Ads on social media are an unavoidable normalcy in this day and age, but what makes a successful retargeting campaign on social media? Is it eye-catching creative? Is it humorous? And how do you measure its success? Clicks? Views? Many of these metrics depend on your specific goals, but some aspects are a must for any social campaign.
I recently found myself researching a Minneapolis startup company called Lasso on Facebook after interacting with them at a local Startup Event. Lasso is an application that encourages groups to go out to restaurants and bars by rewarding the user with food and drink discounts based on how many people they bring to the establishment. Soon after my initial research, I started seeing advertisements for Lasso pop up in my Instagram feed. This is by no means surprising, after all, even our own resident grandpa Tim Decker knows that retargeting is more effective than “Spray and Pray”.
For this blog, I thought I’d use Lasso as an example to illustrate three components that help make a social retargeting campaign work.
On Brand
The language they use is casual and not too salesy, properly relaying the “vibe” of the app and brand. It was also informative enough to give me an idea of how the app works in under 240 characters. Lasso is all about being social, and being rewarded for it. The imagery also contained their branded orange coloring and a screenshot of the application on a mobile device, making viewers familiar with the business without even realizing it. The ad connected the concept of what Lasso does with branded colors and tone of voice that subtly makes an impression on the viewer.
In market example.
Demographic Targeting
Lasso is clearly made for social people trying to get a deal. If that doesn’t mean fresh(ish) college grads early in their career, I don’t know what does. My location was also well mapped and ripe for targeting, especially since the Modern Impact office is so close to many of the venues participating with Lasso. It is important to match your targeting with predetermined brand personae, which will not only drive performance, but reduce the cost of media being served to low-value prospects.
Ad Frequency
It’s not always easy getting the right amount of attention between “remember us?” and getting annoying or creepy. Lasso did target me several times over the next few weeks, but did so eloquently – rotating their creatives and messaging. While some ads were “addy” and informative, others were more natural posts that mirrored content already in my Instagram feed, which creates a mock social value for the app.
While these observations are by no means a guide to DIY retargeting, they do point out a few of the intricacies that go into a successful digital retargeting campaign. By keeping your messages on brand, targeting intelligently, and knowing how much is enough, you can start to create programs to create brand awareness, create leads, or educate your prospective customers. Multiply these basic efforts across several social media platforms, each with sophisticated targeting/retargeting/audience-building capabilities and reporting metrics, you can see how the seemingly simple task of posting an ad can cause nightmares. But that’s why we’re here to help.
