and unique promotional numbers to offers so that they can be better tracked and claimed at checkout on third-party sites.

Reaching actual and prospect customers through Custom Audiences

Custom Audiences could be a game-changer for marketers and brands alike. It is a simple tool which allows marketers to reach their actual and prospect customers, rather than basing their targeting strategies on rational assumptions about who their audience may be. Custom Audiences also allows marketers to nurture prospect customers. For example, if you have collected email addresses at an event, you can target these people on Facebook, encouraging a follow-up action post-event. Facebook achieves this by matching email addresses to Facebook user logins. The email-matching process is heavily encrypted and, in testing, up to 90% of customer emails have been successfully matched to Facebook logins.

“Custom Audiences is a simple tool, which allows marketers to reach their actual customers.”

To find out how it can work for you, go to page 7. www.latitudegroup.com | 3

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

Out now: Facebook tools and features Other updates App Install Ads on mobile

Mobile apps are a brilliant way for businesses to build relationships, drive engagement, increase accessibility and give consumers a fast, one-touch option to browse product catalogues on the go. However, apps are no good just sitting in the App Store waiting to be discovered. Facebook now gives marketers the opportunity to promote their apps within the Facebook mobile newsfeed. A click on the ad will download the app to the user’s mobile in seconds.

Marketers can use the same demographic and “interest” targeting options as they can for other ads on Facebook.

The Logout Experience (LOX)

Facebook now offers a Logout Experience, where marketers can display a huge advert on the Facebook logout page.

A little pricey, but the LOX is useful for wide, impactful brand exposure.

LOGOUT

Page Notifications ensure you get seen

Facebook Pages give marketers the ability to connect with their fans through interactive, informative and inspiring page posts, which appear in the newsfeed of fans. However, page posts can sometimes get lost amongst all the clutter in a user’s newsfeed. To ensure your fans actually see your page posts, they can now optin to receive notifications each time your page is updated.

This guarantees your fans will be alerted when you post something to your page and increases the likelihood that your fans will view the post.

To find out how it can work for you, go to page 8.

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

Coming soon: Facebook tools and features Brace yourselves... search hits Facebook!

Search is on its way to Facebook, but not quite as we expected. Facebook has launched Graph Search, which is “a new search experience that allows users to discover people, places and things on Facebook”.

Search results will be generated from content shared by users on Facebook. For example, you could search for ‘restaurants my friends have been to’ or ‘people who like cycling who live in my town’ or ‘friends of friends who are single and live in London’. These are just a few examples, and already you can see the potential for Graph Search as a research tool, a business discovery tool or even a dating tool.

Facebook’s Graph Search is also fully integrated with Microsoft’s search engine Bing, which will display results when Facebook is unable to answer the search query.

Graph Search emphasises the importance for businesses to build their reputation and keep their pages up-to-date with fresh content. It also puts value back on the iconic ‘like’, which advertisers have long been paying for. Both reputation and ‘likes’ will form part of the Facebook algorithm, which will determine the frequency and position of your business in results pages. Will ‘Social Search’ take off? Perhaps, but many critics have already voiced their opinion over the problems the new tool could face. Privacy control, spamming and fraudulent ‘likes’ are just a few challenges Facebook may need to overcome.

“Graph Search emphasises the importance for businesses to build their reputation and keep their pages up-to-date with fresh content.”

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

Coming soon: Facebook tools and features Ranked Comments boost engagement

Ranked Comments allows Facebook to promote the most interesting and engaging comments nearer the top of a long list of comments on a post. The level of engagement is based on the number of likes, responses and hides. Early reviews have picked holes in the ranking algorithm, suggesting that spammy comments with lots of likes could be listed higher than positive, coherent comments with fewer likes. This, of course, could be detrimental to the brand image so Facebook may need to tweak its algorithm to ensure the ranking is fair, credible and free from spammy comments.

“Ranked Comments allows Facebook to promote the most interesting and engaging comments nearer the top of a long list of comments on a post.”

Threaded Comments improve usability

This is one of Facebook’s most awaited improvements from both a marketing and brand perspective.

Threaded Comments facilitates conversations on a particular interest by allowing Facebook users to directly reply to a specific comment. The reply comment will be indented.

The grouping of comments, or ‘topics’, could be helpful for customer service teams who want to audit and respond to common issues raised by users who have commented on their post. From a marketing perspective, this could be a fantastic feature to easily spot active fans and hot topics.

“Threaded Comments facilitates conversations on a particular interest by allowing Facebook users to directly reply to a specific comment.”

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

How can it work for you?

Custom Audiences

We have talked about what Custom Audiences are, but how can they work for you? The core benefit of using custom audience targeting is largely focused on building loyal, long-term relationships with your customers.

“The core benefit of Custom Audience targeting is in building loyal, long-term, relationships with customers.”

For retailers, using the Custom Audiences feature can definitely help drive extra revenue from customers.

One way to make this possible is to encourage repeat purchases for products that have a life cycle (such as hair and beauty products). By retargeting customers when the product is coming to the end of its cycle, the ad will be highly relevant to your selected (custom) audience and thus they are more likely to purchase the product again. Retailers can also use Custom Audience targeting to cross-sell similar products. Encouraging these repeat purchases will help maintain customer loyalty, and ultimately drive more revenue for your business in the long-term.

“Encouraging repeat purchases will help maintain customer loyalty, and ultimately drive more revenue.”

