Is Social Media Advertising Right for My Company?
On this page we discuss the pros and cons of a paid social media advertising campaign. We'll start by discussing how the customer sales journey works, and how organic and paid content can support that journey. We will then share some criteria that you can use to understand if advertising is right for your company at this point in time.
Understanding the Customer Sales Journey
Has anyone ever walked up to you on the street and tried to sell you something? Have you ever gotten an email from a company that you're not familiar with that wants you to buy something now? How likely are you to buy something or surrender your email to a company that you don't have a prior relationship with based just on that ask?
Many customers make a journey from not being aware of your company, product, problem, or solution, to gathering information needed to make a decision, to making a decision to purchase, donate, or give you their email address.
Some people will be able to make a decision right away; others will take more time to decide. Some will decide somewhere along the way that your product or service isn't the right fit for them at this moment in time.
Marketers often describe this journey as a funnel that looks something like this:
Many customers make a journey from not being aware of your company, product, problem, or solution, to gathering information needed to make a decision, to making a decision to purchase, donate, or give you their email address.
Some people will be able to make a decision right away; others will take more time to decide. Some will decide somewhere along the way that your product or service isn't the right fit for them at this moment in time.
Marketers often describe this journey as a funnel that looks something like this:
How Does Content Support the Customer Sales Journey?
The role of both organic and paid social media content is to help move people down that customer sales journey with content that supports them at every point in the decision-making process.
While this process looks a little different for everyone, we often perceive that people move from not being aware, to gathering the information they need to make a decision, to making a decision.
While this process looks a little different for everyone, we often perceive that people move from not being aware, to gathering the information they need to make a decision, to making a decision.
Step in the Customer Journey |
Type of Content that Supports the Customer |
Awareness (FEEL) |
Content that raises awareness of a problem or solution, content that sparks curiosity, invokes strong feelings |
Gathering Information (THINK) |
Content that informs a customer and helps them make a decision |
Action (DO) |
Clear Call to Action, Promotional Strategy |
How Does a Sequenced Advertising Campaign Support Customers Along this User Journey?
A well-planned sequenced ad campaign can also support the same goal. In a sequenced ad campaign, you deliver several rounds of advertisements to the same customers to support them on their way through their customer journey.
This is an example of what a sequenced campaign focused on sales or lead generation might look like.
This is an example of what a sequenced campaign focused on sales or lead generation might look like.
Step in the Advertising Sequence |
Description |
Pilot |
Short burst campaign at low spend that makes sure the ads work as expected |
Flight One: Awareness of Problem |
Content that builds awareness of problem and solution; inspires, evokes feelings, piques curiosity |
Flight Two: Sales or Conversion |
Strong call to action or promotion intended to drive immediate action with urgency |
Retargeting |
Reminders delivered throughout the campaign to people who have gathered information but not yet made the decision to convert |
A campaign focused on building awareness, might highlight different aspects of the problem or solution over time, to improve recall through repetition, while talking about the topic at hand in fresh ways.
What Are the Benefits of Social Media Advertising?
Some of the benefits of social media advertising, when compared to other types of advertising are that:
1. It's often cost effective to get people into the so-called "top of the funnel" - compared to other types of advertising, it's cheap to build awareness and drive traffic to websites.
2. We have a wide range of targeting options including targeting by mailing list or website visitors, targeting past purchasers, and targeting by demographic characteristics, geographic location, past purchasing behaviors, or interests.
3. It's where people are spending a lot of their time, and we want to meet them where they are at.
4. The content is presented in a "native" format. This is advertising speak that means that the content someone sees in an ad looks a lot like the other types of content they are seeing from family and friends, such as posts in the Facebook newsfeed, or tweets.
5. We have an increased ability to measure the results of our efforts...although this is more complicated than you might think and requires detailed up front planning. We set extra time aside to discuss conversion tracking options with our clients.
1. It's often cost effective to get people into the so-called "top of the funnel" - compared to other types of advertising, it's cheap to build awareness and drive traffic to websites.
2. We have a wide range of targeting options including targeting by mailing list or website visitors, targeting past purchasers, and targeting by demographic characteristics, geographic location, past purchasing behaviors, or interests.
3. It's where people are spending a lot of their time, and we want to meet them where they are at.
4. The content is presented in a "native" format. This is advertising speak that means that the content someone sees in an ad looks a lot like the other types of content they are seeing from family and friends, such as posts in the Facebook newsfeed, or tweets.
5. We have an increased ability to measure the results of our efforts...although this is more complicated than you might think and requires detailed up front planning. We set extra time aside to discuss conversion tracking options with our clients.
Advertising Might Be Appropriate For You If:
- You have a clear objective, such as building awareness, promoting video views, or driving leads or sales
- You want to scale results quickly
- You have clear target audiences
- You understand what the key messages and value proposition statements are that will get your audience to do the thing that you want them to do
- You have a clear promotional strategy that drives people to act now
- You understand that a sequenced (multi-step) advertising campaign is often the best approach to support customer decision making through a full sales cycle
- You have $1000 minimum per month to spend on advertising costs in addition to the fee that you are paying your agency--doing things the right way requires an appropriate investment.
- You're focused on the "top of the funnel" (building awareness and driving web traffic or ticket sales) OR understand that at the bottom of the funnel (lead generation, sales), digital conversion rates can be as low as 1-2%. Advertising is not magic, and you might find that you need to do extra legwork to build awareness and credibility before converting.
- You want a more sophisticated understanding of the messages and images that appeal the most to your customers gained through testing creative variants (combinations of images or videos and messages).
An Organic Social Media Approach Might be Right for You If:
- You aren't in a rush to scale
- You don't have the money to invest in advertising management or an advertising spend
- You want to communicate with customers over a longer period of time
- You want to build awareness and loyalty to lay the groundwork for driving sales
- You're primarily focused on getting people to engage with content
- You have a number of different efforts to talk about
- You're in a pre-launch mode with no specific release date set (there is no urgency to convert)
Social Media Advertising
Our agency works with clients to use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter advertising to help support their goals. We do this through managing advertising campaigns, and also through consulting.
Our agency has successfully used social media advertising to:
Our agency has successfully used social media advertising to:
- Sell tickets to events
- Drive webinar and conference attendance
- Recruit college students
- Launch new brands and campaigns
- Build awareness for public health and policy issues
- Increase website traffic or traffic to a particular landing page
- Build customer awareness ahead of the point of sale
- Drive leads and sales
"Sarah helped us fine tune our ad buying strategy at a critical moment in our company's growth. Her advice was spot-on: precise, actionable, easy to understand and best of all effective. Whether you've just established your Twitter account or you've got hundreds of thousands of Facebook fans, she'll help you identify more ways to get a bigger bang for your buck and drive sales."