In the gaming sector, Custom Audience targeting could help to generate more bets from your existing customers, whether it be casino, poker, sports, or any other form of betting. Gaming businesses can use Custom Audiences to remind existing, perhaps lapsed, customers about their account, and encourage them to return and place a bet. Messages such as “Have you placed your bet for this weekend’s derby match?” could work well – and why not combine it with Facebook Interest Targeting to target fans of specific football teams!

The travel sector could also adopt custom audience targeting into their Facebook strategy by retargeting holidaymakers at the same time each year. For example, if a customer made a booking in April for a summer holiday, you could target them again the following April with a message such as “Looking for a summer holiday again this year?”

And the finance industry could leverage Custom Audiences. Keeping customers loyal in the finance industry, particularly insurance, can be hard because it is increasingly common for customers to shop around on comparison sites. The Custom Audiences tool can help insurers keep their existing customers loyal by targeting them 11-12 months after they took out a policy – the time they will be looking to renew.

Custom Audience targeting really is a no-brainer for marketers aiming to engage in deeper relationships with existing customers. Connect with your customers, reward their loyalty, keep them keen and reap the benefits.

“Connect with your customers, reward their loyalty, keep them keen and reap the benefits.”

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

How can it work for you?

App Install Ads

App Install Ads can and should be used by all businesses that have an app. With mobile e-commerce on the rise, this is especially important for retailers to ensure customers know about their app, download and use it to browse and buy products on the go. App Install Ads could also be used by gambling businesses to encourage customers to bet while they are out and about. Apps really do offer easy access for customers to engage with products or services, and App Install Ads are a clear opportunity to encourage and lead this consumer behaviour.

“With mobile e-commerce on the rise, it is especially important for retailers to ensure their customers know about their app, download and use it to browse and buy products on the go.”

Pro-tip

Combine App Install Ads with Custom Audiences to target existing customers, knowing that they have already made a purchase and will be familiar with your brand.

Offer Ads

Retailers can take advantage of Facebook Offer Ads throughout the year through various promotions, such as mid-season sales, Christmas gift promotions or seasonal holiday offers. Besides the advantage of boosting conversion rates, Offer Ads can help tempt new customers to make their first purchase.

For retailers in particular, it is often necessary to act quickly on upcoming promotions. Whilst a promotional TV Ad could take months to produce, Facebook Offer ads will help you get your offer out there quickly, with immediate impact. Retailers can further support Facebook Offers by reinforcing a promotional message on other digital channels, such as PPC or Display advertising.

“Retailers can further support Facebook offers by reinforcing a promotional message on other digital channels, such as PPC or Display advertising” For travel, Facebook Offers can be used to support seasonal promotions as well as last minute holiday deals. These deals are becoming increasingly important in the travel industry, with holidaymakers often shopping around for the best prices on flights, hotels and package holidays. Travel companies can reflect this consumer behaviour by using Facebook Offers to promote deals to their target audiences, and enhance exposure of the deal through supported ads and sponsored stories. Why not go one step further and combine this with Custom Audience targeting to reach out to your existing customers, give them a special loyalty reward and tempt them to book their holiday with you again?

Travel companies can reflect consumer behaviour by using Facebook Offers to promote deals to their target audience, and enhance exposure of the deal through supported ads and sponsored stories. www.latitudegroup.com | 8

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

Conclusions It’s clear that Facebook offers new opportunities for both branding and direct response marketing. The business has previously struggled to be taken seriously as a marketing platform that delivers measurable ROI. Sure, it’s nice to have likes and comments, but does this translate to more sales and if so, how? Can you justify investing in Facebook during a time when more and more marketing budgets are being squeezed with high, tangible ROI expected?

The new developments see Facebook address this concern and introduce value-led tools and features.

Many in the marketing industry are, in part at least, still sceptical about social media delivering real ROI. Some predictions have suggested that people will get turned off by marketing messages on their social feeds.

Despite the scepticism, a recent report has predicted that half of all sales on the web will arrive via social commerce in 2015. It is a statistic no business can afford to ignore.

The key to a successful social strategy lies in bringing it in-line with the rest of your marketing and PR activities.

Marketers are most likely to get value out of Facebook when investing in it as part of their social commerce strategy and a wider integrated marketing strategy.

Marketers are most likely to get value out of Facebook when investing in it as part of their social commerce strategy and a wider integrated marketing strategy.

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THINK WORKS | DIGITAL INSIGHT: FACEBOOK | FEBRUARY 2013

Contributors LAURA STAFFORD PPC STRATEGIST

RODICA MARIA LAZAR ONLINE MARKETING EXECUTIVE

DUNCAN FISHER OPERATIONS DIRECTOR About

Latitude Digital Marketing has pioneered the use of digital channels in the UK and internationally for 12 years. Areas of expertise include search engine optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), social media marketing, online display advertising, affiliate marketing and conversion analytics. The agency works across a range of sectors including retail, gaming, travel and leisure with clients such as Post Office, bet365, Fitness First, Run2Sport and Haven Holidays.

Latitude is an international agency with native speakers in 20 different languages managing campaigns across the world. We also deliver the thought leadership series “Think Works”, which brings cutting edge knowledge and ideas via reports, seminars and email updates to clients, contacts and the wider industry.

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To talk about your PPC strategy, contact us: E: info@latitudegroup.com T: 08450 212 223 W: www.latitudegroup.com www.latitudegroup.com | 10